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Comment by atleastoptimal | Hacker News Reader

Authoritarian states almost never prosper, even if they have all the tools to do so. Everything built on lies and games of power will crumble under its own villainy.

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Or more pragmatically: whatever your motivation to become leader, you can only keep doing that if you stay leader. That means keeping the support of those with the power to dispose you. In authoritarian regimes that often means vast amounts of resources flow to military leadership, police, oligarchs, and anybody else who can effect regime change, their corruption it's tolerated, and everybody else gets what's left. If anything.

The genius of democracy is that regular citizens have the power to cause regime change, so leaders are well advised to care about their opinion too, in addition to all the other groups

In democracy, just create fights between groups on issues of no-substance, and have two political parties. You get a system, which appears to be democratic, but controlled by the elite (uber wealthy, CEO-class, elite schools, think tanks, elite class of politicians, elite intellectuals specialized in propaganda). Politicians/leaders/parties change every x years, based on the election schedule, but this is a better system for the elite.

Especially easy in election systems that turn into two-party systems on their own, like first-past-the-post.

> but this is a better system for the elite.

Empirically it’s better for everyone. So yes, you’re technically correct

China seems to be doing okay. So much so that every western government seems to be becoming more authoritarian.

China improved since the 1949 revolution by becoming gradually less authoritarian in matters of economic security. Even so, their GDP per capita is still a fraction of their neighbors (Taiwan, South Korea, Japan)

Singapore also uses authoritarian capitalism and out-GDP-per-capita's all of the above, including the US.

Maybe the size of a country is a bigger factor than all.

> including the US.

Just barely. Also you should be comparing it to a single city in the US.

That's the only developed dictatorship in the world though, nobody knows if it's possible to replicate that outside of a city state

Is that cause and effect defensible? I haven’t heard any Americans civilians or politicians claim overtly or subtly that the US should be more like China.

> Is that cause and effect defensible?

Probably not, it could be for other reasons but it’s certainly happening.

> I haven’t heard any Americans civilians or politicians claim overtly or subtly that the US should be more like China.

It depends what you mean by like China. Nobody’s advocating little red books but there’s plenty advocating for mass surveillance, control of speech, banning books or telling women what the can and can’t do with their bodies.

It's the natural process of politicians, they always want more and more control

OK for who? Not the 10s of millions murdered.

China "seems" to be doing okay, and they have succeeded in lifting hundreds of millions out of desperate poverty. But their GDP numbers are all lies because every level of the CCP hierarchy has been exaggerating on official reports for decades. There is no independent verification allowed. External estimates based on resource flows and satellite imagery present a much bleaker picture.

> Everything built on lies and games of power will crumble under its own villainy.

US seems to be doing fine.

US is doing fine despite its political and cultural issues, not because of them. We'll see how that turns out in 30 years.

That's what they said 30 years ago "in 20 years we'll see america crumble because of policies of $THE_OTHER_PARTY"

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