Hardliners Learn That Democracy Can Pay Off

(This is the second of a series of columns on economic growth and the challenges to democracy.)

“What have been the really major advances of the past 20 years?” is one of the most common debated questions in my circles. The smartphone is probably nominated most often, while Google, Facebook and fracking have their advocates too. Yet we hardly ever talk about one of the most important developments, perhaps because it raises uncomfortable political issues: the governance technologies and strategies of authoritarian regimes have become much more efficient.

I recall the 1970s, when there were many fewer democracies and communism was still a major scourge. Apart from what at the time was called the free world, led by the U.S. and its closest allies, most countries were abysmally governed. In the Soviet Union people waited in lines for hours to buy consumer goods, if they were available at all, and were locked behind the Iron Curtain that kept them from fleeing to the West. China was an impoverished country and it had just recovered from a major famine. Ethiopia was the poster country for thin, emaciated children, suffering and on the verge of death.