Anthony Kaldellis: observation

Transcript context

…So, so he wants to be an effective governor, And he also wants to not be overthrown. Exactly. Because, you know, just because you ended one civil war doesn’t mean that there’s not going to be another. You have to create a consensus such that people don’t want to have another civil war. If he did what you said, which he in theory could have done, but that would’ve just led to more wars, right? So the problem is that the emperors, even those who come to power through violence, they can’t prevent other people from trying to come to power through violence because like I said, no one has a right to the throne. We should also say one more thing where, dare I carefully say this, but it seems like riots and civil wars is a feature, not a bug of the system. This is a different thing that we have to the modern day, is because the threat of a civil war, a violent civil war where you overthrow the government and there’s just a lot of- … death and struggle for power is always a threat. That’s another incentive that, I guess the stick, not the carrot, but the stick for the emperor to behave.…

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