Negotiator wrote:So ... leftwing leaders are great if they resign ? Yikes.
I very strongly doubt a rightwinger would say the same thing about ANY rightwing leader if those resign.
I fail to see what else he could have done to be only even more a puppet of the west.
He even was about to sell the west the russian raw materials, I think it was the gas ? But Putin took over quickly enough that this deal was stopped.
Once again people are warping my words. Below applies to anyone from any ideology. The problem of not resigning when you are doing badly is that:
a) It creates resentment from people. Yes you might be able to fix it later but highly likely you won't. Growing resentment is destabilising. You shouldn't gamble overall stability on your personal ability or ability of your group. Very often people in power misjudge themselves. And resentment will only bread further resentment over time.
b) Shifting to autocratic rule stagnates the overall system. When a leader resigns then usually a lot more than just the leader leave. So the system gets an influx of new blood, new ideas, gets rid of corruption and nepotism to a degree. Democratic process also is preventative in this regard. Your opponents have an inherent interest to expose your "bad" dealings to get elected themselves. If the leader stays then usually the same people stay around also. Yes they get shuffled but to a great lesser degree. So corruption grows, nepotism grows etc. This is perhaps one of the two greatest benefits of a democratic system.
c) Question of succession becomes more vague. All autocracies and totalitarian system have this inbuilt aspect in to them. The more totalitarian or autocratic the system, the more unstable it is at the moment of succession and after. Some people won't know who the next person will be at all. (Example: Who is after Putin?) Some people will fight to maintain their access to power. (Power struggle for succession between the old guard and new challengers) Some will just want to rise above others (Struggle after Lenins death or after Stalins death). In democracy its a bit more simpler, you get an election.
d) Autocracy and totalitarianism is a discouraging of general entrepreneurship and social mobility. What i mean by this is that those system usually rely on 2 components: control of thinking and control of social mobility. Control of thinking is pretty self-explanatory: censorship, control of media, control of ideas etc. This narrows the point of view of the people in the right direction to create a sort of social cohesion what the Autocracy wants(Which is stabilising by the way) BUT it also limits the idea field of sorts. Depending on the censorship/control/etc it might lead to either narrow thinking in science, management ideas, etc. The other part is the control of social mobility which is perhaps the biggest tool used to control people. If you control the life chances of people then they have no way not to obey you of sorts. You disobey and you get cut off, you obey and you get rewarded. This is not a meritocratic system at its core. I do not think that any group of people can have a sane way to control social mobility by decision.
e) There is some inefficiency that is built in the system. You can't have your management apparatus or security apparatus grow to powerful and competent. It is dangerous for the autocrat because in case of security apparatus then they could just oppress you if they are too good at it. If the management gets to powerful and competent then they might consider the autocrat irrelevant and not needed. So corruption and incompetence is tolerated on this level to show something along the lines "What are you going to do without me?" or "If i get removed then you might soon follow due to your incompetence".
Some autocracies and totalitarian regimes tried to tackle those important points and it is not like it is a secret. It is just hard to tackle them all at the same time.