It's true. Fukuyama's end of history hypothesis has been ridiculed. It's best not to lose whatever nuggets of truth do come from past assessments, however many points don't hold up. Rather than using aggregate measures of welfare, it would be valuable to separate measures of material welfare (per capita GDP, longevity, health, etc) from other desirable qualities of life (freedom, good governance, etc). Moderate levels of not-too-corrupt autocracy can in theory deliver, whereas "too much freedom" (libertinism) may be bad for you. Plus, it seems prudent to separate measures of welfare from economic growth as such, because if population declines, per capita GDP can increase even if there is slow or no growth.
The stability argument really is a good one. Who cares if you grow like crazy, but then crash? Or set off a population boom and then everybody starves? (back to Malthus) But I do wonder if democratic governments can become so "stable" they're sclerotic. It would be interesting to track well-being against democracies ordered by the percentage of their GDP controlled by big government, or by the level of fiscal deficit, or their monetary policy. "Capitalism" + "democracy" are not what they used to be.
Great write up, Tibor! I’m curious how you think about late-20th-century cases like South Korea and Taiwan, where rapid growth preceded democratization.
Do you see those as reinforcing the argument (i.e: that authoritarian growth can jump-start development but needs democratic institutions to sustain stability and correction over time)?
Thanks. :) Exactly: "authoritarian growth can jump-start development but needs democratic institutions to sustain stability and correction over time." At least, it looks like that so far. We'll see whether China breaks this rule in a decade or two!
Lol what a moronic article. america is not on road to be a liberal democracy forever. even fukuyama thinks that. also none of these east asian nations were liberal democracy when they developed.
Fukuyama's claim is not that liberal democracy has the fewest "contradictions"; it is that the contradictions of liberal democracy can be managed indefinitely, and that no other extant regime type has this property.
It's entirely plausible to me that, for instance, some sort of constitutionally entrenched social democracy - unions integrated into the machinery of government, German-style suppression of right-wing parties applied to right-liberals also, etc. - would have even fewer contradictions once established but isn't reliably reachable from a liberal starting point. (Certainly it's true that the social-democratic welfare regime, in the Esping-Andersen sense, is by far the best performing, and also has been undermined over time). If so, Fukuyama can still be right even though liberal democracy is an undesirable endpoint.
It's also possible that both liberal democracy and the Chinese model - not "authoritarianism", which is an analytically incoherent wastebasket taxon, but specifically the PRC, which is no more a gulf monarchy or caudillato than we are - are stable, and which one you end up in is pure historical contingency. If so, then Fukuyama is wrong. Even if liberal democracy is better on every other axis, and the US sphere ends up always and everywhere richer, better-governed, less corrupt, etc. etc. than China, that needs to end up actually producing regime change to vindicate Fukuyama.
And then it's also possible that liberal democracy has the fewest contradictions but that just isn't enough, and there is *no* form of government that's stable in the truly long run. If so, Fukuyama is wrong as well.
This is not the sort of question a mere century or so of comparative evidence can answer. But if China is still a one-party state in 2050, then I think Fukuyama's thesis can be declared *highly suspect*, convergence with the developed world or not.
The night light thing is not a fair comparison for China; a great deal of China's economic success has been to concentrate industrial production in specific and limited geographies. So for example Shenzhen provides immense value to the electronics industry by concentrating many producers, vendors, assemblers, etc. in one city, producing a production environment that outclasses electronics production on cost and value wholly independent of the cost of labor. And Shenzhen is not the only such economic zone in China.
Overall, what the paper might show is that liberal democracies are better at *distributing* economic production to many regions. So for example in the Space Race the US distributed NASA spending over what is in space policy referred to as the Space Belt, in a conscious effort to protect NASA funding by distributing that spending across several key states. That is not necessarily economically beneficial or prudent; shipping costs add up, and economically we've learned the added value of industrial hubs-- for example Silicon Valley, to give a democratic example of the geographic concentration phenomena.
It might be also that the developing world is more conscious of the value of creating industrial hubs; that newer developing nations will follow more of China's model of intense industrial concentration rather than geographic distribution, for the economic benefits that accrue to industrial hubs.
Isn't it true though that most democracies have backslid? Across most of the world, presidents routinely overturn their constitution and give themselves extra terms. And that of the ones that are doing well currently, it was often after over a century of failure.
Compared to the long past of humanity, and the long possible future, can we really say that we've reached the plateau of political development now?
Yes, it's true that democratic backsliding has been substantial and has rightly undermined some faith in Fukuyama's thesis. Though I'm not sure "most democracies" have backslid. Depends on what you mean with the term. I just did a quick analysis right now on two samples: developed democracies and all democracies. In both samples, I defined backsliding as a country losing at least 0.05 points (liberal democracy index on a 0-1 scale from V-Dem) since the global peak of democratization (in 2010). Going by that threshold, the majority (over 60%) hasn't seen backsliding in either sample. Of course, we would need to hash out what the appropriate threshold is and which measures of democracy we'd like to look at.
It's also important to keep in mind that backsliding is nothing new. Episodes of democratization and autocratization come in waves, but each time democracy ends up higher than before. This from OWID is well put:
"The extent of this decline is substantial, but it is also uncertain and limited. We can see it clearly across democracy metrics: the world has fallen from all-time democratic highs to a level similar to earlier decades. But the extent of this decline depends on which democracy measure we use. And it is limited in the sense that the world remains much more democratic than it was even half a century ago.
Finally, the recent democratic decline is precedented, and past declines were reversed. The world underwent phases of autocratization in the 1930s and again in the 1960s and 1970s. Back then, people fought to turn the tide, and pushed democratic rights to unprecedented heights."
I of course agree that we cannot know what'll happen in the future, especially the distant future. However, I read Fukuyama's claim more as the statement: among all the systems we've tried (and are still trying right now), only capitalist democracy (so far!) seems to work well or at least better than any competitor. Absent any significant new discoveries, the current long-term trajectory thus seems tilted towards precisely this system -- even if over the short term, anything can happen (including backsliding). Fukuyama himself is clear that his argument is Darwinian/selectionist in precisely this way.
Mr. Rutar, the truth is, when you are poor, then nothing else matters but money. I think most of the world will choose the Chinese model, simply because one look look at their subway, and comparing it with the subway in NY and London, says everything from a poor country's perspective. I am sad to say so, as I am very much pro-West and pro-liberal democracy now, but the truth is, China showed a way to wealth that does not require adopting Western politics and cultural norms, which most of the world does not like, it is alien to them, and besides it reminds them of colonialism. We have to understand that for most of the world, "western" is a kind of a dirty word, as it reminds them of colonialism, which they understood as humiliation.
Yes, even authoritarian countries have higher individual freedom than say 30 years ago . Places like Saudi et al . Even in China , South Korea nominally authoritarian, personal life options and lifestyle choices have magnified - low fertility in these societies is female choice led .
William Von Hippel has noted the drift towards individualism is one way street evolutionary speaking.
Yeah, I quite liked it. I agree with its overarching thesis. The democracy part (or elections) of liberal democracy is good, but the liberal part is what's really special. So, toning down the elections part just a bit (on account of voters being systematically misinformed on fine-grained issues) and boosting the liberal part just a bit would probably be my preference as well -- at least in established, rich liberal democracies where there's no lack of popular will exerting itself politically!
I definitely don't think Singapore is the way to go, though. Not nearly enough popular sovereignty or media freedom.
What about yourself? Flirting with bits of epistocracy? :)
It's true. Fukuyama's end of history hypothesis has been ridiculed. It's best not to lose whatever nuggets of truth do come from past assessments, however many points don't hold up. Rather than using aggregate measures of welfare, it would be valuable to separate measures of material welfare (per capita GDP, longevity, health, etc) from other desirable qualities of life (freedom, good governance, etc). Moderate levels of not-too-corrupt autocracy can in theory deliver, whereas "too much freedom" (libertinism) may be bad for you. Plus, it seems prudent to separate measures of welfare from economic growth as such, because if population declines, per capita GDP can increase even if there is slow or no growth.
The stability argument really is a good one. Who cares if you grow like crazy, but then crash? Or set off a population boom and then everybody starves? (back to Malthus) But I do wonder if democratic governments can become so "stable" they're sclerotic. It would be interesting to track well-being against democracies ordered by the percentage of their GDP controlled by big government, or by the level of fiscal deficit, or their monetary policy. "Capitalism" + "democracy" are not what they used to be.
Great write up, Tibor! I’m curious how you think about late-20th-century cases like South Korea and Taiwan, where rapid growth preceded democratization.
Do you see those as reinforcing the argument (i.e: that authoritarian growth can jump-start development but needs democratic institutions to sustain stability and correction over time)?
Thanks. :) Exactly: "authoritarian growth can jump-start development but needs democratic institutions to sustain stability and correction over time." At least, it looks like that so far. We'll see whether China breaks this rule in a decade or two!
Lol what a moronic article. america is not on road to be a liberal democracy forever. even fukuyama thinks that. also none of these east asian nations were liberal democracy when they developed.
Fukuyama's claim is not that liberal democracy has the fewest "contradictions"; it is that the contradictions of liberal democracy can be managed indefinitely, and that no other extant regime type has this property.
It's entirely plausible to me that, for instance, some sort of constitutionally entrenched social democracy - unions integrated into the machinery of government, German-style suppression of right-wing parties applied to right-liberals also, etc. - would have even fewer contradictions once established but isn't reliably reachable from a liberal starting point. (Certainly it's true that the social-democratic welfare regime, in the Esping-Andersen sense, is by far the best performing, and also has been undermined over time). If so, Fukuyama can still be right even though liberal democracy is an undesirable endpoint.
It's also possible that both liberal democracy and the Chinese model - not "authoritarianism", which is an analytically incoherent wastebasket taxon, but specifically the PRC, which is no more a gulf monarchy or caudillato than we are - are stable, and which one you end up in is pure historical contingency. If so, then Fukuyama is wrong. Even if liberal democracy is better on every other axis, and the US sphere ends up always and everywhere richer, better-governed, less corrupt, etc. etc. than China, that needs to end up actually producing regime change to vindicate Fukuyama.
And then it's also possible that liberal democracy has the fewest contradictions but that just isn't enough, and there is *no* form of government that's stable in the truly long run. If so, Fukuyama is wrong as well.
This is not the sort of question a mere century or so of comparative evidence can answer. But if China is still a one-party state in 2050, then I think Fukuyama's thesis can be declared *highly suspect*, convergence with the developed world or not.
The night light thing is not a fair comparison for China; a great deal of China's economic success has been to concentrate industrial production in specific and limited geographies. So for example Shenzhen provides immense value to the electronics industry by concentrating many producers, vendors, assemblers, etc. in one city, producing a production environment that outclasses electronics production on cost and value wholly independent of the cost of labor. And Shenzhen is not the only such economic zone in China.
Overall, what the paper might show is that liberal democracies are better at *distributing* economic production to many regions. So for example in the Space Race the US distributed NASA spending over what is in space policy referred to as the Space Belt, in a conscious effort to protect NASA funding by distributing that spending across several key states. That is not necessarily economically beneficial or prudent; shipping costs add up, and economically we've learned the added value of industrial hubs-- for example Silicon Valley, to give a democratic example of the geographic concentration phenomena.
It might be also that the developing world is more conscious of the value of creating industrial hubs; that newer developing nations will follow more of China's model of intense industrial concentration rather than geographic distribution, for the economic benefits that accrue to industrial hubs.
Isn't it true though that most democracies have backslid? Across most of the world, presidents routinely overturn their constitution and give themselves extra terms. And that of the ones that are doing well currently, it was often after over a century of failure.
Compared to the long past of humanity, and the long possible future, can we really say that we've reached the plateau of political development now?
Yes, it's true that democratic backsliding has been substantial and has rightly undermined some faith in Fukuyama's thesis. Though I'm not sure "most democracies" have backslid. Depends on what you mean with the term. I just did a quick analysis right now on two samples: developed democracies and all democracies. In both samples, I defined backsliding as a country losing at least 0.05 points (liberal democracy index on a 0-1 scale from V-Dem) since the global peak of democratization (in 2010). Going by that threshold, the majority (over 60%) hasn't seen backsliding in either sample. Of course, we would need to hash out what the appropriate threshold is and which measures of democracy we'd like to look at.
It's also important to keep in mind that backsliding is nothing new. Episodes of democratization and autocratization come in waves, but each time democracy ends up higher than before. This from OWID is well put:
"The extent of this decline is substantial, but it is also uncertain and limited. We can see it clearly across democracy metrics: the world has fallen from all-time democratic highs to a level similar to earlier decades. But the extent of this decline depends on which democracy measure we use. And it is limited in the sense that the world remains much more democratic than it was even half a century ago.
Finally, the recent democratic decline is precedented, and past declines were reversed. The world underwent phases of autocratization in the 1930s and again in the 1960s and 1970s. Back then, people fought to turn the tide, and pushed democratic rights to unprecedented heights."
I of course agree that we cannot know what'll happen in the future, especially the distant future. However, I read Fukuyama's claim more as the statement: among all the systems we've tried (and are still trying right now), only capitalist democracy (so far!) seems to work well or at least better than any competitor. Absent any significant new discoveries, the current long-term trajectory thus seems tilted towards precisely this system -- even if over the short term, anything can happen (including backsliding). Fukuyama himself is clear that his argument is Darwinian/selectionist in precisely this way.
Mr. Rutar, the truth is, when you are poor, then nothing else matters but money. I think most of the world will choose the Chinese model, simply because one look look at their subway, and comparing it with the subway in NY and London, says everything from a poor country's perspective. I am sad to say so, as I am very much pro-West and pro-liberal democracy now, but the truth is, China showed a way to wealth that does not require adopting Western politics and cultural norms, which most of the world does not like, it is alien to them, and besides it reminds them of colonialism. We have to understand that for most of the world, "western" is a kind of a dirty word, as it reminds them of colonialism, which they understood as humiliation.
Yes, even authoritarian countries have higher individual freedom than say 30 years ago . Places like Saudi et al . Even in China , South Korea nominally authoritarian, personal life options and lifestyle choices have magnified - low fertility in these societies is female choice led .
William Von Hippel has noted the drift towards individualism is one way street evolutionary speaking.
Do you have any thoughts on 10% Less Democracy by Garett Jones?
Yeah, I quite liked it. I agree with its overarching thesis. The democracy part (or elections) of liberal democracy is good, but the liberal part is what's really special. So, toning down the elections part just a bit (on account of voters being systematically misinformed on fine-grained issues) and boosting the liberal part just a bit would probably be my preference as well -- at least in established, rich liberal democracies where there's no lack of popular will exerting itself politically!
I definitely don't think Singapore is the way to go, though. Not nearly enough popular sovereignty or media freedom.
What about yourself? Flirting with bits of epistocracy? :)
I felt much the same way. I think epistocracy would be good, but I'm unsure how to implement it in practice.