In reality, much of the success of a government is due to the role of the particular leaders, particular people, and particular places. If you have a mostly illiterate nation, divided 60%/40% into two tribes, then majoritarian democracy is a really, really bad idea. But if you have a homogeneous, educated, and savvy populace, with a network of private institutions, and a high-trust culture, then many forms of government will work quite well. Much of the purported success of democracy is really survivorship bias. Countries with the most human capital and strongest civic institutions can survive the chaos and demagoguery that comes with regular mass elections. Lesser countries succumb to chaos, and then dictatorship.
I don’t see why having a well-educated populace would protect you against the nigh-inevitable value drift of even well-intentioned leaders when they ascend to power in a highly authoritarian regime.
I agree that if you just had one leader with absolute power then it probably won’t work, and that kind of government probably isn’t included in the author’s “many forms of government will work quite well”. I think what he probably has in mind are governments that look authoritarian from the outside but still has some kind of internal politics/checks-and-balances that can keep the top leader(s) from going off the rails. I wish I had a good gears-level model of how that kind of government/politics works though. I do suspect that “work quite well” might be fragile/temporary and dependent on the top leaders not trying very hard to take absolute power for themselves, but I’m very uncertain about this due to lack of knowledge and expertise.
Not on topic, but from the first article:
I don’t see why having a well-educated populace would protect you against the nigh-inevitable value drift of even well-intentioned leaders when they ascend to power in a highly authoritarian regime.
I agree that if you just had one leader with absolute power then it probably won’t work, and that kind of government probably isn’t included in the author’s “many forms of government will work quite well”. I think what he probably has in mind are governments that look authoritarian from the outside but still has some kind of internal politics/checks-and-balances that can keep the top leader(s) from going off the rails. I wish I had a good gears-level model of how that kind of government/politics works though. I do suspect that “work quite well” might be fragile/temporary and dependent on the top leaders not trying very hard to take absolute power for themselves, but I’m very uncertain about this due to lack of knowledge and expertise.