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Comment by mothballed | Hacker News Reader

Depends on the form of authoritarian. The two of the richest countries on a GDP PPP basis are Lichtenstein and Singapore, also some of the most free economically, yet they could probably be described as benevolent authoritarian systems. Dubai further behind, although some similar points.

It seems authoritarians that know how to use their authority to force the populace to accept (some forms of) freedom can perform better than democracies. To the point the reigning monarch of Lichtenstein is basically a straight up fuedal prince, although one that has a sort of half libertarian/ancap flavor to how he wields power. Yet very few people describe Lichtenstein as a dystopia, it just kind of quietly gets ignored as an example of authoritarian success in both wealth and freedom.

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That makes sense to me. Authoritarian government is not inherently abusive of citizens, even though it often gets used in rhetoric as though that was the case. It's just that there are no guard rails against the whims of the people in charge, so you better hope you manage to keep good people in charge forever (and that is obviously not going to happen).

I read a quote somewhere that said democracy does nothing to promote good leadership. The point of democracy isn't to elect a good government, the point is to quickly get rid of a bad government

The multi-year terms still lets bad governments do a lot of damage though, and they have to be pretty bad to actually be removed for good.

Perhaps it would be better to pick the government at random and then have much more frequent votes with the only choice being whether to pick a new random government or not.

If you're a bus driver in Singapore denied the right to protest, strike, and otherwise organize for better pay and conditions, you might feel a bit different about how free Singapore is economically.

Does Singapore force people to be bus drivers?

Once you have banned protest, how would you know if they were forced or not?

EVERYONE IS HAPPY.

Sounds like you haven't been to Singapore.

Not sure why you’d say that. Did you see protests or Something?

What I find confusing about this comment is that to me, authoritarian and libertarian are opposites, but have only to do with individual freedoms, not the political system.

With these definitions, you can have a democratic or non-democratic system, and both can give rise to libertarian or authoritarian societies.

Democracies tend to produce more libertarian systems than dictatorships, but only to some extent, and in fact, they are often authoritarian in various aspects. All it takes to oppress some people in a democracy, even when they are not causing harm, is the majority of people wanting to do so.

Vice versa, a dictatorship with some enlightened, incorruptible, and perfectly mentally stable dictator that acts as a night-watchman so that individual freedoms are respected would be more libertarian than a democracy, but it's unlikely you'd get such a dictator.

>What I find confusing about this comment is that to me, authoritarian and libertarian are opposites, but have only to do with individual freedoms, not the political system.

"Do whatever the F you want as long as you don't challenge the state" isn't that incompatible at first glance and might work ok if you have a low touch state. Where it gets obviously incompatible is when you have eastern european style oligarchs and western style administrative state and state favored businesses and industries that leverage state violence to stifle competition.

I don't think it's possible to have an authoritarian government in a modern society that doesn't trend in one of those directions.

There have been such dictators in the past. Singapore is one example. Arguably the British Empire was libertarian by the standards of its time (and empires).

Perhaps the least recognized example is America. The Constitution imposes libertarianism on the population against majority will. You can't change the constitution with a 50%+1 vote, so it forces freedom of speech and other rights on people who might otherwise easily vote to get rid of them. There's no one man enforcing the constitution, just a general agreement to obey SCOTUS.

There was a democratic referendum in 2003 to essentially reduce the authority of the Liechenstein ruler, the population largely voted to grant absolute power to the ruling family: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Liechtenstein_constitutio...

Authoritarianism is the oldest form of effective government. Just as curious note, dictatorship was introduced during the Roman epoch and was used as temporary measure during war times. Look for example in Ukraine where the same ruler is avoiding elections since some time due to war, in the root sense of the government-style it is possible to describe it as a dictatorship today, if it hadn't been for the negative connotation of that term in the last 100 years.

The ruler is not "avoiding" elections due to war, he is prohibited by the constitution to hold them during wartime (not to mention the feasibility of letting the inhabitants of occupied regions to exercise their voting rights). So it is not a dictatorship in any sense.

"East Germany" fell apart because the people stuck there quickly realized how "ridiculous" it was. (See the post you replied to.)

There was a lot of contact between West and East Germans due to the awkward nature of the division of East and West Germany and East and West Berlin. In contrast, that contact doesn't exist between North and South Korea.

(Remember, West Berlin was an enclave inside of East Germany, and West Germans were allowed to travel through East Germany in order to travel in and out of West Berlin.)

As long as the country is very wealthy at least compared to its neighbors it might work.

Lichtenstein and Singapur found their niches, which do not scale to larger countries, Dubai was just lucky.

Happy slaves don’t dream of freedom.

I wonder what would happen to Lichtenstein if the EU would pull a Trump on them and block trade and airspace until the adjust their tax policies…

Not that this would ever happen.

Dubai and is a human rights cesspit.

Sharia law. Beat your wife. law. Fine rape victims. Use slaves, flog gay people.

Name a regressive and disgusting way of treating humans - it’s probably done there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Dubai

Aren't those just plain old tax havens?

Yes and no.

They all have a very solid industrial base, like 30% to 50% of the economy, with ~50% of workers living abroad (not fully part of the welfare state). Comparatively high R&D. Low taxes.

And plain tax evasion is now illegal, but those countries are still an important stop to hide money elsewhere.

But the main secret sauce is a flexible fast legal system. Stability, low crime, and less gridlock in the legislature when the need for change is realized.

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