Mechanism of hidden authoritarianism in Western countries

[Spathi]

As far as I can see, the Western democracy is mostly an illusion; the Western countries are ruled by the financial aristocracy. This works as follows: if a problem arises in society, the financial elite, represented by parliamentarians, passes laws to solve it; but these laws simultaneously serve one more purpose—increasing the wealth and power of the elite. In particular, these laws are always aimed at suppressing small businesses, because small businessmen are less dependent on the power and can overthrow it.
I have a couple of examples, but I apologize for not fact-checking everything thoroughly; I hope someone here can help me with this:
1) I saw an interview on Euronews, where it was said that agricultural subsidies in the European Union always help large agricultural holdings more than small farmers;
2) One blogger wrote about how laws aimed to combat global warming (greenhouse gas emission quotas) in New Zealand similarly benefit large agricultural holdings and lead to the ruin of small farmers.
Please comment my examples and suggest any others.

 

[fresh_42]

It's far more complex and multifaceted than that. Such agitational oversimplifications overlook so many details that it's almost pointless to respond. The notion that the free market economy tends to disadvantage small businesses in favor of large ones can probably already be found in Marx. (Unfortunately, I gave away my copy, so I can't check.) However, to conclude that the Western foundation of the free market economy for its democracies leads to a tendency toward authoritarianism is a bit of an oversimplification. In my view, it's more the individual propensity for despotism that enables figures like Berlusconi, Kaczyński, Erdoğan, Orbán, Meloni, Trump, and also Putin, rather than the administration of their societies. Agricultural policies, for example, would have to be examined individually, especially from historical, economic, and social perspectives, and not least from the perspective of the need to feed the population. Reducing subsidies to authoritarianism is more populist than substantive.

 

[dlu]

It's far more complex and multifaceted than that. Such agitational oversimplifications overlook so many details that it's almost pointless to respond. The notion that the free market economy tends to disadvantage small businesses in favor of large ones can probably already be found in Marx. (Unfortunately, I gave away my copy, so I can't check.) However, to conclude that the Western foundation of the free market economy for its democracies leads to a tendency toward authoritarianism is a bit of an oversimplification. In my view, it's more the individual propensity for despotism that enables figures like Berlusconi, Kaczyński, Erdoğan, Orbán, Meloni, Trump, and also Putin, rather than the administration of their societies. Agricultural policies, for example, would have to be examined individually, especially from historical, economic, and social perspectives, and not least from the perspective of the need to feed the population. Reducing subsidies to authoritarianism is more populist than substantive.

That's heavy thinking.

 

[dlu]

As far as I can see, the Western democracy is mostly an illusion

Not just Western democracy, but any form of government for any nation, or any institutional organization.

Take Iran at the moment. The governing body, composed of elites, does not want to relinquish top positions. The illusion is that the status quo must live on through the abstract idea of the nation as is, come hell or high water, even if something better for the inhabitants clinging to the notion could, or would, be available.
Abstract ideas are concepts, feelings, and qualities such as love, democracy, and freedom. They are not physical objects, and you can easily identify an abstract idea by asking yourself if you can touch it (as a physical material) or feel it in your heart.
Elites, as you call them, feel that being the top class, gives them benefits, and they may take advantage of having those benefits.
Unfortunately, some systems devolve into 'scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' to the point of becoming dysfunctional for a lot of citizens of the nation, if the leaders pursue personal agendas rather than nation building.

 

[Grinkle]

The illusion is that the status quo must live on through the abstract idea of the nation as is, come hell or high water, even if something better for the inhabitants clinging to the notion could, or would, be available.

"Something better .... be available" can also be an illusion, though, right? MAGA, for example, thinks something better is around the corner - as evidenced by the words behind the acronym MAGA.

Are you saying that subscribing to abstract concepts is what freezes society in place to its own detriment?

How can we compare Obama's America with Trump's America in a way that would make sense to elites and commoners alike without appealing to abstract ideas, or should that even be an effort undertaken?

 

[Spathi]

How can we compare Obama's America with Trump's America in a way that would make sense to elites and commoners alike without appealing to abstract ideas, or should that even be an effort undertaken?

I hope I will be able to answer your question as follows. A common situation is when candidate A promises something ugly regarding question 1, but something good regarding question 2. Candidate B promises something good regarding question 1, but something ugly regarding question 2. So the voters do not have choice.

For example, some candidates promise to supress gays, while others promise to supress homophobes; and when these candidates change each other, nothing changes, because both parties are rather spoilers serving the financial elite. This is clealy seen in case of USA and Poland.

 

[Grinkle]

@Spathi I am hoping we can come up with some specific objective (or non-abstract) assessments - for example, GDP per capita and the GINI index. (Discussed in this thread https://civicswatch.com/threads/wealth-disparity-causes-and-cures.130/ )

 

[fresh_42]

I hope I will be able to answer your question as follows ...

I think you should reconsider studying those subjects in more detail. Your post reads as - again - the old narrative of primarily antisemitic people about the financial elite. What should that be? The problem that arises from using capital to generate value rather than the comparably expensive workforce was already addressed by Marx more than a century ago. I don't want to speak about the lack of alternatives and the failed attempts to establish some. But the timestamps of Marx, the October Revolution, and the end of the Cold War alone demonstrate that thick books have to be studied before repeating populist and oversimplified theses. One of the first major applications of capital dates even long ahead of Marx, the insurance of trade goods against medieval robbery. You see, there are no short answers to your populism.

Also, the word suppression in connection with homophily or homophobia is uncalled for. The subject is tolerance and scientific evidence, not suppression. Do we allow people to live as they wish if it doesn't affect anyone else, or do we insist on old and scientifically questionable prejudices and demand obedience to them? So, using the word suppression is already an assessment, although it certainly comes to mind when we think about the arabic world, or Russia, less so the USA or Poland.

 

[dlu]

Are you saying that subscribing to abstract concepts is what freezes society in place to its own detriment?

Not at all. I think a better description would be a a metaphor to a fluid with viscosity.
Social viscosity if you will.

Generationally, societies evolve to something better or something worse as new members are introduced into society ( births ) and others are removed ( deaths ) - better or worse being a subjective interpretation of where one falls within the existing structure, but not limiting the memories of the past or hopes of the future.
MAGA attempts to promote a wisdom that the USA was on the wrong course and must return to its roots to be and continue to be successful. Not everyone within the USA is of that opinion ( 50/50 split in the national election ) and would prefer something different.

Yet, both 'groups' do say, withstanding disagreements, that they love their country and are proud to be a citizen ( speaking generally, as outliers do exist ). The view of the USA, the nation, cannot be taken away from anyone no matter which direction it follows.

Some research and ideas on people getting together.

Frontiers | Social dynamics and stability of human society

Sociophysics involves the use of physical models to describe human society. This makes it possible to simplify the construction of social models and use conc...

www.frontiersin.org

 

[Grinkle]

The view of the USA, the nation, cannot be taken away from anyone no matter which direction it follows.

IMO this is relatively less true than it was a year ago, or else I am not understanding what you mean by the view of the USA.

What follows is TMI around my own angst, but I do end with a specific question so I hope you can plow through it.

I personally used to believe that US institutions like the FBI, the Justice Department and the IRS (just off the top of my head) were staffed by folks who in general acted according to the stated principles of their institutions as opposed to their own self-interests. I no longer believe that, and I feel, to use your words, like my nation has been taken away because of the direction it has chosen to follow. It no longer feels like my nation. Of course it is a fact that I remain and will for my lifetime remain a US citizen, but the meaning of that is, at least as I write this, mostly administrative. Where there used to be a sense of belonging there is now mostly a void.

I saw MAGA folks from 2020 to 2024 wearing t-shirts or with bumper stickers indicating what I interpret as similar sentiments - I don't think I'm an outlier in these feelings, although I do allow myself the vanity of predicting that just winning the next election, should that happen, won't change them.

I know I didn't feel this way just after Trump took office in 2025 - it wasn't an election loss that has me in this mind-set, it is what has happened since and continues to happen. I also don't think my own feelings are any kind of tragedy - they are, in my estimation, a rational response to as objective an assessment as I can make about US governance and what is says about the US population in general. I am absolutely not asking to be consoled or talked out of this perspective.

I articulated all of that to be able to ask you this -

In your view, am I being melodramatic and taking for granted a more fundamental view of the Nation that I am not considering and still have? I'm not asking you look inside my head, of course, but I would like to know if what I describe is what you mean or not.

Some research and ideas on people getting together.

Thank you for this - it looks very interesting; fluid mechanics applied to sociology! I'll read it.

 

[Grinkle]

@dlu Interesting paper. I have managed a broad understanding of the author's analogy - to really digest the analogy at the detailed level would require me to refresh myself on heat transfer / fluid mechanics equations that I have not contemplated in decades, so I will satisfy myself with diving into equation 21c (the ideal gas equation) and that specific analogy and be content to leave the rest more vague in my mind.

I am drawn to many of his assertions, at the same time I am skeptical about the overall approach and whether it would really lead to accurate short term predictions if the daunting initial conditions problem could be resolved. I'll give some detail to my takeaways below so you can correct me if you think I mis-read anything, or if you just want to discuss further.

Drawn to -

1. Wealth is analogous to gravity - without wealth disparity, there is no reason for people to interact with each other and they tend to disperse.

2. The more like-minded people there are in a society, the greater the competition for what it is those people want.

3. The more wealth there is at a particular strata of society, the less idealistic the people at that strata tend to be

I am skeptical of the overall approach. The author begins with the obviously correct assertion that if we use a well established and well understood mathematical model, we don't have to create one. So the task is to map what we observe about human society to the most basic elements of the model, and then see what that implies as we let the math take its well understood course. My skepticism arises because as the math becomes more complex, the task of mapping social phenomena onto the equations remains one of retrofitting to suit the maths; the math itself provides a framework for hanging sociological terms up for discussion, but its not the same as deriving the equations from first principles of fluid mechanics and heat transfer. Still, the analogy is not at all ludicrous, and the paper made me think of at least those three things I noted above in a light I had not previously considered.

What his paper says about what I expressed in my post is that how long it takes me to become disillusioned is dependent on the temperature of the disturbance and the resistance I encounter in changing my views. This all makes intuitive sense and it was interesting and fun to see some maths put around it, even if I only followed the maths superficially by that point in the paper.

Thanks very much for the link.

 

[dlu]

I am skeptical of the overall approach.

No doubt,, as you outlined in the same in the same paragraph.
And as the author himself states "This work is primarily a theoretical study, not aimed at immediate practical application." You should not have to go too deep into it; still, the general idea is interesting.
It was meant as an illustration of the contemplations the sociophysics community come up with in an attempt to explain human societies. A perusal of the references list for the study might give a better synopsis of the field.

Game theory is one of the better known mathematical models that can analyze and predict behavior.
The author attempts a more holistic model.

 

[Rive]

Some research and ideas on people getting together.

I can see that the 'Financephalograph' never truly died

These philosophical attempts to explain our complex matters are important, as every generation again and again re-defines the frame we reflect on ourselves and so creates new understanding and new directions, but it's worth to keep in mind that these are bound to remain at the level of philosophy (even if enforcement of some math is attempted).

 

[Spathi]

I think you should reconsider studying those subjects in more detail.

Soirry, I can't provide you more details. My views are based on the fact that I am not a specialist in some narrow field, but rather I am an "universal nerd" having knowledge in such sciences as history, physics, biology, ethology, economy, and also e.g. the eastern philosophy. Previously I had created a thread on physicsforums about universal nerds, it is very sad that I am still banned there (
I want to say that I have many arguments in favor of my point of view, but I will have to spend a lot of time for explaining these arguments here, and these arguments are in fields of many sciences and "pseudosciences" which are far from you.
But one more example of what I say is the prohibition of abortins in USA and Poland. Do I understand correctly, that everybody understands in the USA that the people would surely allow abortions if a referendum is performed, but the governors of states like Texas explicitly declare that they "do not need referendums"?

 

[Grinkle]

Do I understand correctly, that everybody understands in the USA that the people would surely allow abortions if a referendum is performed, but the governors of states like Texas explicitly declare that they "do not need referendums"?

Polling data suggests (and I myself do believe) that this is conceptually correct. The devil is in the details, and the specifics of when a fetus is viable becomes a point of endless debate, but I personally think the now-overturned SCOTUS structure that abortion cannot be regulated in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy would pass the vast majority of states, maybe even all states, if brought to a general vote.

US states elect representatives by district, the same way they elect congresspeople. Conservatives took a very well organized approach to winning state and local level elections almost a generation ago now. Here is one article I found describing what we call 'gerrymandering' after the person named Gerry, I think, who was credited, falsely I think, with pioneering the concept in the 1800's (again, I think, I didn't fact check that part).

How did we get all this gerrymandering? A short history of the Republican redistricting scheme

A plan to redistrict states to benefit Republicans was conceived of 15 years ago. It’s been an enormous success

www.theguardian.com

Many states, like Texas, have districts drawn such that more districts will be R than D (and to be fair in Texas that is not a difficult thing to do, one would expect that result anyway, just not so lopsided).

In addition, in the US we have what is called a primary election before the general election where R's pick their candidate and D's pick their candidate for the general. These primary elections have very low turnout and the most extreme voters are the ones who turn out. So the candidates in the general election tend to be the most extreme candidates. This is completely the fault of the American voter who can't be bothered to show up for the primary, both R and D. Its like a gift the apathetic voter gives to the whack jobs who run simple-minded emotion stirring information free campaigns in the primary. This ends up putting pro-life R's in the general election, even though there are plenty of pro-choice R's, they struggle to win a primary if they stay true to this conviction on their campaign.

Here is an example of what a primary campaign ad looks like in the US. Its funny to me because its MAGA eating itself in Texas. Chip Roy was a member of the Freedom Caucus, he helped oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker, he supported Trump except when he was even more right wing than Trump (on fiscal policy) and he is definitely MAGA. Still, this is the insipid ad against him. Its worth a watch for the chuckle - you might think its satire, I assure you its a serious minded ad intended to sway voters.



Anyway, Gerrymandering and the primary election system where lazy voters filter out reasonable centrist candidates by just not showing up to vote result in things like abortion referendums not passing state legislatures.

 

[Grinkle]

I can see that the 'Financephalograph' never truly died

I Googled the reference - I find it amazing, hilarious, thought provoking, impressive and really interesting. Here is a link for others who don't know that bit of history.

Phillips Machine - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[fresh_42]

But one more example of what I say is the prohibition of abortins in USA and Poland. Do I understand correctly, that everybody understands in the USA that the people would surely allow abortions if a referendum is performed, but the governors of states like Texas explicitly declare that they "do not need referendums"?

This example once more shows how you try to find short answers to complex questions. Do you want to discuss the value of referendums, or the concept of a federal state? Both allow many remarks.

Referendums are easy to manipulate by populism, see Brexit. This does not mean they reflect the will of the population. They only reflect a general mood at a certain point in time. How often do you want to repeat the same referendum? Yearly, monthly, or even weekly? The regular opinion polls show that public opinion is highly volatile.

The concept of federalism implies that political power is distributed among several levels instead of a single central power. Whether it is used to organize a country depends mainly on historical developments and experiences. Of course, it can mean that things are dealt with differently from state to state. It is also a question of how far federal structures are dependent on the central legislation, i.e., of how independent the single states are. This again has mainly historical reasons. It means that things are managed differently, e.g., in France versus in Germany, and again differently in the US. It also means that it requires different discussions depending on which system is in place. They are to a large extent incomparable. So do you want to discuss federalism in general, or a specific manifestation?

Abortion is, as far as I know and observed, discussed in every society that allows such debates. It is not surprising that the majority opinion varies in time and location. Too many different aspects come into play: religion, tradition, history, and weighing up different values such as personal freedom versus the country's interest in a growing population or its opposite, as in the case of China's one-child policy, all of which may change in time, even for a single location. Combined with federalism, it's even more complicated.

A statement like

... Do I understand correctly, that everybody understands in the USA that the people would surely allow abortions ...

is therefore highly questionable, so the answer has to be: No, you don't. Apart from the problems I already mentioned (federalism versus centralism, dependence of opinions on time and location, informative value of referendums), the term everybody in the USA is already inadmissible. I have never seen a statement about a group, tailored whichever way, that was true for every member of such a group except for the definition itself. Mixing all these aspects and concluding a single, general statement is pointless. This is why I call this populism, realizing that it disqualifies the question.

 

[Spathi]

This example once more shows how you try to find short answers to complex questions.

Yes, because most questions indeed have short answers. Everything becomes simple if you look at things "from above" (having broad outlook).

The real rulers of the USA and the Western world in general (financial elite) do not allow smart and honest people to start a serious political career, because a smart politician can become a threat/competitor for these rulers. So only bad candidates can participate in elections, and so the voters do not have a good choice.

I have two questions relating last US presidential elections:

1) Am I right that the US mass media like CNN and Fox News supported Disantis instead of Trump, stating that Disantis is “a young and smart Trump”, “let it be the Trumpism without Trump”, “the approval rating of Disantis is increasing while the rating of Trump is decreasing”?

2) I saw the presidential debates between the candidates; Haley said there that Putin is a murderer. Disantis always said that he plans to stop supporting Ukraine. Logically this means that Haley must had hated Disantis, but instead they rather were “friends against Trump”. Am I right?

 

[Grinkle]

I have two questions relating last US presidential elections:

Your first question is not addressable without references. It does not match my own anecdotal recollection, I can at least say that much.

Regarding your second question, your assertion that Haley must hate Desantis is bizarre to me - I doubt you'll find any reference to support that. I don't find the inference at all logical, myself.

Everything becomes simple if you look at things "from above"

You are being told you lack an understanding of what you are trying to talk about. Its your choice, of course, whether to become better educated on the topics you open threads around, but I don't expect you'll get much in the way of productive discussion with a mindset of 'I don't need to know more' which is how I interpret your response.

 

[fresh_42]

Yes, because most questions indeed have short answers. Everything becomes simple if you look at things "from above" (having broad outlook).

This is wrong. You cannot come to valid conclusions if you strip away different perspectives. Almost everything has to be considered manifoldly, be it historically, traditionally, scientifically, statistically, and last but not least, with respect to clearly defined goals. This is the difference between reasoning and populism, and it is why referendums don't really work if the benefit to a society is the accepted goal. They work for populists like Goebbels or Nigel Farage, who, as I heard, made a lot of money from the Brexit vote. It is also the credo of conspiracy theorists.

Sorry, but you sound like both a populist and a conspiracy theorist. What should that be, the financial elite? Also, the adjectives you use, smart, honest, or serious, are not measurable and depend on the scales you measure them against. Such indefinite descriptions open the doors to speculation, false assumptions, false conclusions, oversimplifications, and what else belongs to the repertoire of those people.

 

[fresh_42]

An example: Knowledge of how and by whom the USA was settled, gained its independence, experienced its Civil War, and embraced (or not) its pioneers like Parks, King, or Little is essential for understanding its current structures and mechanisms. This didn't always lead to democratic structures or humanistic principles, even if US-Americans like to see themselves that way. The American self-image is a topic in itself. One also mustn't forget how rapidly developments have progressed since the 1960s. The period between the Wild West and the internet is quite short, and one shouldn't underestimate a state's resistance to change. How else can one explain the adherence to laws designed for muzzle-loading rifles and not for modern machine guns? Ignoring all these facts means using inappropriate yardsticks. A thousand years of mutual warfare in Europe simply created different structures than 400 years of settlement history, not to mention the other thinkers and philosophers.

 

[Spathi]

I think you should reconsider studying those subjects in more detail. Your post reads as - again - the old narrative of primarily antisemitic people about the financial elite. What should that be?

Many people I’ve met have concluded that it is getting harder to “make it” in America. When I was a kid in the 1970’s our neighbor worked as a butcher at a chain grocery store and was able to own a nice house, support his wife and two kids, and live a comfortable life, purely on the basis of wages he received. This was typical in my neighborhood; regular working people without advanced degrees could live well in America. Now, people who work 40 hours/week at a grocery store have no chance of buying a house on their own, and can barely afford rent. What happened?

The top right pie chart in Figure 3 shows the USA in 2014. We see how the middle class has shrunk and the top 1% have increased their share due to current economic policies (mainly low taxes on the wealthy).

Since the wealthiest 1% own and control most large corporations, we see that “business friendly” really means policies that help the 1% at the expense of the middle class. Also, since almost all mass media are owned and controlled by the 1%, we almost never see meaningful discussion of these ideas in the mainstream press. So-called liberal media such as the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, NBC in fact almost always ridicule these ideas as impractical, socialist or even communism, even though they were part of main stream American economic policy from the 1940s through the 1970s, and are a big part of what made America great after WWII. The supposedly liberal media are owned and controlled, of course, by large corporations and the extremely wealthy, so it is not surprising that, like all privately owned entities, they serve the needs of their owners. In my opinion the US mainstream media do a “good cop/bad cop” routine on the American public, with Fox and AM radio playing the bad cop and the “liberal media” playing the good cop, but both conspiring to not let these ideas out. As proof of this, note that in 2016, when Bernie Sanders started outlining some of these ideas, ALL the “liberal” main stream media ignored the ideas, instead focusing on personalities, etc. Fox and the right wing media did focus on the ideas, but only to distort and lie about them, knowing their audience was not very demanding of factual information.

So these 1% welthiest are the "nobles", while maybe the FED bankers are "monarchs".

 

[Spathi]

As far as I can see, Europe (in comparison to the USA) is close to USSR: it has more equality, but less freedom.
There is often some correlation between the authoritarianism and the equality: for example, in China there is a large middle class now. Maybe the explanation is that since China is a hightly authoritarian country, its rulers are not afraid of the middle class (while in the Western world the middle class could overthrow the ruling elites, because it has more civil rights).

 

[fresh_42]

As far as I can see, Europe (in comparison to the USA) is close to USSR: it has more equality, but less freedom.

This is nonsense.

List of freedom indices - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Spathi]

This is nonsense.

Merz is right to reject Germany’s nuclear phase-out, IEA chief says

Germany should build as many nuclear plants as possible, Fatih Birol proclaims.

www.politico.eu

Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s admission that Germany’s nuclear phase-out was a “serious strategic mistake” has won an emphatic endorsement from Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency.

For me, this was not mistake but rather a crime: the closure of atomic stations has lead to an increase of oil consumption and buying the oil in Germany, and in fact this means that Germany is now funding the Putin's war in Ukraine (exchange with Saudi Arabia). And it is very possible that the decision to close the stations was payed by the Putin's lobby (as an example, Gerhard Schröder has been working in Russia for a long time).

Two thirds of Germans against shutting down last nuclear power plants at this point – survey | Clean Energy Wire

www.cleanenergywire.org

Two thirds of Germans against shutting down last nuclear power plants at this point – survey

 

[fresh_42]

Merz is right to reject Germany’s nuclear phase-out, IEA chief says

Germany should build as many nuclear plants as possible, Fatih Birol proclaims.

www.politico.eu

For me, this was not mistake but rather a crime: the closure of atomic stations has lead to an increase of oil consumption and buying the oil in Germany, and in fact this means that Germany is now funding the Putin's war in Ukraine (exchange with Saudi Arabia). And it is very possible that the decision to close the stations was payed by the Putin's lobby (as an example, Gerhard Schröder has been working in Russia for a long time).

Two thirds of Germans against shutting down last nuclear power plants at this point – survey | Clean Energy Wire

www.cleanenergywire.org

What does a decision of whether to run nuclear power plants have to do with freedom?

It is not as simple as you describe it here.

• You cannot switch nuclear power plants on and off like a radio.
• There is still no plan for what to do with the nuclear waste.
• The decision to phase out nuclear fission has been made under the fresh impression of Fukushima.
• The decision to phase out nuclear fission has been made by Merz's party.
• Referendums are not a robust fact. We already discussed their weaknesses.
• Calling a political, democratic decision, supported by the majority of the population at the time, a crime is ridiculous.
• So is your claim that Putin had something to do with it. It was Merkel, not Schröder, who forced this decision. Putin provable did not like Merkel at all.
• Germany does not have noteworthy resources of Uranium. Thus, you take one dependence to argue against another dependence. This doesn't make sense and is deliberately exchangeable.
• The discussion about nuclear energy in Germany is currently pure populism. The industry does not work this way, mainly because of the first point.
• In fact, it is the USA that takes a huge advantage of the German energy decision by selling LNG.

 

[Spathi]

What does a decision of whether to run nuclear power plants have to do with freedom?

Ukraine is fighting for freedom (maybe even for all humanity), and supporting the Putin's war is really a crime.
And if the goverment of Germany conscieously ignores the will of Germans, this is evidently not the freedom.
One more note: before 2022, Europe bought the oil from Russia, and China from Saudi Arabia. After 2022 this reversed - Europe is buying the oil from SA, China from Russia. If Gemany bought less oil from SA, SA would sell its oil to China, so the China would stop buying the oil from Putin and this would stop the Putin's war.

 

[fresh_42]

You always come back to referendums. An opinion poll and

the will of Germans

are not necessarily the same, and even less the best for the country. I already linked to Goebbel's famous speech in Nürnberg, which proved how dangerous and ultimately wrong the opinion of the masses can be. Been there, had this.

Hungary buys Russian oil and gas, Germany buys American fracking LNG - big difference! It's a dilemma, since we certainly do not want to support the American oil and gas industry. And

the will of Germans

is definitely avoiding fracking wherever and whenever possible. You see, even the masses have difficulties knowing what the masses want. Another argument against referendums.

Slowly but surely, I'm convinced you aren't interested in a discussion based on facts. You take a big pot, throw in whatever comes to mind, and call it lack of freedom, hoping that this is a diverting provocation. That's not what freedom means, and it is not how a representative democracy works. What you repeatedly and implicitly assume is a direct democracy. I don't know whether such a system is currently in place anywhere on this planet. Even Switzerland doesn't have one. Such a system may have worked for ancient Athens, and only if you ignore slavery and women, but it will not work for populations above, say, 100,000.

 

[Spathi]

are not necessarily the same, and even less the best for the country.

Ok, I have more arguments:

Anti-nuclear movement in Switzerland - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

On 27 November 2016, a referendum by the Green Party was held that would have limited the lifespan of Switzerland's nuclear plants to 45 years, and in doing so, would close the three oldest reactors in 2017: Beznau 1, Beznau 2, and Muehleberg.[7] The referendum failed, with 54.2% of voters rejecting it.[8]

 

[fresh_42]

Again: If you want to discuss the validity of referendums, which is a complicated and non-trivial subject, then please do not hide it behind slogans like "hidden authoritarianism".

Referendums must at least be assessed under the following criteria, probably more:

• wording
• frequency
• goals
• representation
• participation
• dependencies
• manipulation
• information
• reach
• consequences

All these aspects have to be considered, especially if you draw conclusions based only on the result of single examples.

Taking examples and using them to claim "Mechanism of hidden authoritarianism in Western countries" is ridiculous. No political system is without shortcomings, or to put it with Sir Charles Popper: "Democracy is bad, but it is the best system that we have.", or similar. E.g., "One Man - One Vote" does not hold for the USA with its electoral college, but - again according to Sir Charles -

I personally call the type of government which can be removed without violence 'democracy,' and the other, 'tyranny.'

the USA is still a democracy, although its current administration dreams otherwise. Can you say the same thing about, e.g., Russia?

Germany's experiences with referendums are horrible. cp. Goebbels, 1943 at 1:15. It shows how the masses can be manipulated to demand something that is clearly to their disadvantage, and even life-threatening!

There are a few countries that currently have regimes that seek more authoritarianism: Turkey, Hungary, Italy, USA, maybe Israel, and a few other countries that were formerly behind the Iron Curtain. Even France and Germany have to struggle with right-wing nationalism. It seems that this kind of populism is the universal answer to people's fears about globalization and migration. But the conclusion that you should draw is more education and elucidation for the population, not more manipulative opinion polls disguised as people's wishes.