Even in the West, mass democracy is a failed marshmallow experiment.
In the short and mid term, it redistributes prosperity to almost all, but the tradeoff is long-term decline.
If only White men in good standing could vote, would we get mass economic redistribution with attendant dysgenics, radical feminism, mass immigrationism, transgender social contagion, fertility crisis...?
Well, we already ran that experiment - it's the White men who altruistically granted the vote to everyone else and the results followed.
It just might be that the level of altruism and universalism encoded in Western Europeans is not a stable evolutionary strategy. At least in this part of the cycle.
I believe that, regardless of population, those at the top should be at least two standard deviations above the mean in intelligence to ensure effective bureaucracy and smart allocation of funds.
I wouldn’t say Europeans are the most altruistic. Historical examples like Hitler and the harmful policies of the British Empire suggest otherwise. No one truly acts purely out of altruism unless it strengthens their own position.
I think Singapore’s government model would be more effective in India and Africa. I disdain the systems colonial powers left behind in these regions. What did they expect? That these places would magically transform into utopias? No, you need a robust cognitive architecture. They should have established a technocracy led by highly intelligent leaders. If this had been done, we might not see as many migrants from India or Africa.
In the long run, Europe is responsible for its own shortcomings. When colonial powers left, they established inefficient systems and clung to ineffective forms of governance. The consequences of this are evident. If they had been wiser, they would have appointed more capable leaders to oversee these systems. Therefore, I reject the notion that they acted in the best interests of others.
It's the elites who favor these policies more than the average voter, and most of this is subjective whether it's "good" or not. Fertility crisis is basically effecting all non-African countries across the world from East/South East Asia to Latin America, so it's not specific to Western Countries.
"Which is not to say that democracy is necessarily undesirable. On the contrary, stable democracies are just about the best political systems we have."
What happened to the United States then? Democracies do not last very long. The idea of idiots electing idiots is not workable. A meritocracy is a much better idea.
A form of government should not be the goal. It should a means to an end. The end should be civil and economic liberty, under law. Without those prosperity is less likely.
Liberty was never the end until liberalism infected the West. Out of the infinite number of paths available to every man, a single one is the most virtuous and least sinful one. We cannot know which one because we are imperfect and thus those with virtue must make the best possible choice for themselves and for others. The more virtuous must control the lives of the less virtuous to help as many people as possible live a Godly and Biblical life to find salvation and go to heaven.
"The more virtuous must control the lives of the less virtuous to help as many people as possible live a Godly and Biblical life to find salvation and go to heaven."
Religion and government have the same goal: to control people. For many years, religion and government fought each other for control and power, until they figured out they could cooperate and both enjoy the spoils.
Please read my essay about Orthocracy and how it functions. The main purpose of the State must be to help its subjects live a virtuous, morally sound life. Salvation is more important than material comforts. The state does not have to be a giant monastery, but it has to enforce harsh standards and do everything in its power to suppress sin, vice and degeneracy. https://ghostofrurik.substack.com/p/orthocracy
Democracy by necessity is an "empty" system - it does not have any inherent moral qualities, or qualitative benefits, but relies on high IQ and socially cohesive society. Democratic politics is therefore very fragile and subject to ethnic, economic and ideological upheavals. "A prize to be captured" is perhaps the final stage of political development, where common good becomes subsumed into the will of the ruling class on basis of democratic mandate, but not necessarily coterminous with the actual good of the country.
Authoritarian governments mentioned have achieved high growth due to their value-driven projects and perceived objectives of national interest, which would indicate that a measure of strategic vision and an understanding of national interest is easier to achieve outside of democratic system. Its not subject to capture by private interests or by giving out handouts - China today is an example that is persistent and difficult to swallow for the West, where hopes of democratisation faltered, when economic activity was captured by the CCP.
CCP does have its own values that we hold as inimical to a free society, which underscores the neutrality of economic activity as well, and importance of social and ideological factors in building a society that we want. In our post-liberal musings, we must break the unfounded link between values, economy and democracy as neither of this triad is contingent on the other, but rather require conscious application. More often than not, democracy will be an obstacle to the other two
Democracy has, at the very least, a mechanism for removing bad leaders. Not necessarily for selecting good ones, but every other system lacks this important corrective (unless it has robed statesmen with sharp knives).
Democracy is a huge redistribution machine, from the productive to the unproductive and from the powerless to the powerful, disincentivizing everyone, leading to economic stagnation.
The solution is not some weird lolbert-y anarchist LARP, but a virtuous, Christian and total monarchy. Libertarianism will not magically turn the masses of idiots and midwits into intelligent people who can govern themselves.
Why would the same policies that build wealth be appropriate for maintaing wealth? As an engineer, my experience is that optimizing for innovation and for maintenance often pulls in different directions.
The same policies refer to the approach. For example, AI is a different sector from finance, but excessive regulations won't do either sector a favour. Regulations should facilitate rather than impede business. So, if you achieved wealth by using permissionless innovation but overtime you become hostile to innovation then growth will decline.
I agree that excessive regulations are bad (by definition of excessive). But I thought your claim is that the same kind of regulations that are good for growing wealth are also good for maintaining wealth. What is the evidence for this?
The U.S. became the most economically powerful country in the history of humanity under conditions of mass democracy during the last 100 years, a period when the overwhelming majority of citizens could cast a vote.
I simply don’t understand how you could conceivably overlook this. It’s the most powerful refutation of your key point imaginable.
US had already been the most economically powerful country in the World 100 years ago, and its share of World GDP declined from then and is projected to decline further.
Anyway, it's not about democracy, it's about human capital.
> Anyway, it's not about democracy, it's about human capital.
Exactly.
Japan was a democracy when it grew post WWII from nothing to an economic powerhouse.
The three countries that have officially transitioned from "developing" to "developed" in the last 40 years were all democracies - Ireland, Israel, and Chile.
But conversely, Singapore, Taiwan, and Korea were only partially democratic during their growth and generally only towards the end, and China not at all. They all made it, regardless of political structure.
But one thing you'll notice, the average citizen of all those countries, and the countries on average overall, would pass a marshmallow test. That's probably more of a determining factor than their political structures.
Whether people voting is directly causative of superior economic development is a point worth debate. What is not worth debate is that the U.S. became to most economically dominant and powerful country in history over the last 100 years under conditions of mass democracy.
"The U.S. became the most economically powerful country in the history of humanity under conditions of mass democracy during the last 100 years, a period when the overwhelming majority of citizens could cast a vote."
Still, my position on this is the following: economic efflorescence has been historically based in representative or republican gobernance: Holland, England after the glorious revolution, etc.
In our time, representative governments converge very fast to mass democracy, and that has some costs. But capital hates and fears absolute power, because at some point, it leads to confiscation. You beguin with Nerva and Trajan, but sooner or later, there is allways a Comodus.
For me the best treatment of this is “the Dictator’s handbook”:
Those countries had a commercial culture and when England was industrializing the elites did not block innovation. England's growth also started before the Glorious Revolution
If you look at “Long History” you can find that the link between (normally oligarchic) republicanism and “economic efflorescence” is strong: the greek efflorescence, the Italian republics (including Venezia), the hanseatic league, and the original countries of the Great Divergence: Holland, England, the US…
Democracies tend to last between 250 and 350 years. This is due to SOME randomization, but in the long run, the end results are the same. Because democratic systems break down into only a few major political parties (usually two) the result is an oscillation between political interests. It is also ALWAYS in the immediate best interest of one of the two political parties to expand suffrage into an additional bracket of potential voters. The result is that over time, suffrage expands as it's far easier to grant a group the vote, than it is to rescind such a grant. Over 2.5 to 3.5 centuries, all democratic systems inevitably fall to the lowest-common denominator. Eventually the voters who are easy to bullshit outnumber the voters invested in the system. This results in systemic failure of the democratic system and a transition into autarchy, oligarchy, fracture, or empire.
The most recent expansion of voter rights in the United States was in 1972 when the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18.
America was 100% verifiably a mass-democracy from roughly the crica-1830s until some point after WW2, it executed spectacular economic development and its decision making architectures were cognitively superior to the technocratic quasi-dictatorship we have now and some of its several contemporary traditional dictatorships of various sorts, and its creation wasn’t the result of a long term process but rather a re-design of the political economy that happened fairly quickly
"The path forward is not to abandon democracy, but to recognize that mass democracy is the outcome of a gradual, long-term process."
Wrong. Abandoning democracy IS the only path forward. Democracy is not desirable, it is not a positive outcome. The majority of the population will always be idiots, no matter how much "education" you throw at them.
Even in the West, mass democracy is a failed marshmallow experiment.
In the short and mid term, it redistributes prosperity to almost all, but the tradeoff is long-term decline.
If only White men in good standing could vote, would we get mass economic redistribution with attendant dysgenics, radical feminism, mass immigrationism, transgender social contagion, fertility crisis...?
Well, we already ran that experiment - it's the White men who altruistically granted the vote to everyone else and the results followed.
It just might be that the level of altruism and universalism encoded in Western Europeans is not a stable evolutionary strategy. At least in this part of the cycle.
I believe that, regardless of population, those at the top should be at least two standard deviations above the mean in intelligence to ensure effective bureaucracy and smart allocation of funds.
I wouldn’t say Europeans are the most altruistic. Historical examples like Hitler and the harmful policies of the British Empire suggest otherwise. No one truly acts purely out of altruism unless it strengthens their own position.
I think Singapore’s government model would be more effective in India and Africa. I disdain the systems colonial powers left behind in these regions. What did they expect? That these places would magically transform into utopias? No, you need a robust cognitive architecture. They should have established a technocracy led by highly intelligent leaders. If this had been done, we might not see as many migrants from India or Africa.
In the long run, Europe is responsible for its own shortcomings. When colonial powers left, they established inefficient systems and clung to ineffective forms of governance. The consequences of this are evident. If they had been wiser, they would have appointed more capable leaders to oversee these systems. Therefore, I reject the notion that they acted in the best interests of others.
It's the elites who favor these policies more than the average voter, and most of this is subjective whether it's "good" or not. Fertility crisis is basically effecting all non-African countries across the world from East/South East Asia to Latin America, so it's not specific to Western Countries.
Not true the Elites if they were running things they would do a smarter immigration policies more based on cognitive architecture.
They aren't in charge we live in a world that believes in the just world fallacy that's why it comes with wealth
> Fertility crisis is basically effecting all non-African countries across the world
Africa is affected too - headed towards but not under replacement yet:
https://imgur.com/a/vTS66RI
"Which is not to say that democracy is necessarily undesirable. On the contrary, stable democracies are just about the best political systems we have."
What happened to the United States then? Democracies do not last very long. The idea of idiots electing idiots is not workable. A meritocracy is a much better idea.
Maybe an autocratic meritocracy with a board of directors to steer it clear of corruption.
"Maybe an autocratic meritocracy with a board of directors to steer it clear of corruption."
Perhaps, but what is essential is that everyone involved, in a workable meritocracy, must be meritorious and have impeccable integrity
A form of government should not be the goal. It should a means to an end. The end should be civil and economic liberty, under law. Without those prosperity is less likely.
Liberty was never the end until liberalism infected the West. Out of the infinite number of paths available to every man, a single one is the most virtuous and least sinful one. We cannot know which one because we are imperfect and thus those with virtue must make the best possible choice for themselves and for others. The more virtuous must control the lives of the less virtuous to help as many people as possible live a Godly and Biblical life to find salvation and go to heaven.
"The more virtuous must control the lives of the less virtuous to help as many people as possible live a Godly and Biblical life to find salvation and go to heaven."
Religion and government have the same goal: to control people. For many years, religion and government fought each other for control and power, until they figured out they could cooperate and both enjoy the spoils.
A true religion gives people useful rules for right action. Christianity internalizes the rules so people behave well even when no one is watching.
Most people don’t have the brain wattage, inclination, or time, to reason their way to right action from first principles on every occasion.
"A true religion gives people useful rules for right action."
Right action means action that those in control agree with.
"Christianity internalizes the rules so people behave well even when no one is watching."
Religion is a crutch for the weak and a cudgel for those in control.
With that attitude, how do I trust you with anything important?
I have integrity. Religion has nothing to do with trust...it has to do with deception and control.
Your position lacks humility.
"Your position lacks humility."
You're too kind. He lacks reality and logic.
Humility is the necessary first step.
Oliver Cromwell: 'I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.'
Please read my essay about Orthocracy and how it functions. The main purpose of the State must be to help its subjects live a virtuous, morally sound life. Salvation is more important than material comforts. The state does not have to be a giant monastery, but it has to enforce harsh standards and do everything in its power to suppress sin, vice and degeneracy. https://ghostofrurik.substack.com/p/orthocracy
There are absolutely no limits to the atrocities committed by governments which seek to make their people be virtuous.
The governments that you mean do not worship Christ, many of them instead worship Satan.
The first step down that road is when government sets out to _make_ people virtuous.
This ties in very well with what Magatte Wade writes about here in Substack.
Democracy by necessity is an "empty" system - it does not have any inherent moral qualities, or qualitative benefits, but relies on high IQ and socially cohesive society. Democratic politics is therefore very fragile and subject to ethnic, economic and ideological upheavals. "A prize to be captured" is perhaps the final stage of political development, where common good becomes subsumed into the will of the ruling class on basis of democratic mandate, but not necessarily coterminous with the actual good of the country.
Authoritarian governments mentioned have achieved high growth due to their value-driven projects and perceived objectives of national interest, which would indicate that a measure of strategic vision and an understanding of national interest is easier to achieve outside of democratic system. Its not subject to capture by private interests or by giving out handouts - China today is an example that is persistent and difficult to swallow for the West, where hopes of democratisation faltered, when economic activity was captured by the CCP.
CCP does have its own values that we hold as inimical to a free society, which underscores the neutrality of economic activity as well, and importance of social and ideological factors in building a society that we want. In our post-liberal musings, we must break the unfounded link between values, economy and democracy as neither of this triad is contingent on the other, but rather require conscious application. More often than not, democracy will be an obstacle to the other two
Democracy has, at the very least, a mechanism for removing bad leaders. Not necessarily for selecting good ones, but every other system lacks this important corrective (unless it has robed statesmen with sharp knives).
Democracy is a huge redistribution machine, from the productive to the unproductive and from the powerless to the powerful, disincentivizing everyone, leading to economic stagnation.
https://beyonddemocracy.net
The solution is not some weird lolbert-y anarchist LARP, but a virtuous, Christian and total monarchy. Libertarianism will not magically turn the masses of idiots and midwits into intelligent people who can govern themselves.
"Masses of idiots and midwits are those who are dogmatic about religion.
Is there sth we can learn from history not about how to achieve economic development but how to maintain wealth once development has been achieved?
The same policies which are used to build wealth can maintain it. But people think that it is hard for wealth to dissipate
Why would the same policies that build wealth be appropriate for maintaing wealth? As an engineer, my experience is that optimizing for innovation and for maintenance often pulls in different directions.
The same policies refer to the approach. For example, AI is a different sector from finance, but excessive regulations won't do either sector a favour. Regulations should facilitate rather than impede business. So, if you achieved wealth by using permissionless innovation but overtime you become hostile to innovation then growth will decline.
I agree that excessive regulations are bad (by definition of excessive). But I thought your claim is that the same kind of regulations that are good for growing wealth are also good for maintaining wealth. What is the evidence for this?
The U.S. became the most economically powerful country in the history of humanity under conditions of mass democracy during the last 100 years, a period when the overwhelming majority of citizens could cast a vote.
I simply don’t understand how you could conceivably overlook this. It’s the most powerful refutation of your key point imaginable.
US had already been the most economically powerful country in the World 100 years ago, and its share of World GDP declined from then and is projected to decline further.
Anyway, it's not about democracy, it's about human capital.
> Anyway, it's not about democracy, it's about human capital.
Exactly.
Japan was a democracy when it grew post WWII from nothing to an economic powerhouse.
The three countries that have officially transitioned from "developing" to "developed" in the last 40 years were all democracies - Ireland, Israel, and Chile.
But conversely, Singapore, Taiwan, and Korea were only partially democratic during their growth and generally only towards the end, and China not at all. They all made it, regardless of political structure.
But one thing you'll notice, the average citizen of all those countries, and the countries on average overall, would pass a marshmallow test. That's probably more of a determining factor than their political structures.
As of 1913 the US made up about 19% of global GDP. It currently makes up a little over 26% of global GDP.
1913?
You said "under conditions of mass democracy during the last 100 years".
Women's suffrage was 1920.
100 years ago:
Nominal GDP: 1925: 30 %; 2024: 26 % => decline
GDP PPP: 1925: 21 %, 2025: 14 % => decline
US share of world GDP is projected to decline further.
China overtook US in GDP PPP in ~2014.
America industrialized before becoming a mass democracy and its rise to dominance had nothing to do with people voting
Whether people voting is directly causative of superior economic development is a point worth debate. What is not worth debate is that the U.S. became to most economically dominant and powerful country in history over the last 100 years under conditions of mass democracy.
"The U.S. became the most economically powerful country in the history of humanity under conditions of mass democracy during the last 100 years, a period when the overwhelming majority of citizens could cast a vote."
And now it's in the crapper.
Poland! And more or less all Eastern European countries that joined the EU.
Those countries are successful because of market reforms. There are places which have been democratic for a longer time and are not successful
I answer to this: “To begin with, there is no historical case of a country achieving economic development under conditions of mass democracy.”
In terms of long term history, there is no country that industrialised under the conditions of democracy or became wealthy because it was democratic
Still, my position on this is the following: economic efflorescence has been historically based in representative or republican gobernance: Holland, England after the glorious revolution, etc.
In our time, representative governments converge very fast to mass democracy, and that has some costs. But capital hates and fears absolute power, because at some point, it leads to confiscation. You beguin with Nerva and Trajan, but sooner or later, there is allways a Comodus.
For me the best treatment of this is “the Dictator’s handbook”:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/kBLJgARsfXW5xYLtj/the-dictator-s-handbook-book-by-bruce-bueno-de-mesquita-and
Those countries had a commercial culture and when England was industrializing the elites did not block innovation. England's growth also started before the Glorious Revolution
If you look at “Long History” you can find that the link between (normally oligarchic) republicanism and “economic efflorescence” is strong: the greek efflorescence, the Italian republics (including Venezia), the hanseatic league, and the original countries of the Great Divergence: Holland, England, the US…
Poland multiplied its real per capita GDP by 4 since 1991. That is “achieving economic development”, I would say…
You could save some time and just state the obvious: allowing women to hold the balance of power of lethal to any culture.
“Masculine republics give way to feminine democracies, and feminine democracies give way to tyranny.”
— Aristotle
Democracies tend to last between 250 and 350 years. This is due to SOME randomization, but in the long run, the end results are the same. Because democratic systems break down into only a few major political parties (usually two) the result is an oscillation between political interests. It is also ALWAYS in the immediate best interest of one of the two political parties to expand suffrage into an additional bracket of potential voters. The result is that over time, suffrage expands as it's far easier to grant a group the vote, than it is to rescind such a grant. Over 2.5 to 3.5 centuries, all democratic systems inevitably fall to the lowest-common denominator. Eventually the voters who are easy to bullshit outnumber the voters invested in the system. This results in systemic failure of the democratic system and a transition into autarchy, oligarchy, fracture, or empire.
The most recent expansion of voter rights in the United States was in 1972 when the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18.
America was 100% verifiably a mass-democracy from roughly the crica-1830s until some point after WW2, it executed spectacular economic development and its decision making architectures were cognitively superior to the technocratic quasi-dictatorship we have now and some of its several contemporary traditional dictatorships of various sorts, and its creation wasn’t the result of a long term process but rather a re-design of the political economy that happened fairly quickly
Reread Max Weber's "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism."
"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried."
Winston Churchill
"The path forward is not to abandon democracy, but to recognize that mass democracy is the outcome of a gradual, long-term process."
Wrong. Abandoning democracy IS the only path forward. Democracy is not desirable, it is not a positive outcome. The majority of the population will always be idiots, no matter how much "education" you throw at them.