3 ms·
Western Liberal democracy is basically vanquished in Asia, right at the time that Asia seems to be poised to dominate economically and demographically. Liberal
by rsj_hn 5y ago
Western Liberal democracy is basically vanquished in Asia, right at the time that Asia seems to be poised to dominate economically and demographically. Liberal democracy isn't making any inroads in Africa and Russia has certainly given it a firm no, with the Vysehrad states in Eastern Europe also turning away. Basically only Latin America is up for grabs at the moment and the results there seem mixed at best. We could well face a situation where this is a phenomena reserved for Western Europe and North America, with the rest of the world following the Chinese model. People forget that the U.S. beat the USSR in the cold war because of economic, not ideological, superiority. But it appears that the connection between democracy and economic outperformance is looking strained.
But what is perhaps more sobering is realizing that North America and Western Europe themselves look to be more interested in following the Chinese model, basically a surveillance state led by an anti-democratic elite that has no qualms about using violence and extra-judicial mechanisms of social control to supress popular movements like the Yellow Vests in France. In that case, the big difference between the Chinese model and the Western model would be that in the West, popular movements can be crushed as long as the big corps are OK with it, whereas in China the big corps are firmly under the thumb of the government.
I think those worried about authoritarianism should be much more concerned about the power of tech and big corps to control the public square than having the "wrong" people win elections, because the defending the process is much more important than the worrying about the outcome.
- orwin 5y agoThe pandemic and the gvt handouts are the only thing that crushed the yellow vests. Demographic dividends are a thing. Liberal, socialist democracies use them better other systems. I think in 20 years, when the demographic transition end in India, the regrets will be high and if there's no support from other economies, the effects will be 100 times worse than ex USSR countries, Portugal, Spain or Greece (European countries that missed on quite a few dividends).
- random314 5y agoIndia is unlikely to reap any demographic dividends. Unemployment is increasing and jobs have been shrinking since 2015.
- inglor_cz 5y agoI am from one of the Visegrad states. Our democracy is mostly in the same flawed state, with a recent addition of Twitter outrages over culture war topics. This is no surprise; a flawed democracy is precisely what the original Austria-Hungary once was, more flawed in Hungary, less flawed in Austria.
- soco 5y agoOne could say the actual flawed state is a huge step forward from the flawed state of 30 years ago. When we cherry pick examples to compare to, we tend to miss a lot...
- dTal 5y ago>I think those worried about authoritarianism should be much more concerned about the power of tech and big corps to control the public square than having the "wrong" people win elections, because the defending the process is much more important than the worrying about the outcome. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, because the "wrong" people winning elections is - in part - exactly how the process gets destroyed. Once in power, they twist the system to stay there - that's the pattern.