Yes, (somewhat) obviously. This is the second Russian non-democracy in thirty years to get close to structural failure, and one common interpretation is that a system of this size cannot succeed without the mechanisms of transparency and accountability that are inherent to democracies.

A small dictatorship like NK can be controlled by a handful of people, often relatives. The family model also works for mafias, up to a certain size. But grow your association of lawlessness beyond a point and you’ll find yourself in desperate need for the protection of the law.

Another issue I heard about is that all the top oligarchs are in raw materials and energy. The oligarchs doing actual "complex" tech like weapons, coal extraction machinery etc, are only in the second tier at best. As you can imagine a environment where they can take your company away at any moment doesn't breed innovation (or the wish to do things particularily orderly).

> A small dictatorship of NK can be controlled by a handful of people

This is an interesting observation because it is the opposite of Alexis de Tocqueville‘s observation that democracy was well-suited to small states like Athens and Britain but large states like Russia needed autocracy.

i wonder if the distinction is that, beyond some size, it needs to be recursive?

Allocation of capital is terribly suboptimal in a badly managed state without good checks and balances.

Consider USA where there is a mismanagement problem with healthcare -- onerous regulations, rent-seeking, gatekeepers, state capitalism, crony capitalism, corrupt bureaucracies, anti-trust issues, and insufficient investment in training and development.

If healthcare is unnecessarily expensive by 10% -- then that's 2% of the American economy misallocated. Also, the lost human potential because of worse healthcare outcomes is another drain.

Now imagine if that was par for the course everywhere you look.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you write, but how do you explain the Chinese Communist Party still being in power since 1949? It's anything but transparent or accountable.

maybe they're less incompetent?