Democracy and prosperity (part 2)
development: this is widely referred to as the ‘authoritarian growth bargain’. 2 A key example of how long-term plans succeeded due to the authoritarian bargain is China under Deng Xiaoping. Following the catastrophe of the Great Leap Forward, Deng Xiaoping implemented consistent ‘Five Year Plans’. These included the Household Responsibility System, which delegated responsibility to farmers and allowed them to keep their surplus crops, alongside the creation of Special Economic Zones, such as Shenzhen, as a means of stimulating entrepreneurship and technological advancement while keeping the economy within the grasp of the CCP. The plans were successful both due to their consistent nature and because they avoided being excessively ideological (as witnessed during the Great Leap Forward), instead focusing on pragmatism. 3 Such sheer scale and speed in economic growth are perhaps only attainable in an autocracy because they require unwavering support from both the government and the people. In contrast, democracies can sometimes be excessively liberalized in the procedures of policymaking to a point where no significant decisions can be made at all. For instance, after the 1923 economic collapse of Weimar Germany, the coalition government was tasked to devise a plan for recovery. However, owing to the conflicted nature of the coalition, caused by proportional representation, no consensus could be reached, and the crisis was never internally resolved. This suggests that perhaps too much democracy leads to an inefficient government, inhibiting economic growth and stability. 4 For the same reasons, autocracies have a greater inclination to make economic decisions which benefit the state more in the long term, as opposed to democracies which can often make superficial choices for the primary reason of gaining electoral capital. It is common for candidates in democratic states to make broad, appealing pledges in their campaigns to garner as many votes as possible: such pledges tend to be very attractive in the short term but often lack tangible meaning in the long term. On the contrary, autocracies lack any kind of electoral considerations, meaning that governments can make policy which may not be as appealing at first but is more beneficial to the state in the long term. A notable example of an autocracy facilitating a successful long-term plan which was not initially well- received is Singapore’s Urban Planning initiative which began in the 1960s. When the People’s Action Party imposed draconian land acquisition laws, seizing the reins of property markets to move citizens from kampongs 5 to high-rise urban housing, the livelihoods of many people were disrupted, causing significant public discontent. It would be fair to suggest that, if Singapore had been a democracy, such a plan would have never worked. However, solely because the plan was able to continue unimpeded, Singapore was able to access the long-term benefits of reliable sanitation, water, electricity, and employment among other things. Even more than this, what initially seemed like a form of oppression gradually shifted into an aspiration for many Singaporeans as quality of life dramatically rose. 6 As such, autocracies have the unique ability to bypass public alarmism in the pursuit of extensive and sustainable economic success, which is perhaps impossible in democracies.
Despite this, it is true that both China and Singapore are relatively exceptional cases. Many autocracies lack the apparatus to devise successful plans in the first place due to two factors: an intrinsic rift
2 Vortherms 2023. 3 Jain 2017. 4 Bretherton 1927. 5 Def. a small village or community of houses in Malay-speaking lands 6 Henderson, J. C. (2012).
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