7 ms·

Democracy and prosperity are orthogonal concepts. I agree both of them are good but prosperity without democracy exist (China and in some sense Singapore) and d

Democracy and prosperity are orthogonal concepts. I agree both of them are good but prosperity without democracy exist (China and in some sense Singapore) and democracy without prosperity also exists (everywhere).

adventured 9y ago
> prosperity without democracy exist There has never been a large nation example of that in world history. China has yet to get there in any broad sense. Further, there are exceptionally few examples of it, regardless of nation size. A solid 80% to 90% of the prosperous, well developed nations use representative government systems, and not a single large nation that is prosperous at the median doesn't. Most of the exceptions are smaller, resource nations like Qatar (even Saudi Arabia hasn't achieved high-level prosperity at the median, their median income is nearly 1/3 that of the US). Here's the list of nations that are prosperous at the median - Democratic: US, Canada, France, Germany, Britain, Ireland, Japan, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, Spain, Israel, South Korea Not Democratic: Singapore, Qatar, Kuwait, Brunei, UAE Questionable inclusions: Czech, Portugal, Taiwan, Slovenia, Greece, Estonia, Slovakia; vs Saudi Arabia on the other side I don't see how this could be any more blatant.
- zabana 9y ago
  Are you saying that before democracy appeared (300 or so years ago) humankind didn't prosper economically, financially and culturally ?
  - jerf 9y ago
    In the modern sense of the term, they did not. 300 years ago, almost everyone alive would be considered catastrophically poor by modern standards, and even the elites would be considered to have some serious gaps in their wealth. This is relevant because one of the perennial questions of history has been "Why didn't high tech civilization arise centuries or millenia earlier?", and governance issues like this are at least one of the defensible answers. Though not the only one by any means.

adventured 9y ago

> prosperity without democracy exist There has never been a large nation example of that in world history. China has yet to get there in any broad sense. Further, there are exceptionally few examples of it, regardless of nation size. A solid 80% to 90% of the prosperous, well developed nations use representative government systems, and not a single large nation that is prosperous at the median doesn't. Most of the exceptions are smaller, resource nations like Qatar (even Saudi Arabia hasn't achieved high-level prosperity at the median, their median income is nearly 1/3 that of the US). Here's the list of nations that are prosperous at the median - Democratic: US, Canada, France, Germany, Britain, Ireland, Japan, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, Spain, Israel, South Korea Not Democratic: Singapore, Qatar, Kuwait, Brunei, UAE Questionable inclusions: Czech, Portugal, Taiwan, Slovenia, Greece, Estonia, Slovakia; vs Saudi Arabia on the other side I don't see how this could be any more blatant.

zabana 9y ago
Are you saying that before democracy appeared (300 or so years ago) humankind didn't prosper economically, financially and culturally ?
- jerf 9y ago
  In the modern sense of the term, they did not. 300 years ago, almost everyone alive would be considered catastrophically poor by modern standards, and even the elites would be considered to have some serious gaps in their wealth. This is relevant because one of the perennial questions of history has been "Why didn't high tech civilization arise centuries or millenia earlier?", and governance issues like this are at least one of the defensible answers. Though not the only one by any means.