Jonathan V. Last

Terrible name, but it comes from a German, the German social scientist Max Weber. So, you know how Germans are about words.

Terrible name, but it comes from a German, the German social scientist Max Weber. So, you know how Germans are about words.

Terrible name, but it comes from a German, the German social scientist Max Weber. So, you know how Germans are about words.

Let's not but say we did. Okay. So, patrimonialism is when the government is run as the personal property and family business of the head of state. And monarchies were typically like that. But a lot of governments work that way. And not just governments, but a lot of social organizations like the mafia works that way, right? That's the godfather. It's all a business. It's a godfather's business.

Let's not but say we did. Okay. So, patrimonialism is when the government is run as the personal property and family business of the head of state. And monarchies were typically like that. But a lot of governments work that way. And not just governments, but a lot of social organizations like the mafia works that way, right? That's the godfather. It's all a business. It's a godfather's business.

Let's not but say we did. Okay. So, patrimonialism is when the government is run as the personal property and family business of the head of state. And monarchies were typically like that. But a lot of governments work that way. And not just governments, but a lot of social organizations like the mafia works that way, right? That's the godfather. It's all a business. It's a godfather's business.

Gangs often work that way. Cults. And it's a very, very standard familiar form of social organization. What's interesting about it, what's sometimes a little bit hard to understand, is it's not like the kind of classic authoritarianism that we associate with the great authoritarians of the 20th century, the Mussolini's and Hitler's and Mao's and those people.

Gangs often work that way. Cults. And it's a very, very standard familiar form of social organization. What's interesting about it, what's sometimes a little bit hard to understand, is it's not like the kind of classic authoritarianism that we associate with the great authoritarians of the 20th century, the Mussolini's and Hitler's and Mao's and those people.

Gangs often work that way. Cults. And it's a very, very standard familiar form of social organization. What's interesting about it, what's sometimes a little bit hard to understand, is it's not like the kind of classic authoritarianism that we associate with the great authoritarians of the 20th century, the Mussolini's and Hitler's and Mao's and those people.

Because the opposite of patrimonialism is not democracy, it's bureaucracy. In other words, what you do with patrimonialism, you can have it to an extent in a democracy, but what you do is replace rules with loyalists. So you just fill the government with people who are personally loyal to the person in charge, and the government becomes about doing the bidding of the person in charge.

Because the opposite of patrimonialism is not democracy, it's bureaucracy. In other words, what you do with patrimonialism, you can have it to an extent in a democracy, but what you do is replace rules with loyalists. So you just fill the government with people who are personally loyal to the person in charge, and the government becomes about doing the bidding of the person in charge.

Because the opposite of patrimonialism is not democracy, it's bureaucracy. In other words, what you do with patrimonialism, you can have it to an extent in a democracy, but what you do is replace rules with loyalists. So you just fill the government with people who are personally loyal to the person in charge, and the government becomes about doing the bidding of the person in charge.

But what you don't do necessarily in patrimonialism is set up the great authoritarian engines of state, the institutions and bureaucracies of oppression, which we all know if we read 1984, the Ministry of Peace and the Ministry of Love. You know, and that would be stuff like the Politburo and the secret police force and the propaganda agencies and the special military arms.

But what you don't do necessarily in patrimonialism is set up the great authoritarian engines of state, the institutions and bureaucracies of oppression, which we all know if we read 1984, the Ministry of Peace and the Ministry of Love. You know, and that would be stuff like the Politburo and the secret police force and the propaganda agencies and the special military arms.

But what you don't do necessarily in patrimonialism is set up the great authoritarian engines of state, the institutions and bureaucracies of oppression, which we all know if we read 1984, the Ministry of Peace and the Ministry of Love. You know, and that would be stuff like the Politburo and the secret police force and the propaganda agencies and the special military arms.

They don't necessarily do that. They just go through the government. It's like the scientists.

They don't necessarily do that. They just go through the government. It's like the scientists.

They don't necessarily do that. They just go through the government. It's like the scientists.

Nazism was notoriously bureaucratic. You can go to the camps and look at the offices where they kept the bureaucrats, kept the meticulous records of everything they're doing. Patrimonialism is just, it's way more ad hoc. It's okay, I'm going to fire the people who are there and I'm going to replace them with personal loyalists. And you can go through the whole government, do that.

Nazism was notoriously bureaucratic. You can go to the camps and look at the offices where they kept the bureaucrats, kept the meticulous records of everything they're doing. Patrimonialism is just, it's way more ad hoc. It's okay, I'm going to fire the people who are there and I'm going to replace them with personal loyalists. And you can go through the whole government, do that.