What relationship is that exactly? I haven't run a regression or anything, but eyeballing lists seem to show a link between a high GDP/capita and quality of life.
Singapore and Hong Kong are both pretty rich, have high quality of life but aren't very democratic. They generally rate higher for quality of life than more democratic but poorer countries.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_D...
In no particular order, that's the vast majority of the richest, most well off, and highest GDP per capita countries on earth. Your list so far has Singapore and Hong Kong, now try to match my group - you can't get even remotely close.
What could you add to your list? Qatar?
In no particular order, that's the vast majority of the richest, most well off, and highest GDP per capita countries on earth. Your list so far has Singapore and Hong Kong, now try to match my group - you can't get even remotely close.
I don't understand what you are trying to say. The countries you have listed include countries like Italy and Spain that rank well below the non-democratic countries I listed (Singapore and Hong Kong). Indeed, they score (0.876, 0.873) closer to Saudi Arabia (0.837) and UAE (0.835) than to countries at the top of the list (Norway: 0.944).
The point is that I can find features that correspond to those lists better than "are democratic".
For example, there's very good correlation between the Corruption Perceptions Index[1] and the list from the Human Development Index[2].
I think Democracy is great. But I also think facts are great, and the fact is that there do appear to be other ways to good outcomes.
[1] http://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_D...
> Singapore and Hong Kong
Singapore and Hong Kong are cities, and in many ways not comparable to nations. Also, both are more democratic than most comparable places in East Asia.
> there's very good correlation between the Corruption Perceptions Index[1] and the list from the Human Development Index[2]
I believe democracy is widely considered to be important to controlling corruption, but I don't know if that's backed by research or is just a widely held assumption.
Also, much of what you write seems focused on economics. For example, I don't think anyone sees the Saudi people's political rights, religious freedom, or the well-being of women there as very good.
Could you show me what metric you are using to show that?
Singapore and Hong Kong are cities, and in many ways not comparable to nations.
So is your argument that "Democracy is correlated with quality of life if a country's landmass is greater than a particular area"?
Also, both are more democratic than most comparable places in East Asia.
Can you name what other comparable East Asian countries you are comparing them too? I'd say Japan and South Korea have roughly similar GDP/Capita, but both are more democratic than Singapore and Hong Kong and have lower quality of life.
Also, much of what you write seems focused on economics. For example, I don't think anyone sees the Saudi people's political rights, religious freedom, or the well-being of women there as very good.
Sure. But then on the other side you have Israel, which may not be as extreme as Saudi Arabia but certainly has issues with political rights and religious freedom. Other democracies like Malaysia and Indonesia also don't have the same freedoms around religious and political expression as are the norm in the US and Europe, rate comparatively low on the quality of life scale and yet are undeniably democratic (at least in the case of Indonesia - Malaysia does have some issues on that, and yet as a higher quality of life).
Or compare say China and India: on women's rights China is way ahead, and their whole population's quality of life has risen higher and quicker than India's, from a similar base.
I don't know how often it happens to stable governments, but generally I agree that destroying the country (through war) and imposing democracy - the essence of which is self-determination - is short-sighted and generally disasterous.
> democracies of small countries are easy to manipulated by foreign governments and corporations
Other forms of government are more easily controlled, speaking generally. In fact during the Cold War the U.S. replaced many democracies (Chile, Zaire/Congo, Iran, and others) with dictatorships because they were more easily controlled. In those three cases, leaders the U.S. disliked were elected, prompting the coups.
> Ukraine
I'm a little puzzled by this one. Clearly Ukraine's problems are due to Russia invading, conquering a major part of their country, and creating unending war in another part.
> Taiwan's democracy has only become more and more of a joke since KMT giving up emergency powers.
I don't understand what this refers to. Taiwan's democracy is thriving; they are very prosperous. They just had another successful election and power changed hands again. Their main problem is the communist government in mainland China which puts a threatening shadow over everything and denies the Taiwanese normal relations with most of the world.
Here is the video direct from Victoria Nuland's mouth, speaking at a Chevron and ExxonMobil sponsored conference[1]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y0y-JUsPTU#t=448
Ukraine, along with Libya and Iraq are prime examples to demonstrate when the Americans tell you your country should be liberated so it becomes democratic, you should probably plan to move out.
I doubt the US goverment is capable enough to finance and plan a coup of an not yet known goverment 20+ years in the future.
Why help Ukraine with billions and not other countries that do not have gas/oil?
Between donations from Ukraine oligarchs to Clinton foundation, Joe Biden's son involved in Ukraine gas corporations, the hundreds of millions spend by U.S. every year in Ukraine to "build democratic institutions", stories from recruited shooters planted in Euromaidan[2], here you are, saying U.S. officials are the good guys for the Ukrainian people. If that's not effective propaganda, I don't know what is.
And if you think the above situation is fine and dandy, I think there's nothing else we can say to increase our agreement. I'm not the kind of person who would interfere with my neighbours family, because their children didn't get lunch money for school, so that I can buy their house at a foreclosure auction later in the year when they divorce, but if you're fine with the U.S. government doing that kind of behaviour, then I should not interfere with that, either.
[1]http://www.wsj.com/articles/clinton-charity-tapped-foreign-f...
> Russia would not be able to say ...
On a much more minor point, the Russian government will find a way to justify whatever it wants to do. They are not waiting for the U.S. to somehow give them the right to do it; they don't care about or need any truth or facts. For example, like the good propagandists they are, they fabricated that entire fictional structure on a tiny kernel of truth and now even people on HN are repeating it. That is information power.
Libya certainly had serious civil unrest before receiving US support. But it certainly has been going in the wrong direction since the fall of the Gaddafi government.
If you polled people in the west, at least 80% of them wouldn't be able to tell you that Yanukovych was removed illegally.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yanukovych#constitution...
Calling Yanukovich Russian-friendly is extremely naive.
Russian officials saw him is Russian-friendly. He thought he is Russian-friendly. He wasn't Russian-friendly if you consider what he did and what friends do.
More importantly there is a moral requirement for democracy in some form: People have a right to self-determination.
India seems to be doing relatively well, though it's hard to find anything to compare it to (Pakistan?). Democracy isn't sufficient by itself; democracies can be corrupt, poor, etc. Someone said long ago: democracies are the worst form of government - except for all the alternatives.