by godelski | 2025-10-08 18:58:30+00:00
> you're missing two things here: > (1) The comment you're replying said they were "fast".

I actually did address this. It is my opening paragraph

> (2) Authoritarian failures are also present in capitalism

I also addressed this, in my second to last paragraph

> success from China

Interestingly I also brought them up. Read what I said about them carefully. I get it, it's a comment so I brush over 70 years quickly, but I do discuss it.

But when looking at China make sure you consider 2 things

1) China didn't succeed until it opened up and started working with the West. The policies from Deng greatly reshaped China. A man Mao kicked out of the party twice and was called a capitalist. He was the one who created the special economic zones they have today (like Shenzhen). It's something his successor continued and even Xi has. Interpret this how you will, but China's wealth didn't happen until these events and the wealthiest regions are either those zones or incredibly close to them (like Shanghai being sandwiched by two)

2) it's much easier to play catchup than lead. I expect every programmer to recognize that building a flappy bird game is pretty easy, but doing it first isn't. China has been done great on this front and hasn't fallen for the middle income trap like many others but they're not completely out of it yet. It looks like they'll succeed but be careful in counting your chickens before they hatch.

(You should also consider that information is distributed differently. As we've previously discussed and others mentioned. While in the US all our atrocities are out in the open, this is not true for autocracies. 64 (Deng was in power at that time) is a much more taboo topic than say, the Trail of Tears. In America we're quite self aware but even forget that our northern neighbors did something similar, but worse. But Canada isn't even trying that hard to hide those things. Even a much more open country like Japan is not so open about things like their invasion into China and Korea during WW2. You're aware that you should be careful in interpreting history of America as told by America, but such care must also be given when reading about others. Propaganda isn't uniquely American and we're not even that good at it)

But regardless I'm not sure what China matters in this discussion. I said

> there are so *few* examples of benevolent autocrats who made their citizens lives better.

I specifically chose to not write "no examples" because it would be inaccurate. China isn't the only one either. This isn't a binary outcome and there's many nuances. No two countries are the same, nor are two autocrats. There's many variables at play here. But what we, as citizens, care about is the trends, success rates, and stability. Maybe 70/100 democracies are stable and beneficial to citizens and 10/100 autocracies are (these numbers are entirely fictional). If given odds like that, which would you prefer? Neither is a guarantee of success.

And I want to restress something from my first comment. With great power comes great responsibility. In other recent threads we've been talking about government overreach and Flock has been in the news a lot lately. So the concept of Turnkey Tyranny gets discussed. This is still relevant here. One of democracies greatest flaws is that has the power to turn into an autocracy or any other form of government, at the will of the people. So the concept here is that you do not want to give strong powers to benevolent leaders because you cannot guarantee the next won't be. The core idea here still holds true under autocracies. The trouble is, a Turnkey Tyrant is always on the table for those countries and there is no defense. This key can turn even with the same person in power and is frequently turned with a belief that the ends justify the means. It's an all too common occurrence in autocracies, happening with people we've discussed and many of those benevolent autocrats we alluded to.