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We see litters of articles and papers from liberal media that democracy is globally dying. While I don't believe this is happening right away, could most democracies become less so in the future?
The German YouTuber Kraut some time ago had suggested that the political turmoil in liberal democracies is largely a result of the collapse of the USSR and with it, the Cold War consensus of combatting communism which unified various different groups.
I don't think American liberals are particularly holding up democratic principles in their own domain either, with how they deplatform and censor their opponents. Essentially, they're really just consolidating their electoral power while trying to protect the thin sheen of freedom in America. This bias extends across the US establishment. If you look at the highest-earning zipcodes they've all flipped massively to the democrats over the past few decades. Same is true if you look at the Ivy League. Seen in this light, the FBI was merely following the trend when they raided Ryan Kelley's home and other such harassment campaigns will not face scrutiny because a large portion of the US elite agree with the FBI targeting their political opponents. This is why they refuse to let Jan 6 die, it was certainly a riot, but nowhere close to a coup. We know what a real coup looks like from the recent Sri Lankan crisis. In South Korea, gender wars and the excessive divide over feminism has effectively become a major electoral talking point, although President Yoon Suk-yeol is married to a career woman himself who doesn't wish to be addressed as First Lady and has 0 kids with him. The state of the Koreas, one being a depressing totalitarian state and the other being a depressing, hyper consumerist protectorate of the US almost feels like an ill fated destiny. Even in India, the progressive pressure has generated a lot of culture wars of its own, where the ruling BJP's base perceive liberals as being sympathetic to Pakistan while levelling every epithet against India which would also be relevant to their archrival, and have reacted strongly. Couple with that the malthusian growth rates and the neoliberal decay preceding their rise to electoral power from being just another one of many parties in the country. But Russia and China, the "authoritarian competitors to the free world", are both strong societies, I can't imagine something like 1CP being done away so quickly if it was instituted in the US. They don't have to deal with electoral politics and do not have to deal with culture wars. And with an ascendant China, its proximity to China might tempt India to remodify its political institutions to have a shot at uplifting its hundreds of millions from poverty.
Now I'm not saying culture wars will end democracies, but its probably a symptom of decadence in democratic societies combined with the rise of social media highlighting our differences with millions of our own countrymen. Maybe I'm young and only speaking from my own limited experience? Curious to know what others think.
Logically, shouldn't we expect powerful absolutist/totalitarian states to dominate, ceteris paribus?
I think it was only favourable geography that shielded Britain from autocracy and let democracy get so strong. They were left alone to focus totally on naval power. Everyone else who tried this got pummelled (Netherlands, Carthage and Athens for example). They weren't islands. They had to divide their attention between sea and land. Maxxing out naval power, bringing in the trade money and having accessible coal turned out to be the dominant strategy, if you can avoid being invaded by a stronger land power while you build up.
If it weren't for British naval power, French royal or Napoleonic absolutism would've taken over Europe and the world. The British were the ones who paid for the Austrians and Prussians to impale themselves on French bayonets.
Because of that naval power and a great deal of luck the United States got the best parts of an entire continent to rule and a zero-threat hemisphere. There's no more fortunate nation on the planet - of course their inherited suboptimal quirks will survive. If it weren't for vast Anglo-American resources, Germany would've won both world wars and cemented authoritarianism as the reigning world ideology. The Germans got outspent 2:1 in both world wars. It's very hard to see how the Allies win if you take away half their resources for a 'fair' fight. We saw what happened when it was just France and Britain vs Germany, just two global empires vs a single oil-poor state no larger than Texas. Germany trounced them and the Benelux, Denmark, Norway and Poland.
Due to incredible geographical and historical luck, democracy and liberalism managed to snowball their way to global dominance despite being less competitive than authoritarian/totalitarian systems. If there was a land bridge between France and Britain, Britain would've just been another Eurasian land power like Spain or Sweden rather than an unstoppable liberal juggernaut. We would all be living in one party states today.
Liberalism and democracy has obvious issues with incentives: loot the country while you're in charge to deny it to the other side. Or loot the country to bribe your voters. It divides the country between parties and opens up avenues for foreign interference. Poland-Lithuania dabbled with liberalism on the Continent and got partitioned. Switzerland only survived due to favourable defensive geography. Illiberal states can more easily mobilize the population for offensive wars, grow stronger and repeat the process. For competitiveness between equals, you need militarism and a centralized state. You need to devote a larger fraction of the pie to military power than the enemy, you can't just be the US and have an economy so big you win conflicts just by entering them. This isn't to say that authoritarian systems are perfect or even desirable, just that they're more competitive when they're not faced with innately stronger opponents.
This bodes ill for the looming conflict with China, the first time the democracies face a power their own size. Naturally, it started with a disastrous defeat in that delusional liberals decided to transfer our manufacturing base to China on the basis that this would somehow make them liberalise. There's an echo of Munich in that. No matter that China guns down liberal protestors in Tiananmen or starts the Third Taiwan Straits crisis in 1996-7, they just ignore evidence and invest China into becoming the world's greatest manufacturing power (which had been the US's crowning achievement for over a century). I personally blame multinationals bribing foolish policymakers for this mega-disaster but it's still a failure of liberalism to allow this to happen.
Maybe we get ridiculously lucky again. Maybe we can coast on previous victories. But I'm doubtful.
Autocracies are good at mobiliziation: launching ambitious campaigns, overthrowing previous government, suppressing dissent, quick small annexations (bites). They are not good at sustained growth over controlled territories (in fact even sustained resource extraction).
Historically, most expansionist endeavors of past autocracies had failed either immediately or via slow degradation. Aside from counterfactuals, what real cases do you have in mind of successful autocracies? And of course, it depends on how we measure performance: if we consider absolute values, than autocracies might boast their mobilization spikes; but if we integrate area under the curve, they loose.
Notation: By democracy here I mean simply operation of a representative assembly, by autocracy – strong hierarchy, branching out from a single ruler. Not speaking about welfare state, universal suffrage, etc.
From theoretical perspective, every enterprise, involving collective action, will suffer from free riding and principal agent problems. In both regimes this is solved via negotiation -- first you have to arrive at agreement, then you need a commitment device to secure it. Autocrats do this in the background: build satiate (coup-proof) elites around them by reward and punishment -- but it is always a precarious personal-trust-based balance. Democracies make negotiation and commitment more sable via institutionalization. Part of the process which is open to public, is just a spectacle; the point is that by making process more formal, it's easier to track maneuvers of all actors, and quickly react by forging coalitions. Even modern autocracies nowadays use nominal, publicly visible parties as a commitment device.
Edit: China has been growing fast for only ~30 years and still haven't achieved US GDP per capita. Initial growth is a sign-up bonus for capitalistic approach, the game starts when growth saturates.
The Russian and Chinese empires were doing pretty well, growing for centuries. The latter collapsed because of the British, the former collapsed because of the Prussians/Germans (who themselves did very well up until they started facing the British). And when the British and other Europeans arrived to pull the rug out from underneath everyone else, they ruled their colonies autocratically.
I don't understand what you're talking about commitment devices. There are internal factions in all parties and states, from the US democratic party to the CCP. The methods the CCP uses to coordinate are more centralized and straight forward than what the US Democrats do because they enjoy the advantages of deciding on a central strategy. A strong paramount leader can say "Hide our strength and bide our time" and they'll actually execute the strategy. If you don't obey the party, you get imprisoned or sent off to Inner Mongolia. There's no Chinese Manchin holding up Xi's legislative agenda. There are bottom-up elements too, they let local areas try out various economic ideas to see if they work before imposing them nationwide. It's a little like Auftragstaktik, 'get semiconductors produced, we'll give you some money, make it happen and we'll promote you'.
The Democrats or Republicans have all these people pushing on them because they're less centralized. You have cliques like the Project for a New American Century plotting to start random wars in the Middle East. You have the Tea Party plotting to wreck the government. You have various wings of both parties blatantly bribing voters by printing out money and giving it away. Of course there are factional interests in China too - some people allege that One Belt One Road is about pandering to China's construction-industrial complex. But it clearly serves their national strategy as well as factional interests. Factions in America are much stronger and the country is much more divided.
Expecting China to reach US GDP per capita in under 30 years is ridiculous. In 1989, Chinese GDP per capita was $407, the US was at $22814. That they've narrowed a 50x difference to <4x is extremely impressive, especially considering that America has a host of geographic and historical advantages. It is not easy to create hundreds of millions of jobs.
In theory, I agree that hierarchical top-down control propagates signals better. As for practice, I can provide examples from the Soviet history, which illustrate the following problems:
Signal from the top might be initially poor (unrealistic), and all subordinate levels would have to cope with it
Interest groups and factions, which you acknowledged, erode control and create corruption. Democracy has those too, but I’d argue it has less overall corruption due to formal influence channels, like lobbying, donation campaigns, etc. Hidden corruption in autocracy might remain unaccountable for a long time.
Struggle between US parties is more transparent, with a lot of stuff exposed by journalists. Publicity reduces space for maneuver (you can’t make things up randomly or keep denying everything). In autocracy outcomes of conflicts often depend on personal connections and ability to maneuver; there is no way for outsiders (even within same circle) to get the signal, as the eventual purge would be advertised as generic treason or whatever
American failures are more exposed, but whether they are more numerous/deleterious is a purely empirical question. I’d be glad to know evidence on China.
Agreed. My point is that China and US are facing different slopes of the same S-curve at the moment (economically, and historically, as you noted), so direct comparison of growth rates is not meaningful.
Well there are natural problems in measuring inherently obscured phenomena in corruption.
If we compare public infrastructure, China crushes the US. They actually finished their HSR program and it is creating an 8% return according to the World Bank. Meanwhile, California's HSR has yet to begin operation, while costs balloon.
If we compare military research, US officials worry that Chinese procurement is much more efficient: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/china-acquiring-new-weapons-five-times-faster-than-u-s-warns-top-official
If we compare quantitative military procurement, China builds a mid-sized European navy every 18 months. The US Navy is actually shrinking as they decommission recently purchased warships like the Littoral Combat Ships along with relics from the 90s or earlier.
As far as I can see, all the US's strengths seem to be concentrated in the private sector. SpaceX rocketry and Starlink open up novel capabilities for the US. Microsoft, Facebook and so on are leading the world in AI. Intel and AMD are very good at designing chips. But these advantages are what you'd expect from a very large, advanced economy. They don't indicate that the government is excellent, only that it isn't Soviet-tier in worsening development. If the government was capable, they'd be building huge numbers of nuclear plants (like China is), developing infrastructure, creating an effective healthcare system (China's life expectancy just surpassed the US), fighting drugs and reducing violent crime. The US is well behind China in these fields despite being richer. Thus I conclude that China has a more capable government.
I also don't see why publicity and journalists mean you can't make things up. Certain elements of the US political-media-intelligence establishment made up a Trump-Russia collusion story that spread around the world: https://nypost.com/2022/05/23/fbi-told-agents-trump-russia-data-source-was-from-doj-not-clinton-tied-lawyer/
A different bunch of the same sort made up Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq and used it to start a pointless war. While China does disappear people from public attention or conceal various incidents like Tiananmen, that seems to be a much more natural thing to do than accusing the President of working for a foreign power or invading random countries. That doesn't enhance national strength.
Thanks for evidence, that's interesting. I know very little about China to comment. Soviet Union was 3rd fastest growing economy in 1928-1970 (however, as this article shows, choosing time window changes picture a lot), and its military complex was relatively efficient too. W/t Gorbachev I believe it could have grown further, albeit slowly. Drawing parallels in how US was taking stock of SU, it seems they usually overestimated the threat and were misled by gross numbers and lack of official data. Some of this obsession with net output seems to hold for China, judging by retracted papers (1) (2). I need better stats, but most Chinese patents were filed in Chinese patent office, which might imply the same issues with quality, despite clearly superior number of applications.
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No. Russian Empire displayed noticeable growth only during the short period of industrialization after 1880. P. Gregory attributes much of it to extensive measures:
As for impact of autocracy, most Russian rulers were hardcore conservatives and fiercely opposed to any innovation. Witte, the main engineer of industrialization, was fortunate enough to be tolerated by Nicholas II; Stolypin, who had more ambitious plans, wasn’t so fortunate.
src: The Industrialization and Economic Development of Russia through the Lens of a Neoclassical Growth Mode, pdf
WWI was a proximate cause of 1917 revolution, but the meaningful cause has been pending systematically since revolution of 1905 (similarly, prompted by defeat from Japan): backward institutions and incompetent uncompromising ruler. I’d be glad to share more details, if you wish. Open to counter evidence.
Edit: formatting
Territorially and demographically the Russian empire was growing for centuries, that was what I was primarily thinking of. However, it still displayed impressive (but sub British) industrial growth and labour productivity.
https://ideas.repec.org/p/hig/wpaper/199-hum-2020.html
The authors argue that Soviet historiography sought to create the impression that Russia was backward, exaggerating legitimate industrial weakness (which it had, not being as close to the traditional centres of wealth and Atlantic ports in Western Europe). However, Russian state-sponsored investments in metallurgy, alchohol and petrochemicals put those sectors on par with the British.
Furthermore, I'd argue that the 1905 war was ultimately caused by logistical difficulties innate in having to supply an army all the way across Siberia over 1 railway. Russia has a natural disadvantage in naval power too (rarely having good ports and focusing mostly on land), so that would complicate fighting a naval war on the other side of the world! The Japanese were closer and fairly well-organized themselves, it's not unforeseeable that they could win a war in Manchuria, right next door.
Great paper, thank you! It provides much more detailed and up-to-date view of the imperial industry, than the book I cited (by Paul Gregory, who is a renowned scholar and doesn’t belong to an early-soviet tradition of downplaying tzarist achievements).
output weights, was at 81.9 per cent of the U.K. level, […] on a par with France’s and significantly superior to Italy’s.
That’s it. Vodka has always been a Russian superpower. It also accounted for a huge share of tax revenues (around 30% !) in both imperial and soviet govts.
High labour productivity is a surprise to me. That said, the article shows that productivity varied a lot across industries, and ~70% of population was still employed in a much more backward agriculture, which spoils per capita figures.
They support the evidence for monopolies (which I attribute to state policy and more directly to the tzar and his cronies), but also note it wasn’t a distinct issue (if issue at all) of autocracy. This also downplays my argument.
All that data however doesn’t elucidate the connection between autocrat and his economic policy. The growth was absent before 1880, and I believe afterwards it was only impeded by autocrats. Railroad construction – a major industrialization booster – was initiated and done almost solely by Witte – a savvy technocrat, whom Nicholas despised and eventually pushed into resignation. Stolypin, who tried to modernize agriculture, faced fierce resistance from status-quo factions. Arms industry during WWI was also dominated by Romanovs' cronies, with other factories almost staying idle, when they could contribute.
As for 1905, defeat from Japan fueled public sentiment, but it wasn’t decisive at all. The general strike of 1905 was precipitated by many decades of struggle: Bloody Sunday, local worker strikes, peasant arsons, socialist revolutionary activities, etc. The public opinion had been formed long ago, and refined into various (unofficial) parties. Their proclamations and complaints were focused on the tzar’s incompetence and intransigence. It’s a long story, but this summary is close to my perception
If the last paragraph appears too handwaving, I can bring examples from the book (in a separate message)
Oh I'm not dissing your book, that was just their general argument which I was summarizing.
I think Russia was a successful autocracy. They faced a much more challenging geography than the Western Europeans, the area they got to take over was not the fertile Americas with endless rivers but cold and infertile Siberia. They didn't get any of the good Atlantic ports. They mostly faced the strongest non-European powers like the Ottomans, Persians, Chinese and Japanese rather than rich and easy-to-conquer foes. That they then managed to industrialize at similar rates to the West is impressive given that they started off with a poorer, less literate country. I think this shows that autocracies can develop at similar speeds to democratic countries over relatively fixed territories even in worse circumstances.
Even if Witte did get kicked out by Nicholas, surely that's a personal failure of a specific leader rather than a systemic failure. Tsar Alexander appointed him in the first place! Stolypin was appointed Prime Minister and Interior Minister by Nicholas. It seems to me that much of the damage to Russia was caused by bad luck in that they faced a stronger autocracy in Germany and a coterie of anarchists and Bolsheviks who were dead set on killing anyone who wanted to improve the country. RIP Stolypin.
No, I mentioned the book as it seems decent, but apparently is not granular enough. Your paper is a good signal for me to update.
Gregory classified Ru pattern of growth as a typical "fast start" of emerging economies, mostly extensive. And this makes sense because, as you noted, Ru didn't have much fertile soil beyond Black Earth Region, access to maritime trade beyond Baltic; but a vast space in the East to colonize, reaping low hanging fruits. China wasn't powerful at the moment, being abused by Europeans and Japanese alike. But the article clearly shows intensive growth, that's important.
Russia is a good instance of autocracy treatment group, in a natural experiment of European powers. Causality is elusive, though, as ever. Was Russia (and Japan) successful due to autocrats yielding to liberal reforms, import of European institutions and technologies; or due to restraining them? Public opinion blamed failures on entrenchment of conservative elites, backed by the tzar. But opinion is usually biased against status-quo, and the state still was a major investor in industry and education.
Speaking of counter(factuals), if an autocrat could be pressured by the public into popular reforms (like Alexander II or Nicholas II), like parliamentary Britain or France were pressured by strikes into welfare programs, what is so special about autocracy? On the other hand, if the same nominal autocracy gives raise to Stalin's industrialization, Brezhnevian stagnation and Chinese rapid growth, doesn't it imply that economic policy might be more predictive of performance, than power vertical?
Good thread. RIP Stolypin.
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I think your historical analysis is a bit off. France was plainly the "democratic" side of the conflict for the decade-plus after the revolution. All of the opponents to France, other than Britain, were absolute monarchies. Democratizing the French army is exactly what made them such an amazing war machine -- they could bring huge amounts of people under arms, and they promoted by merit, whereas the rest of Europe still had small, aristocratic armies, which is why France spent 20 years kicking everyone's ass.
I also think that both Hitler and Napoleon demonstrate that authoritarian societies have a major problem with being tied to the judgment of one guy, who can at any point make a catastrophic error (like invading Russia). Aggressive authoritarian societies tend to unite other states against them. Lastly, I do think that democracies benefit from a kind of "wisdom-of-the-crowds" thing, but I'm willing to concede that that may be wishful thinking!
As for China, I look at their increasingly disastrous Covid-zero policy, and the ramifications of the one-child policy starting to really be felt in their housing market and overall economy, and I'm not as worried as I once was about them ending up running everything. They have huge, not easily solved problems. Covid-zero is such an obviously stupid policy that it makes me seriously doubt their decision making apparatus. But they could start WW3, which could be the worst thing to ever happen, so there's that.
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What is it about autocracies that’s supposed to be more adaptive?
The 20th century provided some staggering evidence that it’s not the potential for command economy. Nor were the totalitarians particularly resilient against internal struggle; perhaps China has surpassed that issue, if they can ride their demographic transition into continued success? I’m partial to the theory that democracy serves as a release valve for tensions which would otherwise boil into bloody insurrection.
I have to wonder if a similar narrative existed in 400 CE. “It was a precarious military situation that converted Constantine; without such chance, now that the Empire is beset, surely this Christianity will collapse. Real Roman traditions always dominated before, and they will again.”
Well it was a precarious military situation that put a spear through Julian's chest. Give Julian the Apostate 30 years and Constantine 2 and things might turn out differently.
Autocracies have more freedom to undertake long-term strategies. They can resist getting dragged into popular but unwise decisions in the long term. They have a free hand to wage aggressive wars of conquest and mobilize more from their population. They can create extremely powerful militaries. As above, when Napoleonic France, Imperial or Nazi Germany faced opponents of similar economic size, they crushed them.
But the incentive of popularity isn't the only reason leaders make shortsighted choices. You could just as easily argue that democracy hedges against autocrats doing short sighted things. A military dictator panders to his cadre even in peacetime; his powerful military is a political tool as much as a diplomatic one.
Who the hell told Hitler to go forward with Operation Barbarossa?
If we assume a Platonic philosopher-king, making only morally and strategically correct decisions, there's no need to tie him down with populism. I'm not convinced that such a king can be created by concentrating power in the hands of mere mortals.
Barbarossa made a tonne of sense. Why would the Germans rely forever on a bitter ideological enemy for their vital fuel supplies? This is a question the Germans should have pondered in recent years. Stalin was building up his army and airforce, industrializing rapidly. Why wait till they get stronger? They also wanted Soviet land, that was the whole point of the war.
German intelligence thought the Russian army was under half its actual size, so it would be easy to win. They had won the last war with a bigger version of Russia while they were still bogged down in France. There was no way they could've known that every Abwehr agent in Russia had been turned. Later on Hitler said that if he knew how many tanks the Soviets were producing, he wouldn't have invaded. Barbarossa was a rational decision predicated on faulty intelligence.
The real question we should be asking is how two global empires managed to lose so catastrophically to Nazi Germany when they started off in such a commanding position, while Germany had an army of 100,000 men. Letting Hitler build a powerful army, letting him have the Rhineland, Austria and Czechoslovakia - that is the real disaster that made everything else possible. It wasn't just a failure of intelligence, it was a total failure of comprehending the situation, a surrender to cowardice. The US making China an industrial superpower is a similar kind of completely stupid decision.
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I think your framing as Napoleon as "absolutist" is wildly incorrect. Napoleon is the central figure of liberalism's history. He more than anyone else is why liberalism won out. France unburdened by the extractive institutions of feudalism was able to fight the whole of Europe and (nearly) win. Massive armies of patriotic men led by officers who gained their positions by merit, backed by an economy not hamstrung by the Church, nobility, and state monopolies forced the rest of Europe's monarchies to make popular reforms, or perish. Even when Napoleon was ultimately defeated he had made 1848 inevitable.
Market economies tend to very badly outcompete state-directed ones. And that means that in a war, it's the market economies that are vastly more efficient and producing all you need to win one. In WWII the western allies absolutely clowned Germany, Japan, and to a lesser extent the Soviet Union with respect to production of materiel.
French revolution happened before Napoleon and he added little to its constitutional essence. He was an extremely talented commander, who seized national sentiment and usurped power at a time of turmoil. Here are some quotes from AH:
Another one:
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Totalitarian systems tend to suppress innovation, either deliberately because the powerful fear the social changes they might produce, or unintentionally by restricting ideas and freedom of action. For most of history, innovation was sufficiently slow that this wasn't important, or at least took centuries to catch up with a given society, but the industrial revolution rapidly accelerated the process. Today a nation can become economically and militarily uncompetitive in as little as 10 or 20 years. That's fast enough to register on the planning horizons of current leaders.
China has done well for itself economically over the last few decades, but this was mostly catch-up growth, the adoption of already-existing tech. Here, there's no need to have a society that fosters innovation through freedom of action and a free exchange of ideas, since you're merely deploying the products of innovation that took place elsewhere. There's also much less risk of social disruption, as you can look at the social changes that particular technologies created in countries that deployed them earlier, and shape deployment to ameliorate those (see e.g. the Great Firewall). Incrementally improving an existing technology, such as by refining the manufacturing process for an existing product, has similar properties.
China has yet to demonstrate it's capable of fundamental innovation, of being first to invent and deploy a basically new thing. So far, the signs don't look too great — a tech industry crackdown, a cryptocurrency ban, a requirement for government pre-approval of individual App Store apps. It's hard to believe China won't carefully restrict AI capabilities to a few trusted institutions. I could see them objecting even to something as anodyne as Stable Diffusion before too long, given that it will happily generate as many offensive caricatures as you'd like of Xi Jinping.
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This was explicitly the reason that the leaders of the 13 colonies wanted to create a single country, rather than 13 separate countries: Separate countries meant standing armies, and standing armies were a threat to liberty.
Can you explain the basis for this claim? Democracy and liberalism are associated with greater wealth, and it is well known that that democracies are very successful at war; the only question is why.
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