March 2010 April 2010 May 2010 June 2010 July 2010
August 2010
September 2010 October 2010
November 2010
December 2010
January 2011
February 2011 March 2011 April 2011 May 2011 June 2011 July 2011 August 2011 September 2011 October 2011 November 2011 December 2011 January 2012 February 2012 March 2012 April 2012 May 2012 June 2012 July 2012 August 2012 September 2012 October 2012 November 2012 December 2012 January 2013 February 2013 March 2013 April 2013 May 2013 June 2013 July 2013 August 2013 September 2013 October 2013 November 2013 December 2013 January 2014 February 2014 March 2014 April 2014 May 2014 June 2014 July 2014 August 2014 September 2014 October 2014 November 2014 December 2014 January 2015 February 2015 March 2015 April 2015 May 2015 June 2015 July 2015 August 2015 September 2015 October 2015 November 2015 December 2015 January 2016 February 2016 March 2016 April 2016 May 2016 June 2016 July 2016 August 2016 September 2016 October 2016 November 2016 December 2016 January 2017 February 2017 March 2017 April 2017 May 2017 June 2017 July 2017 August 2017 September 2017 October 2017 November 2017 December 2017 January 2018 February 2018 March 2018 April 2018 May 2018 June 2018 July 2018 August 2018 September 2018 October 2018 November 2018 December 2018 January 2019 February 2019 March 2019 April 2019 May 2019 June 2019 July 2019 August 2019 September 2019 October 2019 November 2019 December 2019 January 2020 February 2020 March 2020 April 2020 May 2020 June 2020 July 2020 August 2020 September 2020 October 2020 November 2020 December 2020 January 2021 February 2021 March 2021 April 2021 May 2021 June 2021 July 2021 August 2021 September 2021 October 2021 November 2021 December 2021 January 2022 February 2022 March 2022 April 2022 May 2022 June 2022 July 2022 August 2022 September 2022 October 2022 November 2022 December 2022 January 2023 February 2023 March 2023 April 2023 May 2023 June 2023 July 2023 August 2023 September 2023 October 2023 November 2023 December 2023 January 2024 February 2024 March 2024
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30
31
News Every Day |

Shifting Autocracy: Why And How The Russian Regime Is Turning Into A Tyrannical Dictatorship – Analysis

Shifting Autocracy: Why And How The Russian Regime Is Turning Into A Tyrannical Dictatorship – Analysis

The distinguished economist and philosopher, Nobel laureate Thomas Schelling, author of the concept of nuclear deterrence, has a famous book called “Micromotives and Macrobehavior”. To paraphrase, today’s text could be titled Macro Motives and Micro Behavior.

This text presents a summary of my modeling of some of the macro-fundamental foundations, incentives and factors, economic and otherwise, that condition and mediate the political discourses of power elites in autocratic regimes in the modus operandi of active expansion.

The presented model is superimposed on a concrete and topical example of an expansionist Russian autocracy actively shifting toward dictatorship. An example that we are observing in real time today, observing from within and experiencing all iterations literally on ourselves. 

Let’s call this modern and not alien to us autocracy “the Regime.”

This Regime, or rather the elite power groups that represent it, has until recently distinguished itself by effectively finding a balance in political decisions about its interests and opportunities, the essence of which was obviously its own utility, maximizing cost reduction and maximizing lifespan. 

What was the macro-efficiency and rationality of the Regime’s policies?

First, it was a balanced macroeconomic policy to neutralize inflationary risks and social discontent, while simultaneously ensuring weak economic growth, balanced against the structure of the economy and the goals of the regime elite to maximize their own utility and lifespan.

Second, it is effective propaganda, an information policy that stimulates public opinion in the discourse and volume required by the regime and indoctrinates ideological narratives with a maximum degree of positive social assimilation. At the same time, the restrained repressive activity against oppositional opinion did not create social anxiety. 

Thirdly, it is maximum integration into global processes through the expansion of resource donation, not allowing the world community to isolate the country at one time and on a large scale. This provides a range for tactical maneuvering and preserving the dominant position of the regime elite inside the country for some time.

However, the autocratic institutional structure itself, which protects itself from liberal transformations, carries significant risks that determine a number of inevitable inefficiencies.  

What are the macro inefficiencies of the Regime?

First, it is the very expansion and strengthening of the autocratic institutional structure. As a consequence – the retention of the course of budgetary entrepreneurship, where the population rises on the budget elevator – power, infrastructure or bureaucratic, and the elite is located at maximum proximity to the budget and the Center. However, the hypertrophied dependence of a substantial part of socio-economic agents on the state budget creates the risks of distributional errors and dispersed multiple disequilibria that cannot be leveled by natural market mechanisms.

Second, and as a consequence – low technological development, primitive structure of the economy and sources of GDP generation, low productivity, low rate of economic growth, low level and growth of incomes of the population. Under the conditions of informational and social global integration, the relative stability of the quality of life and incomes in relation to one’s own economy and the relative increasing lag of incomes and quality of life in relation to developed and some developing economies regularly generate internal social tension and weaken support for the Regime. Neutralizing these factors requires regular and appropriate incentives, which is a cost to the Regime elite.

Third, the willful curtailment of economic and civilizational prospects and the voluntary shift to an autarkic aggressive dictatorship through the indoctrination of the “threat to sovereignty and national identity” from an external enemy – the collective West. The consequence is economic degradation, the repressive strengthening of domestic politics and the growth of geopolitical aggressiveness as a natural evolutionary discourse for an authoritarian dictatorship, inevitably leading, however, to the point of collapse.

As a result of the development of an autocratic regime, accompanied by degrading institutions that suppress the growth of human capital and civic passionarity, entrepreneurial activity and innovative creation, there are no significant drivers for economic growth within the country.

The use of fossil resources and first-order products as the main sources of value creation and the deliberate suppression of incentives and factors for the formation of other, more technological and distributed, sources implies the inevitable centralization and uncompetitive use of these rent-based sources. 

They are used by those closest to their control, i.e., the political elite. The political elite are rent-seeking political entrepreneurs who accept the institutional rules of a formed autocratic regime and give mutual commitments not to violate these rules. In return, they gain access to the sources of enrichment – the budget and the possibility of receiving corruption bonuses.

The population, in its turn, gets exactly those opportunities and rights, which correspond to the interests of maximum prolongation of the regime’s life cycle and growth of the well-being of its beneficiaries.

The capitalist frame of the economy of the Regime allows the most efficient and least costly redistribution of goods in horizontal market exchange, with the main economic resource remaining in the hands of the Regime elite. Since the institutional nature of the Regime implies reduced forms of individual initiative and entrepreneurship, and half of the population are budgetary consumers, the sources of goods that are redistributed beyond the control of regime elites, their volume and variety are extremely small. And this means that rising incomes and opportunities will not stimulate excessive needs while maintaining them at the grassroots levels of developed economies’ quality of life.

Thus, the Regime finds an equilibrium state. However, the shift in the sources of value added and economic growth in advanced economies toward technology and innovation implies an increase in human capital and goodwill in general, stimulated by a corresponding ethico-institutional environment. This inevitably presents the Regime with a dilemma, as the equilibrium is upset.

Or it is necessary to close the gap with developed economies and stimulate, above all, the development of other sources of value added and the expansion of horizontal exchange of the greatest number of benefits, including rental income. Such a policy is inevitably associated with a weakening of the political autocracy regime, and thus with the liberalization of institutions, processes and ideological doctrines. But in this case, regime elites – rent-seeking political entrepreneurs – are forced into an environment where access to the budget and corruption premiums are sharply reduced by various factors: from increased political competition through greater access to rent sources to institutional changes like the return of independent courts and the weakening of regulatory powers.

Or regime elites choose (which is the most likely and natural) to strengthen their own positions and prolong access to existing sources of wealth. In this case, amid a widening gap with advanced economies, political elites increase the volume of exploitation and income from rent sources, while tightening the autocratic institutional regime, which sharply reduces individual initiative and restricts civil rights. This means that the environment for the formation of new sources of value added, capable of giving impetus to economic development and growth, is excluded.

At this point, the shift toward an authoritarian dictatorship begins.

To neutralize the threat of social turbulence due to the inevitable deterioration of the quality of life and the simplification of consumption on the background of the primitivization of supply, regime elites increase the concentration and volume of aggressive propaganda. It is aimed at stimulating patriotic hysteria in the paradigm of the “threat to national identity” and the sabotage of “internal enemies” such as “national traitors”. 

The state ideology with unambiguous postulates, one-sided formulations, and linear, no-alternative evaluations is strengthened and acquires the clearest possible contours.

At the same time, all power assets are mobilized and directed towards destroying the sources of any competition with the regime-from individuals to civil associations, from persecution for individual public statements to closing or squeezing all opposition media out of the country.

Along with the intensification of reactionary and repressive measures, the Regime maintains a macroeconomic policy that seeks to buy inflationary risks as much as possible and to neutralize the imbalance between the population’s needs and opportunities. Under such conditions of inevitable primitivization of the economy due to a tightening political climate and individual opportunities, the Regime compensates for the loss of part of the population’s income with increased income from rent sources, expanding social subsidies or providing benefits for participants in horizontal exchange, i.e. private business. Preserving the conditional elasticity of the economy and the adaptability at the grassroots level of private business under conditions of structural simplification is still an effective policy for Regime interests, reducing their costs.

Thus, the Regime eliminates competition and strengthens its position from two sides: through linear mechanical tightening and stimulating propaganda. On the one hand, it repressively tightens restrictive domestic policy and mobilizes power assets in the form of expanding the powers of all security agencies and departments. On the other hand, the consensus of social opinion in support of the Regime is maximized, which rejects any dissent to the point of severing micro-social ties, such as family or friendships.

The regime is shifting into a state of aggressive dictatorship.

Geopolitical aggression is also an absolutely natural and natural, but not necessary, factor in the activity of the regime’s elites in their desire to prolong the term of their uncontested control of rent sources of enrichment and social domination. This factor is logical, because the vector chosen by the regime is in a “reverse spiral,” in which every new step to preserve the status quo today results in a worsening of the situation tomorrow, and this stimulates a new step that will lead to an even greater deterioration the day after that, and so on.

In this sense, foreign military aggression is simply one of the stages of the dictatorship’s backward spiral. It can come in two cases. 

First, when one group of regime elites thus stimulates other groups to support and recognize their exceptionalism under new extreme conditions. 

Second, when the social legitimacy of regime elites weakens, the incentives for maximizing social support lose effectiveness. The main reason for this social cooling is a progressive or trained increase in the costs to the population, such as a significant deterioration in the quality of life due to the inevitable economic degeneration (narrowing of supply and primitivization of consumption) or an intensification of repression. 

In both cases, military aggression is a way for the ruling elite group to maintain the status quo or to stimulate other social agents – other elite groups or the population – to support its dominance as much as possible.

But regardless of any tactical successes, the end point of such a movement is dialectically predetermined. This point is the painful socio-economic collapse and the collapse of the Regime with the equally painful formation of a new social institutional order.

This is the projection for any autocracy facing the choice of closing the economic and technological gap with the developed countries through institutional-political and socio-ethical liberalization or shifting to dictatorship. If the latter option is chosen, there are only two modus operandi: isolated autarky or aggressive autarky. In the first modus, the existence of the Regime can be very long. In the second, the Regime sits on a time bomb.

As we can see, the elites of the Regime have made their choice. Unfortunately – or fortunately.

Певица

Певица Mia Boyka призналась, что в детстве ходила в церковь почти каждый день

The 10 Intense New Action Movies on Netflix That Left Me on the Edge of My Seat!

Top 10 Emmanuelle Seigner Movies

Top 10 Love Affair Movies of the 2000s and 2010s

Top 5 Websites to Watch FREE Movies - TV Shows (No Sign up!)

Ria.city






Read also

The impact of terrorism around the world

Operators engage Google on data privacy

Happy 80th Birthday - Gilbert Kirkwood

News, articles, comments, with a minute-by-minute update, now on Today24.pro

News Every Day

I was diagnosed with cancer aged 39… you are never too rich, too famous or too young, says Dr Philippa Kaye

Today24.pro — latest news 24/7. You can add your news instantly now — here


News Every Day

Top 5 Websites to Watch FREE Movies - TV Shows (No Sign up!)



Sports today


Новости тенниса
Елена Рыбакина

Рыбакина о том, что не играла в Индиан-Уэллс из-за болезни: «К сожалению, восстановление заняло много времени»



Спорт в России и мире
Москва

Победителями Всероссийской олимпиады по физике стали школьники Московского региона



All sports news today





Sports in Russia today

Москва

«Радио Зенит» – информационный партнер форума «Мы вместе. Спорт»


Новости России

Game News

Cyberpunk 2077 станет временно бесплатной для PlayStation и Xbox


Russian.city


Москва

Собянин открыл движение по путепроводу через МЦД-3 и будущий ВСМ


Губернаторы России
Яндекс

Продвижение Песен и Музыки в Плей-листах Яндекс.Музыка.


Заказать недорогой ремонт кухонной мебели в районе в Москве и Московской области

Коридор затмений до 8 апреля: как правильно загадывать желания

Metaratings: "Спартак" может уволить Абаскаля по ходу сезона, клуб ищет тренера

Краснодарский Компрессорный Завод анонсировал участие в Нефтегаз-2024


Александр Галич. "Облака". Поёт Антон Духовской.

А надо было ласково? Тимати после слов о "ребятах"-террористах ответили по-мужски

Рэпер ST признался, что не смог написать песню о трагедии в "Крокусе"

Консультации, Составление Договоров, Присутствие Продюсера при заключении договоров и переговорах. Лекции. Переговоры. Встречи и Обсуждения.


Битые корты: Медведев и Александрова вышли в четвертьфинал Miami Open

Александрова впервые войдет в топ-15 мирового рейтинга

Теннисист Медведев вышел в полуфинал турнира в Майами, обыграв Харри

Виктория Азаренко вышла в полуфинал турнира WTA-1000 в Майами



Архитектурные доминанты округов Москвы

Перенос дат II этапа культурного проекта «Классика: история и современность» в Дмитрове

Шапки женские вязаные на Wildberries, 2024 — новый цвет от 392 руб. (модель 466)

«Радио Зенит» – информационный партнер форума «Мы вместе. Спорт»


Минстрой предложил увеличить стоимость жилья в большинстве регионов России

Я – фартовая! Слушательница ENERGY отправилась в Мексику на выступление Джареда Лето

Федеральный девелопер: ЦФА позволят легко и просто накопить квадратные метры и "обернуть" их в квартиру

Новые цены на жилье утвердили в России


Начинающих предпринимателей из Москвы пригласили пройти бесплатный онлайн-курс

Юрист Феттер: в регионах есть специализированные ОСП по взысканию алиментов

Погибшие в «Крокусе» сёстры пережили теракт в Волгодонске в 1999 году

МВД: в Москве карманница украла телефон у девушки в магазине и попала в полицию



Путин в России и мире






Персональные новости Russian.city
Сергей Лазарев

Похудевший Лазарев не может больше выступать — что известно о состоянии певца



News Every Day

Top 5 Websites to Watch FREE Movies - TV Shows (No Sign up!)




Friends of Today24

Музыкальные новости

Персональные новости