So very annoyed with @clarefoges' inane article praising strongmen that I think it's worth noting a few germane points. First off, while occasionally authoritarian governments do produce growth, overall evidence points to lower rates of growth & wages academic.oup.com/qje/article/11… 1/n
On top of this, those authoritarian regimes that are more constrained have higher rates of growth - i.e. strongmen perform better in chains. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.111… 2/n
And that's before we get to the types of policies that I presume Claire Foges likes, such as education spending, or health and literacy outcomes, both of which are better under democracies: see journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117… and my own amazon.co.uk/Ballot-Blackbo… 3/n
Long story short, for almost all public goods and forms of economic growth, constrained regimes such as democracy perform better. And yes, democracy can coexist with capitalism effectively - my book with David Samuels explains why democracy often emerges under high inequality 4/n
So please let's not have pining for strongmen. They rarely 'get things done' as effectively as democracies. And the sacrifice of individual liberty is real. It's easy from your desk at the Times perhaps to ignore jailed academics and journalists - waving it away with a 'yet' 5/n
But mainstreaming this kind of rhetoric, based in flimsy empirical claims, is foolish, irresponsible, and lazy. The Times should be ashamed for having published it.
