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It's not even an advantage for the powers-that-be if the result is not what was planned. The Chernobyl media blackout brought a blowback in the form of public distrust and outrage from other countries reached by the plume. The famine engineered by Stalin in the Ukraine killed off the farmers who would work the fields to produce grain the next year. In Pinochet's Chile, there were beneficiaries of the initial bubble, but the lack of the expected growth (and expected rise in tax incomes to be spent on pet projects like military equipment) wasn't what the regime dreamt about.  

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Fri Aug 3rd, 2012 at 05:11:28 AM EST
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Yes, possibly. I note though that your examples aren't examples for "hasty decisions with result that wasn't planned". Which countries or who were outraged about the Chernobyl media blackout? Only the usual suspects of anti-nuke-protesters. And was it really a decision that is very much different from that in a liberal democracy such as Japan? The Ukrainian famine: probably not sufficiently explained by "hasty" decisions turning out to have unintended results. Nobody in the ruling oligarchy dared to raise objections. The ruling oligarchy was not capable of a rational decision. And Pinochet's Chile: what was unintended?

Even if there examples of the speed of undemocratic decisions backfiring for the ruling oligarchy, I think it is rather the exception and not the rule.

by Katrin on Fri Aug 3rd, 2012 at 08:50:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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