is government a euphemism for gang?

Right. Except you got it backward -- gangs are patterened on the same idea as most governments. Some gangs even have democratically chosen leaders and written "constitutions." But the idea of governments came first. Gangs are just government wannabes.

One important difference is that governments tend to be monopolies. Monopolists tend to be lazy and sedentary. Assuming that you don't like gangs, that's an improvement over a world in which the gangster industry is thriving and competitive.

After watching the satellite tv show called "gangland" the other night, I see alot of similarities.

I can't believe i'm answering a question so stupid, but allow me to point out another distinction. Governments don't apply associational coercion. If i am seen running a red light, but the police fail to stop me, they're not going to come by the house and throw my sister in the can. If i am accused of assault and become a fugitive, the government is not going to drive by at 1:00 a.m. and spray the neighborhood with bullets from an automatic weapon.

Jeeze, Ogionik, you come up with some of the dumbest, ill-considered ****.

Only because you got lucky with the government you live under. Chechenyans, Sudanesians, Congonesians, and many former dissidents in the former East Block would tell you a different story. I agree that governments in America are much more beneficial than your average protection racket. But that's not by virtue of their being governments. Rather it's because they protect people's natural rights and derive their powers from the consent of the governed, as the Declaration of Independence puts it so eloquently.

If my local branch of the mob protected the lives, liberty, and property of those it extorts protection money from, if it gave us a jury trial before putting concrete boots on us and throwing us in the next river, if it gave us the right to hold and bear arms, and use them against the mob if we found it oppressive, if it gave us the right to peaceably assemble and petition the capo for redress of our grievances, and if it gave us a vote in electing the capo -- then there would be little moral difference between the mob and city hall.

Okay, I do recognize I'm sounding like John Cleese now.

Actually, i was coming back to revise my statement as it was, Thomas, so i feel free to ignore what you've posted.

First, Ogionik, please accept my apology for the harsh tone of what i wrote concerning this question, and the things you post in general. That was entirely unwarranted, and i can make and attempt to make no excuse for it.

There is such a thing as a kleptocracy--that basically means rule by thieves. Whether this is done by domestic thieves or invaders, the point of describing a system as rule by thieves is that the intent has nothing to do with the welfare of the inhabitants, but rather it had to do with enriching those in power. Sometimes, the "enrichment" could be in the form of personal power. So, for example, Stalin could only eat so much caviar, and accumulating personal wealth--given that he already enjoyed all the luxury available--was less important than taking all the reins of power into his hands that he was capable of manipulating.

So, a question of legitimacy arises. One can make all the pretty speeches one cares to about the consent of the governed, but that is not necessarily the legitimacy which has been claimed throughout time. Most of the European monarchies, for example, were initially founded upon conquest. It's a "might makes right" justification, and initially, it was probably reasonable to consider such systems to be kleptocracies. However, eventually, the conquered and the conquerors would come to identify sufficiently with one another that, for whatever resentments lay between them, their resentment of the outsider was greater. A good example of this would be France in the late stages of the Hundred Years War, when the resentments against the English had grown to the point that diverse groups who had never before identified their seperate interests as being consonant, now saw themselves as Frenchmen as opposed to the English, their oppressors for a century or more (the Hundred Years War lasted well over a hundred years).

So, eventually at any rate, the descendants of the conquerors, if their ways are not too odious to the conquered, can be seen as compatriots, and the legitimacy of monarchy recognized. The French would rather have Charles VII as their king, for all that so many despised him and mistrusted him (with a great deal of justification), than to have Henry VI and his virago of a wife as the rulers of France. They could at least console themselves of the legitimacy of the Valois descent of Charles.

So one might ask at what point a conquest, which is initially a kleptocracy, becomes a legitimate government. I would suggest that it is at the point at which the people identify some useful purpose in their government which cannot be supplied by anyone else. The French would look to the Dauphin (who would become Charles VII) to rid France of the hated English, for however they might resent the impositions of the aristocracy and the monarchy--and no one else could supply the place of the Valois monarchy in accomplishing that desired end.

I would suggest, therefore, that a rule by those who only steal from the people, who only seek their own comfort and enrichment, no matter the external description (a conquering empire, an invading tribe, a successful coup d'etat, a successful minority revolution) can only be a kleptocracy, or a totalitarian tyranny. The question of legitimacy can be fluid, too. The Russian revolution took place in February, 1917 (March by our calendar), quite a while before the Bolshevik revolution in "red October" (November by our calendar). The Bolsheviks (which means majority, although they were a minority in the Russian Workers' Party, but i won't go into that here) had organized within the factories, chiefly munitions factories around Petrograd. (Petrograd had been St. Petersburg, founded in 1703 by Peter the Great, but they changed the name when the war with Germany broke out in 1914; it was soon to become Leningrad, and now is St. Petersburg once more.) When Bolshevik operatives in the factories were identified, they were sent off to the army or the navy, theoretically as a punishment, but with the unintended consequence that the army and the navy became "infected" with Bolshevik propaganda.

The Russian empire had been the largest grain exporter in the world in 1913, before the war. But with so many young men called up for the war, and so many campaigns against Austria fought in the Ukraine, from which most of the grain came, by 1917, the cost of grain, and therefore of bread, had risen sharply, while wages had not. To add to the stupidity, the imperial government had promised their French allies that as a measure of good faith, they would prohibit alcohol for the duration of the war. The French didn't ask for that, and i suspect that they figuratively shrugged and said: "Sure, whatever." The effect, however (once again, an unintended consequence) was that the government threw away the greatest source of internal revenue they had, the licquor tax. Some waggish observers have also claimed that the Russians sobered up enough to look around and realize what a ****-hole they lived in. However one views that, the fact remains that the imperial government could not subsidize food production, had no cash reserves to buy grain from foreign sources, and had no credit in international financial markets.

The women in the factories around Petrograd began to agitate--but the leaders of the Bolshevik cells among them forbade them to march or demonstrate. Being sensible women, they ignored those instructions, and one day, marched down to the Nevsky Prospekt to demand bread. The Pharaohs--the secret police--were all ready to disperse them, and round up the ring leaders. But then the Cossacks, who had traditionally been the enforcers for the Emperor and the Pharaohs, just sat in their saddles and did nothing. The women marched up the Cossacks, calling them "little mother" (an affectionate term which has no reference to gender) and asking them that surely they would not attack women who just wanted bread to feed their families. The Cossacks sat their horses and did nothing as the women stooped beneath the horses and kept marching down the Nevsky Prospekt. The Pharaohs filled their pants, and then ran home to change and get the hell out of Dodge. Basically, the revolution was accomplished, witout bloodshed, in a matter of hours. Whatever legitimacy the Emperor Nicholas II might claim, he could not enforce his will.

The Russian Workers Party was organized by committees, or, to use the Russian term, by soviets. In Petrograd, there was quicly formed a soldiers' and sailors' soviet to run the city, in the sudden absence of any former, formal authority. Bolshevik leaders from the factories joined with them, and they formed the soldiers' and workers' soviet. This was quickly taken over by Bolsheviks who were, in a sense, renegades--they did not necessarily recognize the authority of Lenin--and the Petrograd soviet was formed. Because they didn't have universal support, and because certain centrist and right-wing groups were still powerful, they quietly continued to run Petrograd, and to prepare for another revolution, while Karensky formed his government and negotiated with the Allies. Kerensky's provisional government acted as though it were the legitimate government, and the Petrograd soviet agitated (but without violence) against the provisional government, claiming legitimacy as representatives of the men of the armed forces and the factories.

The issue was eventually resolved when Kerensky, rather stupidly, agreed with the Allies to continue to fight the Germans. It didn't take long for the Bolshevik revolution to be realized, and Kerensky's government fell, with the new soviet government of the Bolsheviks claiming legitimacy. Their claim could not be exclusive, because the Peasants Party and the Socialist Revolutionaries were still influential forces in the nation, especially outside Petrograd--so they began slowly to try to co-opt the power of those parties. When Fanya Kaplan tried to assassinate Lenin in 1918, the Cheka (a short form for the Russian version of Extraordinary State Commission to Combat Terrorism--which became the NKVD, which became the KGB) used it as leverage to destroy the Socialist Revolutionaries--Fanya Kaplan was a member, although it was obvious then as it is now that she acted alone.

The Bolsheviks continued to enjoy legitimacy in the eyes of the people, not only because they pulled out of the war with the Germans, but because Trotsky and the Red Army fought the White Russians in the civil war, and peasants who had been given land by the Peasants Party (to which the Bolsheviks reluctantly and gracelessly acquiesced) saw the Red Army as protecting them from the oppressors.

So monarchs are self-appointed to the extent that they conquer. The Bolsheviks and the membes of the various soviets appointed themselves by claiming that they fought for the welfare of the people. In the former case, people eventually came to identify with their monarchs, and to accept their claim to legitimacy. In the latter case, people accepted their legitimacy because their aims were the same (or at least seemed the same) as those of the people--to end the war with the Germans and to prevent the Whites from coming to take the land back from them.

So far, so good. Almost no government has a complete or an eternal claim to legitimacy. Obviously, the French revolution was pretty strong evidence that some, at least, of the people in France were prepared to challenge the legitimacy of the claim of Louis XVI to rule them. Eventually, the revolution had gone far enough for the purposes of the middle class, who had actually made the revolution, using peasants and the working class as their pawns. In many parts of France, the revolution was never accepted, and peasants and aristocrats made common cause to oppose the revolution. With the rise of the Directory, an effectively counter-revolutionary government, the issue was largely solved because the government (such as it was--it greatly resembled Stalin's administration in "the Great Patriotic War," what we call World War II) did what most of the people wanted. They stabilized prices, ended speculation in grain (the French revolution was sparked much in the same way as the Russian revolution), and they fought and defeated the foreign invaders. Overenthusiastic revolutionaries who weren't all that dangerous could be sent to the Army of the Rhine or the Army of Italy to export the revolution to other parts of Europe--all or almost all of the capable revolutionaries had gotten their heads cut off during or in the aftermath of the terror. People accepted the legitimacy of the government because it was no worse than what had come before, and was a good deal better than government of Louis XVI, and it at least appeared to protect the country. Napoleon was subsequently able to claim legitimacy when he seized power because he continued the policies of the Directory, or improved upon them. Napoleon had a very middle class outlook, and the middle class of France were quite happy with the government he gave them, and it was certainly no skin off their collective nose if he fought wars in Itally and Austria and Germany, even if he did take quite a few of the young men.

In Russia, the legitimacy of the Bolsheviks was accepted because people got what they wanted (mostly) and it at least seemed to be an improvement over the stumbling incompetence and the vicious oppression of the empire. But after Lenin was shot in 1918, he never again exercised the power he had before done, and his was a powerful intellect which had previously grasped and controlled many detailed aspects of government. When he arrived at Petrograd in the "red October" of the Bolshevik revolution, he had originally taken Trotsky and Stalin down serveral notches for being screw-ups who tried to make revolution before the time was ripe, and who failed to support the Petrograd soviet in the erosion of the power of the provisional government. After he was shot, although he recuperated, he never again exercised the direct control he once had done. Trotsky had been sent off to organize the army, and the product, the Red Army, showed his energy and his genius. Stalin had been sent off to clean up the Moscow soviet, which had been a hotbed of plots against the provisional government, and later the Bolshevik government, and especially the Petrograd soviet. That would prove a fatal mistake.

Even in the dubious terms of soviet government, Stalin's rise to power was an affront to legitimacy. He took and retained control of the Central committee and the Politburo of the Supreme Soviet by the simple expedient of exiling or murdering his opposition, such as Kamenev and Zinoviev of the Petrograd soviet, and Trotsky of Red Army fame, who was exiled and then murdered. Stalin's seizure of power was slow and obscure, which made it the more effective when it was accomplished. His became not a kleptocracy, because he didn't long for wealth and dissipation, his became a totalitarian tyranny because above all he longed for power, for absolute power.

At that point, his government became indistinguishable from a crime syndicate, and indistinguishable from a highly-organized street gang. I would argue that no legitimate government is like a gang, but that a kleptocracy or a dictatorship like Stalin's is nearly identical. The principle difference would be that an organization like Stalin's is far better at what it does than a street gang is. And certainly, a government like Stalin's will apply associational coercion. They will threaten your mother and your father and your brothers and sisters, and although they won't spray the street with automatic weapons' fire (crude and inept), they will come for you in the middle of the night.

In examples such as those, there is certainly little difference, and arguably no effective difference, between government and organized crime. I object to the use of the term gang, because gangs are really ham-handed, and generally don't display the expertise or subtlety of organized criminal organizations, of which a dictatorial government or a kleptocracy can reasonably be called an example.

Aha. So you're saying that gangs are essentially the Bush administrations of criminal enterprise. I think I could agree to that.

The main problem with the Bush administration was a lack of a sense of irony, and no sense of subtlety.

Ogionik, you say gangs provide services. What services? They don't collect the trash, they don't provide water and sewage services, they don't provide fire protection services. If you claim they protect the neighborhoods in which they operate, i'd point out that they protect them from the violence their very presence engenders, and that they do a piss-poor job of it. They sell drugs in the neighborhood? You don't need gangs for that.

I'd point ouf that even kleptocracies and tyrannies provide services, while organized crime, or the disorganized crime of gangs, does not.

So one might ask at what point a conquest, which is initially a kleptocracy, becomes a legitimate government.

so , im going to reverse that and compar it to america

=D

at what point does a , legitimate government become a kleptocracy?


I'd like to address 1 thing, if you agree with government rule, and most governments are founded on force, doesnt that mean if someone wants to take over a current government entity and they do it by force and win, that its legitimate?

plz dont assume that "i" assume government means only the american one.




i only make observations, and after watching myriad videos of police, aka gangsters doing their so called duty to protect citizens, even IN america,after reading countless stories of the even worse police/government actions in other countries.. im sad to say i have to take an "objective" point of view.

i have yet to see a government entity that doesnt act completely like a gang. governments and gangs follow 2 rules.

pay us, or else.
do what we say, or else.

am i wrong about those two points?im quite sure im not.

and you have to take into account why we have government and gangs. without government supposedly we would be overran, by uh gangs, tryint to take control on their own, and what would those gangs cause?

people to bang together to defend themselves, so now you have two gangs, now calling htemselves government, both need protection from other gangs..?

ummmm, perhaps im wrong.

you say they dont come in at 1 am and spray up the house?

of course they dont. they dont spray up the house, they break down the door and "kidnap" the occupants, and if they see so much as a light turn on they are prone to blast everyone. (american police anyways)


anyways im just trying to get my thoughts out there

they transport arms and drugs across borders.

they provide monetary support for poor people.

Are you alleging that this is a service necessary to the health and well-being of the people?



Bullshit. What you mean is that they steal from poor people on a turf other than their own, and give some of what they steal, not much of what they steal, to some of the poor on their own turf, if they feel like it, if there's anything left after they're through partying.

Don't piss down my leg and tell me it's raining.

they dont steal from other peoples turf, they can, but most gangs are drug empires..

they sell drugs to people on THEIR turf.

im still not even convinced governments even provide anything worth while.

is there an income limit as to when government benefits activate?

with or without the government in america, i wouldnt notice a difference besides an absolutely huge increase in my personal freedoms in the absence of it.

:/

Sure they steal from other peoples' turf, it's one of the ways they show that they are macho, and it's how the challenge other gangs. But leaving that aside, i find it hilarious that you don't think governments do anything for you. Ever been through an outside workers strike when garbage isn't collected? Ever had to use an outhouse, instead of a sewage system? Do you have any ideal how badly a city neighborhood would stink, and how quickly it would stink, if everyone were using outhouses? Do you know how quickly disease spread through cities in the days before sewage systems? Do you know how quickly diseases could decimate the populations of cities? Do you know how spetic diseases such as typhus, typhoid fever, cholera, and various other forms of dysentary are spread?

Alright, now i'm beginning to think an apology for what i wrote before was actually wasted. If you don't think governments do anything useful for you, you are either very stupid, or are being wilfully disingenuous for the sake of an argument. I'm outta here--have fun sitting her pulling your pud.

lol. the fact is i dont give a ****, i cant afford a house, how can i have my garbage collected?

:/ and bro, i hate to say it but i had to **** inside plastic bags for a year because i couldnt afford to have my toilet fixed.(winter sorta sucked tho)

i didnt really mind to be quite honest heh...

its all situational though, if i ever became well to do enough to care about the money the government issued me, id be 100% conservative, **** the poor, gimme more.

thats life, eat or be eaten.