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Comment by sdegutis | Hacker News Reader

That's sad. In my observation of governments, if they do not have a single strong leader at the very top who answers to no one but serves everyone, then those who do govern will be so scattered in their plans and opinions that the government will be rendered almost completely ineffective at fulfilling its primary duties. A single strong leader at the top is needed, someone with courage and a strong resolve, and a clear vision of what's best for his country. It may be said that "absolute power corrupts absolutely" but not if the man believes in and is led by absolute truth, such as was King Louis of France.

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We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19789052 and marked it off-topic.

China had that approach. If they had a good emperor, it worked reasonably well (at least in terms of national stability). But they never solved the "bad emperor" problem.

And that's still the problem. If you get the one perfect person - and if they remain the perfect person - then your approach works. But people who are good enough, and will remain good enough, are in really short supply, so the odds are stacked against your approach.

And if you have a bad person, an unwise person, a selfish person, or a lazy person, your approach is catastrophic. So the rest of us don't want to go there...

>In my observation of governments, if they do not have a single strong leader at the very top who answers to no one but serves everyone, then those who do govern will be so scattered in their plans and opinions that the government will be rendered almost completely ineffective at fulfilling its primary duties.

Nearly every extant democracy, even those with constitutional monarchs, is a strong counterpoint to your claim.

>It may be said that "absolute power corrupts absolutely" but not if the man believes in and is led by absolute truth

The problem with the 'philosopher king' is that it's a Platonic ideal, and never really present in reality.

Sure, a benevolent, supremely intelligent and incorruptible dictator would be the best leader for any country.

But governments should be about stability, resilience and steady progress, and not optimizing for superb efficiency at the cost of being extremely unstable.

Edit: Also to be clear, the dictator in question would be a fairy tale person. As such we could add a requirement for dragons, that would be cool.

I would be totally cool pledging my allegiance to a dragon lord. Until then, all these politicians can jump in a lake.

The trouble is that even a wise and capable ruler sometimes picks a terrible successor. The most obvious example is the succession of Commodus after Aurelius —- Marcus was and is a widely read philosopher and admired leader, but his idiot son drove Rome into the ground.

The Yamato dynasty in Japan is the longest-lived political system on record, period. Historically, many emperors left governing to their subordinates; in some cases, there were even civil wars, but their longevity suggests an advantage to this approach.

> It may be said that "absolute power corrupts absolutely" but not if the man believes in and is led by absolute truth, such as was King Louis of France.

I'd love to hear about this so-called "absolute truth" you have in mind, because I've seen people in power claim their opinions are the truth in order to get what they want at the expense of other people or resources.

I'm very curious to hear what country you hail from and what system of government you currently live under.

His GitHub account suggests he hails from the Chicago suburbs.

> King Louis of France

Which one? Because there's 17 of them. (I count 17 kings of France named Louis, since Louis 17 never reigned or anything)

Probably Louis XIV, who was infamous for his role in the centralization of power in France. It's he to whom the statement "L'etat, c'est moi" is attributed.

Side note for all the "Louis" of France: Louis XIV was succeeded by his great-grandson Louis XV, having outlived both his son Louis and his grandson Louis. It seems Henry IV's descendants had a penchant for naming everybody in line to the throne as Louis.

That's his shining example? The believer in "divine right", who led France into a bunch of wars for his own glory and thereby got a bunch of his people killed? That's his example of a leader following "absolute truth"? Sheesh.

For his own sake, I sure hope he was trolling.

Saint Louis IX, King of France

... who ordered the burning of Jewish religious books, and expanded the scope of the Inquisition within France.

But even if you accept Louis IX as the perfect ruler, what do you do once he dies? What do you do when you get Louis XIV?

I'm not suggesting a monarchy is the best way to get such a ruler, in fact it seems problematic for that exact reason. I'm just an uneducated fool with limited opinions on government, but I think if we elected something like a President but with much more power like a king, and if the people who elected him understood virtue correctly, and if the election process was made much more fair, and if nations governed smaller (more manageable) amounts of people than the USA does, and if corporations were given significantly less say in the direction of the government (to shut all those awfully abused loopholes), the world would be on a good path.

> a single strong leader at the very top who answers to no one [..]

This is a dangerous double blade. Such leader can make or break a country all by himself.

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