alt Hacker NewsI hope it works out for them. In my home country students overthrow the government and put a Nobel Prize winning economist in charge. Now GDP growth has collapsed and the security situation has become precarious.
I’m also reminded of Ashraf Ghani, the last President of Afghanistan, who was a professor and wrote a book “Fixing Failed States.” He ended up fleeing the country like a coward as it collapsed.
It’s notable that students played a major role in the 1979 Iranian revolution that ended up putting the Ayatollah in power. In fact to my knowledge, student-led revolutions have never produced a long term positive outcome. Any examples?
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Although not quite the archetypical example of what people think of when hearing "student-led revolution", since you already mention Afghanistan, it's worth pointing out that "Taliban" literally means "students".
GDP is linked to stability, an economist can't alter that, it just takes time post-revolution. Having the army run the country would improve security and stability and GDP, but then you've got the army running the country, which perhaps hasn't been going so well for another nearby country, the one that probably causes the security anxieties I imagine.
> It’s notable that students played a major role in the 1979 Iranian revolution that ended up putting the Ayatollah in power.
This is inaccurate and misleading.
The revolution was hijacked.
Various political groups that were against the monarchy did the revolution and in the months following the revolution they were hunted down, executed or assassinated.
There is no Nobel Prize for economics: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/
Alfred Nobel did not name economics in his will and it only started to be given out 70 years later by a bank in memory of Nobel.
Putting a single person in charge will always corrupt them
> In fact to my knowledge, student-led revolutions have never produced a long term positive outcome. Any examples?
Huh, now that you mention it, what is actually going on with the “cockroach movement” in India? It seems like you only ever find out about the driving force behind a movement 5 years after the fact when all the truth is laid bare, for better or worse.
On the other hand, reactionary populist movements of late (or probably ever) haven't been creating positive outcomes for their countries either
Andreas Papandreou is another example. Chairman of UC Berkeley's economics department, but his career as prime minister of Greece was marked by scandal and constitutional crisis.
The Iranian revolution is more complex than that.
Student protests toppled communism in Czechoslovakia.
I’m also reminded of Ashraf Ghani, the last President of Afghanistan, who was a professor and wrote a book “Fixing Failed States.” He ended up fleeing the country like a coward as it collapsed.
Meh, no amount genius would have helped someone fix Afghanistan given that it was controlled by drug dealers abetted by the US state. I had a friend who was an urban planner, went Kabul on a grant and advised the state to put in sidewalks. Sure it would have improved things but naturally it didn't happen 'cause the state had corruption to do instead.
"Students" played a big role in what happened in 2013-2014 in the Ukraine.
There are several examples of positive student-led revolutions. In the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, the student-led protest organizations were the driving force for change. [1]
The mass protests that toppled the military regime in South Korea in 1987 was also led in large part by students and faculty members, who later became prominent leaders. [2]
This has also happened twice in Serbia now. Milošević was defeated in 2000 thanks in large part to Otpor, a student-led organization [2].
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8363827.stm
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Democratic_Struggle#Stude...
[3] https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/bringing-down-dictator#1