Comment by direwolf20

1 day ago

They say that most fascist governments fall apart because they actively despise competence, which it turns out you need if you are trying to run a country.

They say it, but they're wrong. Historically speaking there have been basically about 2 fascist governments, and they fell because they lost wars. And Germany, for one, did run them with high competence, to the extend that it took years for many countries to do anything about.

It we loosen "fascist" to just mean any authoritarian government, there are many that run of very long time.

  • WWII started in 1939 and was done in early 1945, so it didn't take that long.

    More importantly, maybe the Nazi's were competent at first, but they absolutely fell apart internally due to mistrust, back stabbing, and demanding of loyalty above all else. Hitler famously made many poor military decisions.

That’s because eventually reality catches up to you.

If the reality of a thing is in opposition to the regime’s wishes, you can’t just wish that away.

However, the regime will favor those who say “yes” over those who accept reality.

Competence gives way to ideology.

I once read an interesting book on the economy of Nazi Germany. There were a lot of smart CEOs and high ranking civil servants who perfectly predicted US industrial might.