Rule of law is largely orthogonal to democracy. England had rule of law long before it was a democracy.

the "rule of law" began with the magna charta, a first limiter to the "divine right of kings". We dont see these or other checks and balances in illiberal / undemocratic countries and if there are, they got dismantled to devolve in autocracies. See Uncle Xi with deng xiaoping checks and balances reforms.

> Democracies have stable, predictable rule of law.

Really? Russia? Venezuela? They are democracies. Also, do you realize that many of the world's poorest and unstable countries are democracies? India has been a democracy for nearly 80 years. Nobody wants to do business with them. Everyone wants to do business with china. Go figure.

> Do you want to invest in a country where a dictator could simply decide that he is going take your assets?

You mean like how britain, EU, etc are taking russia's assets? Or how we stole japanese american assets during ww2? Or mexican american assets in the 1930s. Or the native american's lands since the very beginning?

There's nothing inherently good, stable or lawful about democracies. If you didn't have blinders on, you'd be shocked at how terrible democracies have been. The country with the most poverty in the world is a democracy - india. The countries that have waged the most wars around the world in the past 20 years have been democracies - US, Russia, EU, etc. The countries that have committed the greatest genocides have been democracies.

What a nation needs is competent leaders, not democracies. Instead of blinding accepting propaganda, just look at the reality.

Quite sick that you and GGP are referring to Russia as a democracy. It's a dictatorship

There are no actual major democracies. The USA for example is an oligarchy whose oligarchs find it convenient to masquerade as a democratic republic[1]. The NATO countries are de facto US satrapies. I believe the Russian invasion of Ukraine is both immoral and imprudent, but the utter puerility of discourse on Russia grossly disappoints me.

[1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...

> Nobody wants to do business with them

Last I know all major nations and big corporations of the world are queuing up to invest in India.

Russia and Venezuela simply never developed a civil society in the modern sense. Same for many poor and unstable countries. They're still likely far better off than similarly vulnerable autocracies - I'd much rather be in one of those flawed democracies than, say, in North Korea. 'Competent leaders' are not born, they're made. Democracy, liberal/bourgeois values, civil society, proper rewards for merit... All of these things ultimately foster competence.

> Russia and Venezuela simply never developed a civil society in the modern sense.

Isn't that the fault of democracy then? How can democracy be so great if it can't even help develop basic civil society? So now you are moving the goalpost from political government to civil society? So it's civil society that's important not democracy?

> I'd much rather be in one of those flawed democracies than, say, in North Korea. '

And most people would rather live in china or vietnam than many of those flawed democracies.

> Democracy, liberal/bourgeois values, civil society, proper rewards for merit...

That's not what honest look at political history shows. We're told hitler was the worst thing in history and democracy gave us hitler.

> All of these things ultimately foster competence.

I'd say it fosters corruption rather than competence. And everyone from the founding fathers to the ancient greeks would have agreed.

There are merits to all forms of governance. Nothing magical about democracy as I've shown. What you need is competence. Doesn't matter the form of government.

TWN, SK, and JPN were all authoritarian when industrializing. Similar with US too, to be honest.

Democracy on paper is not democracy in practice, just like China isn’t a real communist society.

The grandparent’s point was that Russia is technically a democracy and look how it’s doing. If there’s enough corruption is it really still a democracy? And if it isn’t, why does it matter if India is a paper democracy or not when considering whether it needs our support.

Have you heard of civil forfeiture?