Yes, hypocrisy is for neurotypicals. That’s why those people will be tattooed with - ah, damn, you got me
Only one way to find out
Maybe if I had a few years to reorganise myself, and that’s a big maybe. I’ve never much cared for money, power, and I’m empathetic to a fault, but being in different environments causes people to change.
The biggest challenge would be staying in touch with the population. You would need a good team of people that represent the interests of human existence and happiness. At that point it’s sounding closer to a democracy anyway.
From there, there’s obvious moves. Find the biggest sources of misery and damage, reform or just straight up tear it out and start again. You’d need to move moderately slow, moving quickly destabilizes people too much and that is often not worth the cost. Raise social safety nets, try to turn the system from working to survive into one where working to get nice shit.
I feel like I might bankrupt whichever system I’m put in charge of though. Economics was never my strong suit, and I probably would start ignoring economic realities in favour of human existence.
With my dictatorial powers … my first action would be to seize and outlaw extreme wealth. No one would be allowed to own more than $1 million.
All the money collected would be used for government and providing a Universal Basic Income for everyone.
And I’d get a designer to make me a big fancy hat.
That is increadibly hard to do.
- How do you define what goes into that 1 million of allowed wealth? If I buy a house worth 950000, would I only be allowed to save 50000.
- what about if the house increase in value so that it is worth 2 million, should I just accept that I loose 1 million? What about stocks?
- Inflation or Deflation, when/how will you update that limit?
I agree with your take on this. I think 1M is way too low. But 1 Billion… It’s a bit easier to imagine the “you can’t or the dictatorship will seize something” idea.
The reality is that the wealthiest people usually influence the most
This is a delight, and you are correct. That said, in the spirit of this silly thread, I provide solutions, below:
If I buy a house worth 950000, would I only be allowed to save 50000.
Yes. It will be time to get some roommates.
- what about if the house increase in value so that it is worth 2 million, should I just accept that I loose 1 million?
Yes. Or rather, exactly half of the house. Time to rent a storage unit, and put up some tarps to divide the entryway.
What about stocks?
Better sell some.
Inflation or Deflation, when/how will you update that limit?
Cost of living increases have long been understood and easy enough to calculate.
But - when I’m global leader, COLA for millionaires will only start after exactly as many years as the local minimum wage went without updates.
Remove housing from the commodity market - save your one mil in cash.
Stocks are outlawed.
I’d do the same but at 1b. And then execute anyone that steps over 1B. It’s incredibly easy to not be a billionaire.
If you’re almost a billionaire there a numerous ways of hiding your wealth.
If you’re a dictator, surely you don’t have to justify any of your actions and just do whatever you want, right?
You absolutely has to justify your actions, you will only be in power as long as your subordinates will follow your orders.
You can’t just do whatever you want, you need to have a strategy, now doing this dictator stuff right will give you insane levels of power, but you can’t just go crazy and boss everyone around from the get go, you need to reward your loyal subjects and create levels of privilege and harsh punishments for the people to enjoy and stay loyal.
I would probably also include the wealth one owns and not just money (because thats useless, they would just use a different currency) and set it to like 40-50 houses in value. If they own a company that gets bigger the country gets shares
50 Houses might seem a lot in value (especially depending on what kind of building) but it already would distribute a lot of wealth + allowing the dream of being filthy rich with less consequences to the rest of the population
Because its just an idea i dont think about the specifics of the exact limit and such
The house is only worth what the market will pay for it, if you aren’t selling your $10m mansion then it’s worth nothing. Sadly if you do try to sell it you’d probably need to move to the barter system and agree with the buyer that $10m worth of arbitrary goods is actually worth $15.95, just like your house …
One way would be to instead of putting a hard limit to put a tax to everything above that million or whatever number is decided. A tax on hoarding wealth.
The second point is the biggest issue because it could potentially make the place you live unaffordable by just being where it is.
That limit can be updated yearly following the inflation.
This.
Tax the crap out of wealth over value X, let the ghouls fight to earn slightly more, while the government gets plenty of tax incomme.
This is what I like about the social democratic ideology, it has high taxes to fund a safety net, yet retains a market economy to bring in higher earnings and thus taxes.
Property doesn’t count and you don’t get to own more than one property.
Ignore these naysayers. Tell us more about the hat.
The shortest dictatorship in history…
Fantabulous! Please remind me when election is so I can vote for you. 🫡
I am behind this 100%
Socialist doesnt know how the economy works
I could BE a benevolent dictator, I could never BECOME a benevolent dictator. The process of getting there would exclude me, because I would reject the power structure needed to form the dictatorship in the first place.
Same here. Also I don’t think I’d make it long at the top either. I think a certain lack of empathy is required to be ok with some of the requirements of the position.
I could make the hard choices if needed, once there. Because at that point it’s about what is the greater good. Even if you really can’t say for certain, someone making a bad call is most often better than no one making a decision.
The problem is that in order to become a benevolent dictator, you have to chose to hurt people that don’t matter to the greater good, or very likely are important to the well being of the population. With the only justification being that maybe by consolidating power you can make the world a better place. And there is just no way to square that circle other than violent narcissism.
That’s the thing though. I think after acquiring the power you need to keep on stepping on some people to stay in the position. You likely don’t have infinite resources so there’s always going to be someone who missies out. Also what about people meaning to harm you or your subjects?
Once you’re in power you can rationalize/justify their loss against the greater good that your leadership has brought to the people. There are concrete examples of human progress to defend. If there are significant counter examples, then it’s you that’s the problem to be dealt with, just like any other.
I’d be too much of a lazy dictator to do anything truly evil.
I’ll be happy to be your evil grand vizier, if you need one.
Underrated comment, power that sits unused will get preyed on.
Probably not.
I mean, I don’t think there’s a chance of doing some really fucked up shit, like genociding people; but I’d certainly be biased toward things that I want and not necessarily what the majority wants. I’d be a little bit corrupt, but I can’t even envision a path that would lead me to be evil.
I think there are many people out there who could.
To me, the problem isn’t being a benevolent dictator; it’s getting a benevolent person there in a benevolent way.
Yeah the problem is mostly that benevolent people don’t actually want to be dictators much less do what it takes to become one.
My Tropico track record says that I absolutely can.
I love Tropico, but it always bugged me just how easy it is to be a good guy.
how dare you question my benevolence. to the pits with you.
No.
Not because I’m evil, but because I am empathetic and someone evil would absolutely figure out a way to use that to manipulate me.
I wouldn’t be fucking kids and sending goon squads after minorities and into cities to harass my political opponents if that is what you are asking.
The ‘not evil’ bar is currently riding on the same high speed train the Republicans put their goalposts on.
I’d like to think so. When we read 1984 in high school, a friend and I were studying together. I remember saying (in my naïveté), “I loved the book and I get the history but why would you want to be in charge of a place that sucks?” She was like, “You’re just going to have to get used to the fact that a lot of people care about power more than beaches.”
Well, I still think those people are foolish. I’d rather be in charge of my own tiny slice of paradise than rule over some wack ass dictatorship where everyone else is miserable. Not wanting to be in charge is probably the basic pre-requisite for being a benevolent dictator. I like to cook for people and stuff. I’d use my power and wealth to do that.
That being said, I’m a dirtbag. I’d have a cool house somewhere with mountain and ocean views. Probably 3 or 4 beauty queens who also have Ms. Congeniality pageant sashes who are in charge of laughing at my jokes and charming me. No more than one or two rhythmic gymnastics teams that delight us all by throwing ribbons to each other with their feet. (Other apparatuses are cool too. Hula hoop. Clubs. Ball. Variety is the spice of life.)
I would instantly be assassinated for helping out people too much and handing too much power to workers syndicates
We’re getting into paradox territory
That’s my first thought too
