Word: draconianism
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When Sweden put draconian tax regulations into effect in January, an early victim was one of the welfare state's leading citizens: Director Ingmar Bergman. Two policemen abruptly called Bergman from a Stockholm stage, where he was rehearsing August Strindberg's The Dance of Death, and hauled him away for interrogation on suspicion of having evaded payment of $119,000 in taxes. Although all charges were dropped last week, Bergman remained holed up on his bleak island home at Fårŏ, sunk in what doctors described as "a deep depression as a result of shock...
Conditions after the war produced a generation of hustlers. The distribution of French property was not strictly controlled, primarily because Ben Bella rejected the notion of draconian measures of nationalization and took pains to guarantee the freedom of the private sector. A tradition of dependence inclined the government to engage in the politics of international aid rather than develop its own resources. Contrary to expectations, though, financial and technical assistance was combined with rapid economic and political development...
City officials often complain about excessive wage demands by labor unions, but Edward A. Hanna, the may or of Utica, N.Y. (pop. 86,000), has hit on the most draconian of solutions. He cut the employees in the department of public works from 240 to 70 in 18 months after he took office...
Arias also promised some vaguely defined softening of a draconian anti-terrorism law passed last August, under which hundreds have been detained without trial. In addition, his speech included reference to reforming the tax system. Otherwise, the package contained few specifics and appeared to be concerned with upholding the old order. Many Spaniards suspected, for example, that the promised new chamber of the Cortes would do little to reduce the power of the National Council, which is dominated by the Francoist right wing. "I thought the speech would be conservative," declared Socialist Enrique Tierno Galván, "but I didn...
...President has recently taken measures-often draconian-to limit the possibility of disorder after his death or disablement. He has put down even the faintest signs of an outbreak of traditional hostility between Serbs, Croats and other Yugoslav nationalities. In a series of new laws that are expected to go into effect this month, he has sharply restricted religious activity, especially that of the Roman Catholic Church, on the ground that it is backing illicit "nationalism." Thousands of government officials have been purged as suspected troublemakers. In an attempt to ensure an orderly succession, Tito has decreed that his powers...