5 ms·
Totalitarianism is very efficient until the people realize material wealth without political freedom is hollow.
by LostInTheWoods 17y ago
Totalitarianism is very efficient until the people realize material wealth without political freedom is hollow.
- randallsquared 17y agoThat's the standard line, but I'm not sure that it's as inevitable as that. It might well be that an efficient and well-run dictatorship or monarchy can compete with Western-style democracy (though I'm not sure China is "well-run" enough in this sense to be a good test case).
- bilbo0s 17y agoSingapore . . . is the example you were looking for I think.
- randallsquared 17y agoYeah, I did think about Singapore, but I don't know much about how it's set up politically, so I decided to stick with the case already on topic. :)
- jacquesm 17y agoPolitical freedom as in the freedom to vote for a third party who will never make it to power ?
- pg 17y agoIt may actually break down well before that. There is probably something akin to the Laffer curve for the power of the central government. I.e. at a certain point, making the government more powerful will make the country poorer.
- ivankirigin 17y agoBoy would I like to believe that. What is the evidence from China that this is true? Perhaps their history of paternalism meshes well with tolerating the yoke. We'll see what happens when there is a real hiccup in the system. They've enjoyed huge growth for so many years. Note that I'm saying you're wrong, and people will tolerate political oppression while they have increasing material wealth. When things go bad, they might go really bad.
- bokonist 17y agoChina is not a totalitarian country (or at least not anymore so than post-New Deal U.S.). Authoritarian!=Totalitarian.