The advantage of democracy is the ability to correct serious leadership mistakes. China lost decades of growth to Maoism (and obviously a lot more besides), and

The advantage of democracy is the ability to correct serious leadership mistakes. China lost decades of growth to Maoism (and obviously a lot more besides), and there wasn’t much they could do beyond waiting for Mao to die. Democratic systems are designed to prevent that. However: this does not mean that every non-democratic leader is going to make mistakes, and certainly not at all phases of their leadership career. (Mistakes are, however, more probable than not over the long term in the typical authoritarian society. It’s noteworthy that we mostly point to Singapore as the sole counterexample of an economically successful authoritarian regime that didn’t revert to democracy or suffer decades of needless economic self-harm.)