> Democracy and rule of law usually start to have an advantage over authoritarianism when you surpass an annual GDP per capita of about 5000 USD.
Singapore disagrees.
In what sense? Singapore is a democracy. They have a high GDP per capita. They have a very strong rule of law and little corruption. I wouldn't necessarily want to live there but it is one of many democratic countries that looks like a much better bet to live in than China.
https://thediplomat.com/2015/02/soft-repression-the-struggle...
They simply bankrupt the opposition through lawsuits and void their candidacy. That is not a functioning democracy.
Re:We Chat, They Watch
by kazagistar on Friday May 08, 2020 @11:15AM
(#23115684)
Have you not been following the news where India just elected a facist leadership and had numerous deadly race riots supported by their government? Try checking your ideology with reality sometimes.
There is a difference, I would think, between a country going through a "bad period" of preferring totalitarianism, usually in response to pressures of economic and social inequality (e.g. Germany in the early 1900s; several middle-eastern and central-american countries today); and a country whose populace maintain deeply-held beliefs that have caused them to maintain a totalitarian leadership style over decades/centuries with no sign of changing (China.)
Though, I mean, part of that difference is that the rest of the world feels uncomfortable with sudden shifts like India's, and so usually gets together to trade-sanction the problem away so that things will go back to the way they were (which might cause the country to lash out, at which point it becomes a World War); while, on the other hand, the international community is so used to "the way things are" with countries like China, that they don't do anything.
Please be less racist.
The coronavirus disagrees with you.
So, on the long term, I am optimistic that India will catch up. Especially now that the USA is moving away from China as "work bench".
I hope we here in Europe will follow that policy, too. It just makes much more sense to support an emerging democracy than to support a facist regime.