Arabs believe economy is weak under democracy | Hacker News Reader

Arabs believe economy is weak under democracy

bbc.com

22 pointsrzk46 comments

Economy is strong under competent management, and weak under incompetent management.

Under democracy, the incompetent officials call be changed to let others try.

Under authoritarianism, those who speak again incompetent officials get silenced, and the everyone is stuck.

Democracy is not about being strong all the time, we already know such thing is impossible due to external events: trade partners recessions, trade disruptions, trade partner currency swings, large natural disasters. It prevents anyone from monopolizing power and using that to have everyone suffer from their incompetence for lifetime. (Also known as “Bad Emperor Problem” in context of Chinese history).

The issue is whether the democratic process in place is enough to dislodge the incompetence/corruption (or whether the process can be uncaptured by powerful interests if it is). Without an alternative, support will be granted to illiberalism or an authoritarian that promises to fix things themselves.

Democracy has little chance of working outside of a homogenous society, in a sufficiently diverse society it will eventually descend into tribal politics.

Canadas multiculturalism approach is working great. It’s the American melting pot that has dissolved into tribal identity politics. It helps that Canada can have more than two parties to vote for - when Americas 2 political parties go off the rails, there isn’t a third you can switch to who is acting more maturely

Let's pretend there were a nation of clones with an economy based on coal-mining. One day the demand for coal drops to zero and this spells economic doom. No matter that they're all clones; the angry citizens, looking for scapegoats, will divide society by zip code or gender or birth-date, and clash over that.

People 'descend into tribal politics' when they feel the outlook for their society is worsening. That is the driving force that determines whether society considers itself homogeneous.

People accept most any system of government when there is optimism in the air.

I think there is still tribalism within a homogenous society with respect to its place with other societies in the world. Within multicultural societies, there's the risk of systemizing economic hierarchies and niches between identities. A healthy society would do well to avoid this pigeonholing.

Arabs live in societies where corruption is rampant. Democracy is just as vulnerable to corruption as any other system (maybe more so).

CPI 2021 FOR MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA: SYSTEMIC CORRUPTION ENDANGERS DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS

https://www.transparency.org/en/news/cpi-2021-middle-east-no...

Maybe. However the US and other successful democratic nations all have episodes of rampant corruption in their past, and have all done a lot to eliminate it. The key ingredient in fighting corruption is an effective and legitimate government, which is hard to get without democracy (though some nations are trying.)

Initially everything is weaker under democracy. Democracy provides dynamism and accountability and eventually leads to superior outcomes. Lack of dynamism and excessive politically driven regulations are signs of dying democracy

I think that democracy as a governance model is also meant as a liberal economic model with free market ideals. Even the authoritarian Chinese have elements of a democratic governance model with voting, however the one party rule maintains firm control over the state and economy, superceding and overriding the autonomy of the liberal economy (of a dual economic model) when it comes to national economic goals set by the party. The market is only as free as the party allows, which is true in general but it's more the case in China.

With Arabs struggling to buy food, they may be wanting to replicate the economic success and rapid growth of the Chinese model as the end of the article says may happen in the uncertain future.

I think this also paints a potential future for other countries as economies become ravished by recession and inflation and war, with people wanting a strong authoritarian alternative against the usual democratic politics.

When people praise China they often fail to realise that getting gdp/capita to that of China would actually result in dramatic economic decline in their own countries. People used to praise USSR economic growth and industrialisation while completely ignoring the fact that the whole thing was only possible because of western tech and financed via the holodomor.

It's more rather that the USSR and China copied Western tech to catch up because of how backwards their development used to be. They started from feudal conditions and had to catch up to capitalism and promise to surpass it into the Marxist next phase of socialism and communism. The two states therefore had a strong focus on industrial development.

However, I think that the decline of the USSR was in how they failed to capture the advantages of international trade (like Cuba or North Korea remaining in economic statis). The Chinese in the Deng faction instead chose to partake in international trade even if it meant that they had to become the sweatshop of the world. After that industrialization, they now under Xi can be pompous and choose to push their weight around given the power of their trade and autarky.

Holodomor (and the Chinese famine too) are of course tragedies to be wary of. I think one reason they occured was due to the planners being unaware of the economic incentives and effects on individual actors of their rapid industrialization plans. This resulted in the USSR then launching a war on kulaks and the Chinese launching a war on Westernized intellectuals to make them comply with their plan.

Holodomor was literally caused by mass confiscation of grain for export. Proceeds were used to finance industrial projects frequently run by western enterprises. Collectivism came later. This is actually a pattern throughout communism countries. That’s why ppl in Cuba and Venezuela are suffering from malnutrition while food literally grows on trees

I'd say democracies/republics are about choosing stability over potential massive upside or downside. A great dictator can get shit done and improve lives very quickly(Singapore), on the other hand a terrible dictator can quickly turn things to shit.

Gridlock that many people complain about is almost the prime benefit of democracy, Scalia actually talked about this before he died

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTYa0nMmt-I

On the other side of gridlock, democratic centralism as associated with Leninism, is meant to break factional gridlocks and unite the entire one rule party behind a democratic decision to emphasize swiftness. If Arabs were starving, I think they would want swiftness in getting food and it may be why the article states that they may be looking to the Chinese model as an alternative in the uncertain future.

The US is about checks and balances instead, but it seems like in this gridlock that the Supreme Court is the de facto lawmaking body with it being able to make the recent sweeping political decisions of the US. There's also the rise of "Trumpism" (for the lack of a better word) where people want a strong leader to bend the rules and get things done with the most radical supporters acting extrajudicially. There are also radical anarchists on the other side acting extrajudicially too. I'm not too certain about how stable this system can be with the recession /inflation on top that's clawing away economic and financial gains of ordinary people that may end up radicalizing them.

The Supreme Court is not making laws, it's dismantling them. Those issues shall return to the legislature, where they belong.

Should note, as I understand it, a great portion of the US model of law is based on "Common Law", mostly made up of case law, and adopting some coded law. Case law is debated by lawyers and ruled on by a judge. Case law has the benefit of having legal experts examine particular situations and make arguments for/against an outcome. Coded law written by elected legislatures has difficult time anticipating edge cases, but is perceived as being more democratic.

Regarding your anxiety about systemic stability: take a news break. I get worried about our situation too, but there's not much I can do about the big picture, just take care of my little part. The news is pretty intense, even my 8 year old child asks about some of the situations they're describing with worry. Kind of sad if you think about it, grown ups trying to keep their jobs in a changing media landscape, as a side effect they're scaring our kids.

Gridlock/separation of powers has its upsides but it also has a big downside: lack of agency can mean lack of responsibility. "Oh sorry I can't do anything to fix this mess unless Congress acts" "well we in Congress passed a law but the administration is refusing to implement it properly" "it's the fault of the states" "blame the Feds" "the Supreme Court has tied our hands" etc. In an autocracy, the autocrat ideally has nobody to foist blame onto. (In practice they often blame imaginary bogeymen or minority groups)

Any benevolent dictator eventually loses power or dies.

Singapore is the sole exception to the rule that small coalitions produce worse outcomes for the populace. It was a fluke, Lee Kuan Yew just happened to be the right person in the right place at the right time. Generally speaking, small coalition regimes (governments that require the assent of a relatively small number of people to maintain power) have a strong incentive to favor private rewards to their supporters over public goods.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selectorate_theory?wprov=sfla1

>Singapore is the sole exception to the rule

historically democracy is the exception and plenty of kings and dictators have had success. Arab golden age was the result of a string of 4 straight solid rulers in a row who prioritized science. Pretty similar period for Rome with the 4 good emperors.

Democracy is more stable, finding a good successor worthy of all that power is the main challenge to non-democracies

Historically all those kingdoms were also quite poor, and societies that adopted norms that favored larger governing coalitions, such as the Republic of Venice, tended to flourish.

I think that's more rather the difference in economies with kingdoms traditionally extracting taxes from their fiefdoms and Venice being able to broadly trade. The difference in economy led to the difference in governance.

It's bidirectional and difference in governance absolutely produces differences in economies. After all, the economy is based on incentives, so when incentives change, so do economies.

In Why Nations Fail there was a great example of how certain sub-Saharan African peoples didn't use plows for agriculture. The Europeans assumed it was because they were unsophisticated but actually it was because their king taxed them in such a way as to leave them with the same amount of grain regardless of how much they produced. They had zero incentive to be productive and therefore had no use for plows. As soon as the tax system changed, they began to use plows.

Likewise, in highly corrupt systems, there is no reason to start a business, since the incentive monopolists will not permit it to compete anyway. That's why Ukraine, a country with relatively high levels of infrastructure and education, is so poor.

See also Amy Chua's book World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability (2003).

political and economic systems are less enmeshed than we are led to believe. The belief the democracy automagically transmutes into economic development is been disproved, in the same way that economic success transmuting into democracy has been disproved.

The Arabic people cited in this article have good reason to think they way they do - actual lived experienced of democracy failing to deliver the goods

I don't find it surprising that Iraq is the most skeptical given the kind of democracy that was forced upon them and how the resulting struggle for the dispossessed former ruling minority led to the rise of ISIS.

yes of course, almost all Arab 'democracies' have been coerced upon the local population by imperial / neo imperial forces. I would imagine any imposed political system would be rejected on principle by any people who do not accept total subjugation, the oxymoronic demand that democracy advocates seem to be making

Democracy isn’t just a system of government, it’s a cultural thing, a paradigm that the people and those in business and government must buy into. If they don’t, you get corruption and decay and fighting. However, you get even more corruption and decay without democracy, you just get less fighting since voicing your grievances lands you in jail

That doesn’t bode well for the US at all

I think it would be wise for people to look at philosophers of old and see what kind of thoughts they penned on democratic governments/democratic rule. It's quite eye opening that a lot of the core issues have been contested for a very, very long time. Not everyone thought it was the greatest thing.

The problem is not democracy, it is electoralism. Deciding who should rule by voting simply is not an effective means for the public to wield power. There's a profound lack of granularity, an incentive towards short-termism, a bias that favors charismatic demagogues, and a tendency for the formation of political cliques.

Referenda aren't much better, as they give disproportionate power to media institutions. The average person simple does not have much time, energy, or incentive to devote to developing a deep understanding of political issues.

Rather, a sortition-based system centered around deliberative citizens' assemblies is more optimal (at least for societies with realtivelt little linguistic diversity). By convening a representative random sample of the population and giving them the opportunity to research and deliberate, you create an avatar of the public that can most effectively rule on the public's behalf.

Of course, citizens' assemblies are too unwieldy (and expensive) to be used for all aspects of legislation. But they can also be used to appoint administrators, veto legislation, propose referenda, etc.

Democracy just decides who rules.

Economy can be weak or strong depending on how the person that rules - rules.

So these things are orthogonal, at least in short term. Long term democracy cuts down on very bad rulers (because they lose power before they can do too much harm). But that's about it.

Democracy or autocracy are largely irrelevant for economic growth. A sustained economic growth is driven by perfecting the balance of risk-taking at the individual as well as societal level.

Too much risk-taking and you end up with rampant crime, civil war, high delinquency on loans (if any loans are given out at all): think Niger and RDC

Not enough risk-taking and you end up with general stasis and stagnation of anything and everything, stuff doesn't move at all in any direction. Think Japan.

Regardless of what people say, it seems the US is the closest to getting that balance right. So if the US wants to be the country of FAANGs it also needs to embrace being the country of Chicago/Baltimore type social landscape. You don't get one without the other.

Matter of fact the US of the 80s and 90s got that balance way better than today's US.

If China was an example, then their Deng years were ones of liberalization that led to tremendous economic growth. However, they were ended by the rise of the Xi years of a strong leader promising to reign in the corruption of the Deng years.

There's also a parallel in Russia with the post-Communist shock therapy leading to a new level of corruption. This led to Putin coming to power to reign in corruption (under his control) and bring about some stability against the shock therapy. Even now against the punitive sanctions for the Ukraine war, he's managing to keep the ruble stable and even increased its value.

I think US leaders like Trump will be the first among those who want to strongarm stability even if it dampens a liberal economic model. He reoriented the US economy towards a trade war with China as opposed to free trade, which did incentivize domestic development as opposed to outsourcing to China.

Your examples miss that autocracy is a form of government, not a single person ruling. An autocrat can be toppled and a new one take his place, the regime didn't change at all, only the individual at the top did.

An autocracy in which the autocrats turnover (not within the same family) is similar to a democracy will be as economically healthy as that democracy.

Matter of fact I'd say healthier because it takes balls and risktaking at the societal level to topple an autocrat every 3 or 4 years, it's the same risk-taking which would produce exceptional results in entrepreneurship and trade.

Creative destruction can't be limited to trade and entrepreneurship. It's either everywhere in the system or nowhere at all. Nothing says more 'creative destruction' than toppling an autocrat every 3 or 4 years, only to rally once again behind the new strongman which will be toppled himself in 3 or 4 years time

What exactly does risk-taking have to do with drawing shapes a map and refusing to allow Black families to own homes outside those shapes? That's why Chicago has the crime it does; it has nothing to do with entrepreneurialism.

What’s the purpose of that study? Who came up with the idea of asking random Arab folks if they believe economy is weak under democracy ? Most of them don’t live under democracy, and all it shows is merely how medias have shaped their political views.

There are much more factors affecting economy than just political regimes.

Doesn’t seem we can get much insights from this. It’s not clear what’s the motivation for conducting such a study, except maybe undermining democracy which is the new fashion among "free thinkers".

As it's usually pointed out, democracy is not the most efficient form of managing a country. It's just the safest.

The Arabs in the article might ask it is the safest for who? If they don't have food (with 1/3 of people running out of money to buy food), then as the article says, the future may be uncertain and they might change to the Chinese one-party rule and focus on economic development instead.

Democracy only works with an informed electorate. A dysfunctional democracy is every almost as bad as a dictatorship.

.. which is why it is such a travesty that Americans tolerate near total secrecy with regards to the crimes of their state. You cannot have an informed vote about foreign policy if you're never seeing the victims of prior policies.

I just assume that one can’t become POTUS without bloodying their hands. As much as I’m sure Obama is a very nice person, I also know he authorised a couple extrajudicial executions in foreign soil. Also, he probably sanctioned support for a coup in Brazil in 2016.

Such things come with the job.

> Democracy only works with an informed electorate

Even more fundamentally, an electorate that isn't going hungry.

That helps a lot.

[Democrazy: The Movie] for Artards

It's true. Not just the economy, democracy just about trashes everything. The idea of democracy is that the 'majority' gets to play the dominating puppeteer. The 'Majority' always tends to be weak and it's usually the 0.1% who do all the real building. Democracy doesn't work in the smallest social unit, that is the family; the Mother gets all the shots, mostly coming from the back. Democracy doesn't work in a Corporation; it's still 'Hacker News', right? So how is Democracy supposed to work in a suicide-binge crazy circus of 'mostly evil retards'. The reason why the Democracy cool-aid is pumped into our veins so emphatically and righteously is because, Democracy and its puppets are an excellent facade for those really in Power. After all, who fucked up? YOU.

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