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This lesson will develop what mathematicians call a “Corollary”, which is nothing more than a fancy word for consequence. In our case we will develop a Corollary for The Three Laws of Political System Change: a Political System Lifecycle.

The third law reads:

3b – There must be a complete and total disillusionment with the current Political System

The reasons behind this law are simple. When economic conditions begin to deteriorate, people keep hope towards the existing Political System. They prefer to do this and not to face change, which is an unknown. They do so even recognizing that the current system has slim to no chances of fixing the economic problems.

This leads us to an interesting question: When do the masses become disillusioned with a Political System?

The basic answer is, of course, quite simple: when the system fails systematically and continuously to solve major problems and has simultaneously failed to re-invent itself.

People become finally disillusioned with Political Systems when they realize that the system has no answers and it has become irrevocably stuck in its ways.

This tells us that all Political Systems follow a cycle:

a)    They are born out (created) of economic necessity

b)    They are adopted because of large economic needs

c)    They are discarded when they consistently fail to meet those needs

 

This is a Political System LifeCycle.

- Interesting, but what practical application does it have?

- It is invaluable in forecasting Political System change.

- Can the lifecycle forecast such a change by itself?

- No.

- For that, we need to add one more condition to the lifecycle.

- The condition is a transitional characteristic.

- What do we mean by “transitional characteristic”?

We mean that a Political System will only be replaced by another one that:

  • promises to generate better economic conditions AND
  • it is somewhat related to the existing Political System.

In history, a Political System transitions into a different Political System. However, both are always somehow related. There is almost never a transition from one to another, which is completely different from the first.

There are very few examples of Political System change where an existing system was replaced by a radically different one.

We need to be clear here. We are not saying that both Political Systems must be formally different, what we are saying is that both systems must be perceived as to be somewhat related.

The historical evolution of Political Systems is:

  1. No System
  2. Minimum Leadership
  3. Totalitarian Leadership
  4. Absolute Monarchy
  5. Limited or Parliamentary Monarchy
  6. Communism / Socialism and Democracy
  7. Austro-Libertarian (forecasted)

When a Political System changes we would expect it to follow this evolution. Although it is the most likely path, history is full of examples where this did not happen. Is then our Corollary incorrect? No.

We are talking about the popular perception of Political Systems. For example, we have seen quite a few military coups in Latin America. This is an example of a Democracy reverting to a Totalitarian Leadership (Dictatorship) or is it? Formally, it is. However, if we take a closer look at the perception that people had of the pre-existing Democracy, we will notice that in people’s minds the Democracy has ceased to act as Democracy and was behaving more and more as a Totalitarian Leadership.

Think democratically elected Allende in Chile, where communists had an iron grip on people (in addition to having decimated the economy). From the people’s perspective Allende was a Totalitarian Leader. Allende was replaced by a Junta of Generals, which was finally replaced by General Augusto Pinochet. As you can see, in people’s eyes one Totalitarian Leader was replaced by another.

Then, there is a question of interventions. Does this process hold even when other countries intervene in order to induce a Political System change? Our answer would be yes. The bottom line is that a Political System cannot change without the explicit or implicit support of the masses. An intervention from a foreign power may act as a catalyst, accelerating the change, but it cannot produce it nor stabilize it if the masses are against it. History is littered with failed coups, aborted Political System changes and would-be dictators. They all failed because of a single reason: the masses did not support them.

Returning to our original train of thought, why would we be interested in the Political System Lifecycle and its transitional nature? Because it provides a powerful explanation and forecast capability about what’s coming next.

We have seen that an inevitable consequence of the Political System Lifecycle and its transitional nature dictates that it is unlikely that a Political System will be replaced by a radically different one.  An Absolute Monarchy will typically be replaced by a Limited or Parliamentary Monarchy, not by a full-fledged Democracy.  Countries typically do not jump stages. They all follow the path of the historical evolution of Political Systems.

This is the reason some countries seem to be behind others when it comes to evolved Political Systems. They have not yet been thoroughly disappointed by their current Political System. Take for example Russia/USSR. In a nutshell, Russia was a Monarchy with a strong and absolutist rulers for over thousand years. It became somewhat of an oligarchy with a tiny veiled public representation towards the 1900’s. When the communists took over from this system, they replaced one oligarchy with another. When communism collapsed in 1990’s a pseudo-democratic Political System took over which quickly made very obvious its true oligarchical colors. The fact is that Russia is not yet ready for a full-fledged democratic Political System. Its masses are not yet ready.

It is because of this phenomenon that we forecast that a transition to an Austro-Libertarian process will be… well… transitional. We won’t have the sudden appearance of Austro-Libertarian countries or regions. What we will see is a migration from failed Democracies into formal Democracies that operate quite closely as Austro-Libertarian Political Systems.

In addition, this will not be a World-Wide simultaneous phenomenon. As countries mature from Democratic Political Systems they will turn to Austro-Libertarian-like systems. However, many countries will not transition. They will transition first into full-fledged Democracies. They will be at the tail end of the Austro-Libertarian Political System change.

This is important because it paints a clear picture (albeit a big picture) of the changes ahead. Anybody expecting so see an Austro-Libertarian revolution soon will be bitterly disappointed.

Note: please see the Glossary if you are unfamiliar with certain words.

 

 

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