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It is actually far worse than that. No non-colonial democracy has managed to go from underdeveloped to developed since WW2. SK, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Chil

• TeMPOraL 6y ago
  It's sad, but it seems to be true, and knowing the truth is always better. We can like and promote democracy without marketing it as something it isn't, and if we're not afraid to identify areas where it isn't competitive, we can find ways to mitigate that.
• AussieWog93 6y ago
  Botswana have done very well given their geography, as have many of the Eastern Bloc states (Estonia and the Czech Republic both spring to mind.) In that region, actually, democracy seems to have correlated positively with economic growth.
  • inglor_cz 6y ago
    Czech Rep. here. A lot of our original industrial development prior to 1900 was done in conditions of very limited democracy. Only wealthy people and the middle class could vote before 1907. (After that, franchise was extended to all men over 24.) Prior to that, you had to pay some minimal yearly taxes in order to have a vote, which excluded majority of the population. After 1989, a large element in our prosperity was geographic proximity to Germany. Germans outsourced a lot of production to the Visegrad states. It definitely helped grow our GDP, but it also puts sorta-kinda ceiling on it. The most valuable parts of the entire production chain are still back in the West and they are not going to move abroad. BTW Viktor Orbán is a great friend of the German investors and they protect him quite a bit as well. It seems that investors do not care about local state of politics much, only about stability.
    • paganel 6y ago
      > The most valuable parts of the entire production chain are still back in the West and they are not going to move abroad. Related to that, it does seam than whenever Skoda the brand is about to surpass the models of its parent (German) company, Volkswagen, the powers that be decide that that behaviour should stop immediately. The most recent example is the Mk2 Skoda Superb, which imho was miles ahead in terms of style above the Passat, and further back the Mk1 Skoda Octavia was also miles ahead in terms of reliability compared to anything that the VW brand had.
      • mbroncano 6y ago
        Another good example of the same is SEAT.
  • Toutouxc 6y ago
    Czech person here, I have to agree. During the soviet era my country, a pre-WWII (even post-WWII, as the Czech part of Czechoslovakia has only seen very light fighting) industrial powerhouse, was reduced to an underdeveloped dwarf. Thirty years later I'm living in a modern country, typing on a MacBook, receiving healthcare, paying my taxes with corruption only noticeable at the highest levels of the hierarchy (politicians, union leaders), certainly not throughout the country. I believe this has to do with the proximity of other developed and modern countries, economically, but also culturally. To put it bluntly, nobody wants to do business with a bunch of cavemen.
  • rahimnathwani 6y ago
    In Botswana, part of the credit goes to the discovery of diamonds.
    • bilbo0s 6y ago
      That, and a small, controllable population. I agree, the Botswana example is not exactly what India is looking for given the history there. To this day, the TSwanna have not diversified from diamonds. They have no industrialization to speak of.
      • throwaway2037 6y ago
        But they have amazing, world-class nature. Tourism is, and will, be a large part of their economic growth. Mostly, they are focused on very high income travelers, not unlike Bhutan.
    • screye 6y ago
      A very large (62 + 18 = 80%) [1] part [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Tree_map_export_2009_Botswana.jpeg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Tree_map...
  • throwaway2037 6y ago
    Wow. I recently discovered Botswana during a deep dive on Wikipedia. Botswana is the size of Metropolitan France, which has a population of ~60 million, but Botswana only has a population of 2.2 million! Resources? They have the most productive diamond mine in the world that consistently produces the highest quality large diamonds in the world. GDP per capita? 18,500+ USD. They are solidly middle class by global standards. Also, as I understand, the country lies just outside of the tsetse fly belt, which is very important for human development. Interestingly (and sadly), they also have one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the world, but seem to be managing it very well. (Wiki says: <<As of 2014, Botswana has the third-highest prevalence rate for HIV/AIDS, with roughly 20% of the population infected.>>)
• dundarious 6y ago
  I haven't read the book, rather I've only seen a long talk he gave on the topic, but Ha-Joon Chang's "Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism" believes the crucial component is not democracy, but rather modern incarnations of capitalism (let's just call it neoliberalism). He argues that the US in particular became so wealthy in huge part due to it's non-free trade practices (while still being relatively democratic). Countries may liberalize later in development, but not before building their own industrial base, etc. My memory is quite hazy on the latter part -- I should read the actual book. However I can recommend seeking out his viewpoint. Edit: his book is not so much a critique of capitalism, as a critique of free trade orthodoxy for developing nations.
• Roark66 6y ago
  You forgot Poland. It never had colonies. It was destroyed completely in WW2. Then exploited by the communists until there was no almost no economy left in 1989. By today's standard Poland of 1989 can definitely be described as an underdeveloped country (annual gdp per capita $1700 usd - but the majority of population lived on a lot less). Infrastructure in shambles. Major roads and rail links designed not along North-South as the country's economy needs, but East-West to facilitate transfer of Soviet army if needed. Fast forward 30 years and things look pretty much developed. A big chunk of it was thanks to EUs money(since 2004), but one could argue access to local market for Western companies repaid them the expense many times over... Sure there are issues with the quality of the democracy (specially inability to modernise juidiciary in last 30 years), amount of emotional arguments in public discourse etc, but overall IMO it is a good example of a democratic country that managed to make the standard of living a lot better for its citizens.
  • inglor_cz 6y ago
    I grew up in Ostrava, close to the Polish border. Poland in the late 1980s and early 1990s was a fairly poor country. There were massive shortages of stuff in shops, a serious inflation (I remember looking at a 500,000 zloty banknote in a mixture of awe and dread) and a black market that was doing its best and worst to keep people supplied somehow. Polish economic miracle is incredible. Warsaw looks like a Manhattan built on a steppe, and living standards of ordinary Polish citizens have gone through the roof in a single generation.
• dragonsh 6y ago
  At the same time there are counter examples of North Korea, Zimbabwe, Pakistan and India (since 2014) a authoritarian rule bring more economic downfall with concentration of power and wealth in the hands of selected few. Indeed the most interesting example in this is India where growth, prosperity and position on human development index became better when it was free than at present when it is partly free. China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan grown exponentially not due to authoritarian rule but due to the hard work of their people and in the belief that with hard work they can change life (very much embedded in Confucius teachings). The only thing government did was not to come in the way of the people to have better life through hard work.
  • patrickk 6y ago
    South Korea expanded rapidly during a military dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s[1]. A large chunk of of their economy was (is??) tied to huge conglomerates with major ties to the government known as Chaebols[2]. > The only thing government did was not to come in the way of the people to have better life through hard work. At least in the case of South Korea, that is demonstrably false. There were, and are, lots of links between these large, successful international Chaebols and the government. Without government support, and protectionist measures shielding them from foreign competition it's unlikely they'd have grown as large and successful as they are today (similar to China today blocking foreign Big Tech companies from operating in China, to grow their own national champions). I know less about the other Asian economies you mention, but the "East Asian Model"[3] runs contrary to what you say about hard work alone. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Chung-hee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Chung-hee [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaebol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaebol [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_model
    • dragonsh 6y ago
      Chaebols of South Korea are same as big conglomerates and top 1% in USA who control livelihood of majority of Americans. So this will mean that USA is same as South Korea driven by America first policy. USA foreign policy and access to market is also dependent on America first policy driven by large conglomerates not very different from those in South Korea, China and Japan. Recently there are ample examples where USA restricted market access when it’s own conglomerates are in trouble (using some flimsy excuse in the name of security and national interests). Besides reading some report please spend time in those countries and you will know an average citizens commitment to hard work in general (don’t make exception as rule). Prosperity do not come due to government policy but due to hard work of majority.
• leppr 6y ago
  > But my research indicates that Demovracy does truly have a shoddy track record at spurring development. First step is to stop referring to "democratic republics" as "Democracies" with a capital D. That's a popular misuse of the term that rulers love to abuse. It's fair to call it newspeak. Voting every 5 years for 1 entity to rule a whole country does not make a government democratic. It's merely an escape hatch, a stopgap to tyrannical rulers. It prevents the worst, but doesn't prevent the typical government cronyism.
• dukeyukey 6y ago
  While not underdeveloped, huge swathes of Eastern and Central Europe have seen tremendous economic growth since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the institution of liberal democracy through the region.
• hackflip 6y ago
  I think of democracy like a diversified portfolio. Putting all of your money into one stock can go either incredibly well or incredibly poorly, depending on what the one stock is. Diversifying the portfolio is the safest option; it may not yield the highest returns, but it also never yields the lowest returns.
  • vkou 6y ago
    > Diversifying the portfolio is the safest option; it may not yield the highest returns, but it also never yields the lowest returns. If we wave our hands and discount all the failed democracies (that turn into autocracies, or fall apart in civil wars), and if you think that the difference between India's development in the past 30 years and China's development in the past 30 years is just a matter of 'it's not the highest returns...' One's GDP/capita grew from $300 to $10,000, the other from $300 to $2000 in that timespan. That's not a difference of 'not the highest returns', that's a quantitative difference between remaining in poverty on one hand, and a hundreds of millions of people living Western lifestyles on the other. I think it's safe to say at this point that the historic record indicates that democracy and economic development are likely to be orthogonal.
• throwaway2037 6y ago
  This is a good comment. I would like to add Hongkong into that list, as it was a United Kingdom colony without any serious form of democracy during its crazy period of "Asian Tiger" growth. (Nominally, it had a local legislature, but it was toothless to pass any serious labour or economic reforms.) Let's dig deeper. You wrote: <<But my research indicates that Democracy does truly have a shoddy track record at spurring development.>> Zero trolling: I am always curious: How it possible that fast food restaurants (McD, etc.) in Danmark can pay the equivalent of 15 USD per hour? Yet, Danmark remains incredibly economically competitive. It is regularly short of labour (unemployment rate is considered too low by national economists). I picked Danmark instead of Norway (which has similar issues), because Danmark is not an oil major country. From the economically liberal view, Danmark should be crumbling under the weight of its personal income tax regime and globally leading wages for unskilled workers. Can anyone with formal economics training comment on this matter? We would appreciate your thoughts.
  • hnfong 6y ago
    > Nominally, it had a local legislature, but it was toothless to pass any serious labour or economic reforms. Its members were appointed by the governor until the last ~10 years. The last governor Chris Patten implemented democratic reforms at the very end, despite protests by the Chinese government. A meaningfully democratic legislature only existed between 1994 and 1997. Before that, the legislature wasn't even "toothless", it was simply a rubber stamp, or (less cynically) a way for the government to consult influential business interests ($$$$) about impending government policies.