Friday 15 January 2010

Evil shortage

Bryan Caplan argues that the Soviet Union fell because of a shortage of evil. In his blog posting Evil Shortage: Why the Evil Empire Fell Caplan writes,
So why did the USSR fall? Because a new generation of half-hearted Communists like Gorbachev were allowed to take the reins - and they just weren't evil enough to retain power. If Stalin had been in Gorby's shoes, he would have reinforced the foundations of totalitarianism by murdering a few million people - beginning with active dissidents and gradually expanding to anyone who'd ever visited the West. And like Kim Jong Il, he would still be in power today. Gorbachev's generation of leaders were far from saints, but as tyrants go, they were wimps.
Of course it could have been that the economy had turned to crap and just couldn't keep on working.

4 comments:

Eric Crampton said...

North Korea's economy turned to crap and just couldn't keep on working too though...

Paul Walker said...

And recent events suggest that evil there isn't what it once was.

MacDoctor said...

Of course it could have been that the economy had turned to crap and just couldn't keep on working

As true dictator doesn't give a stuff about the economy. Just ask Robert Mugabe...

Paul Walker said...

MacDoctor

As in the case of North Korea the state of the economy forced even nut bar Mugabe to back off to a degree.