For a long time Americans have been proud of the accomplishments and prosperity of the United States, and we were taught that we owed that to the democratic form of government. Now two political scientists tell us that democracy may not be that important to prosperity.
See Roberto Stefan Foa and Yascha Mounk in When Democracy Is No Longer the Only Path to Prosperity. Here's a snapshot:
Since the 1890s, countries like the U.S., Great Britain and a small band of other democracies have dominated the global economy. As recently as 1995, 96% of all people who lived in a country with a per capita income over $20,000 (in today’s terms) were citizens of a liberal democracy. With the exception of a few oligarchs perched atop stagnant and repressive societies, only democrats got to enjoy real affluence.
Today’s reality is very different. Our analysis of International Monetary Fund projections shows that sometime in the next five years, the total GDP of countries rated “not free” by Freedom House will surpass that of Western democracies. The combined economies of democratic countries like the U.S., Germany, France and Japan will be smaller than those of autocracies like China, Russia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
Rather disappointing. But perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that given a choice, people would rather be rich under a dictator than poor under democracy. The ideal would seem to be rich and free.
However, in many autocratic countries the prosperity flourished in the time prior to the shift to autocracy. Foa and Mounk added this to the mix:
a growing number of countries have learned to combine autocratic rule with market-friendly institutions, and they have continued growing economically well beyond the point at which democratic transitions used to occur.
Should those autocracies continue prospering at the current pace let's hope Americans don't decide that maybe a dictator is a better basis for government than democracy. In that regard, the current push for socialism isn't an especially good sign.
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3:07 PM 3/5/2019
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