This is quite rude of me, but I find your views to be horrifying,

> Ability to exploit labour

> The hard part, the _initial_ pool of human capita

> ugly business of "solving ethnic and sub-national conflicts" including groups that operate contrary to state development interests, like these

> Authoritarians / state controls simply is better at starting the ball rolling

That "human capital" is made out of people, human beings, who are often executed for speaking out of turn in authoritarian countries. Who are worked without fair pay in starvation wages in these countries. What you seem to be - and I deeply apologize if I'm wrong - implying when you say "colonial direction, then exploitation/slavery" is that slavery itself and near-slavery like conditions are necessary for development. That is a deeply disturbing perspective to me.

I may seem to be rejecting your core thesis out of hand, but I feel like you handwaved these examples away. I can talk a great deal about the US as I know it well, and the industrialization of America is a complex story with many moving parts, with labor rights being fought for side-by-side. The most backwards states today are the ones that were the most exploitative of the "human capital" that you mention.

It also feels like as if you've handwaved the other answers away. Western Germany and the UK etc were flattened, glassed as you said it, and their "human capital" had been greatly diminished. And yet they prospered with the right policies and public investments. Reducing this to a "wank around" is deeply misguided.

> preeminent superpower happens to be democratic and made war with ideologic rivals while handwaving away the contribution of their authoritarian roots

Furthermore, the US hasn't always spread democracy around the world. When the CIA did regime change, they usually replaced democracies with autocracies, with extremely bad results in several places. These examples are excluded in your analysis.

But setting aside all the historical evidence and the statistical arguments that others have made, the sheer idea that exploiting and authoritarianism i.e. telling people, with force, is necessary for economic growth and that this is desirable is appalling. You seem to be under no illusion of what it means, but let me spell out what it does mean,

It means parents disappeared in the middle of the night.

It means the torture of anyone who disagrees.

It means the rejection, beating, and killing of those who are different (the "ethnic and subnational conflicts" you mentioned, that's how autocrats usually resolve these, murder and ethnic cleansing).

It means forcing people to work against their will.

It means suspending the right to due process.

It means making some people more than others.

And it means a legacy of death, destruction, and hate that will take generations to dissipate.

It feels as though you understand all of this and yet you support it as the "necessary price" for "progress", because you believe that you won't be the one paying the price. And that's what horrifies me.

The implication here, correct me if I'm wrong, is that you genuinely think that in an autocratic society, you'll come out on top. The odds are that you won't. Even if you're the supporter of the right autocrat and kiss up to the right people. The first thing autocrats do, when they come to power, is that they purge their supporters. Ask the supporters of Mao, Stalin and Hitler (nacht der langen messer/the Röhm Purge) how it went for them.

A famous story from a small town in the Netherlands during the Nazi occuption is that they had an air raid shelter in the town. The Mayor invited everyone to safety at the shelter. When they arrived there, mind you these were the "aryans" that the Nazis were obsessed about, they were soon gunned down, because they weren't loyal enough. Not that they were disloyal. But simply because they weren't loyal enough.

> It's also just useful to evaluate most recent successful development models: Japan

Yes, Japan. Japan's record economic growth happened under a democratic constitution and government enacted in 1947. Their industrial base was rebuilt from scratch after the firebombing/raids had decimated all industrial capacity.

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dang, if you ever see this, I apologize for the rudeness.