Are developed countries developed because of democracy or is democracy developed in developed countries because they are developed?
Are rich countries often democracies because democracies are good for the economy?
democracy does not mean republic.
Republics are good for the economy (compared to monarchy or despotism) because they encourage continuity of government (less likelihood of market crashes/power reshuffles) and because they encourage an extensive, nonpartisan bureaucracy to implement the law.
Developed countries tend to be republics nowadays because the nationstate ideology overcame monarchism 200 years ago. In the future, you may see nationstates decay as globalism/corporatism/"movementism" become more effective administrative apparatuses.
Ok, there have been studies to suggest that as a country gets richer, the more the middle class pushes for democracy. Certainly this idea was pushed by a political scientist called Seymour Lipsett. But as we have seen recently this isn't the entirely the case.
We see around the world incredibly rich states existing with very little democracy. For instance the Arab Oil Sheikdoms, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea until the 1990s and Taiwan until the 1990s as well.
There's no real correlation that says firstly democracy=wealth or even the reverse of wealth=democracy. When rich countries don't democratise there are usually three reasons why they don't.
1) The authoritarian regime makes enough money to pay off its people, i.e Saudi Arabia, China
2) The authoritarian goes to great lengths to prevent democratisation, i.e South Korea until the 1990s, Taiwan
3) a combination of both, i.e Singapore
So it's really a complex relationship between money, power relations and civic culture.
democracy purportedly started out in greece (scratches head). by modern standards, they are...what? average most likely; not super rich, that's for sure
and it started being practiced well before empires were established on it (united states, eruopean union, ussr (not democracy for real, but a simulacra for sure))
so, no, i don't think wealth determines it per se; i.e. pursuit of democracy.
does democracy promote enormous wealth necessarily? no, as above cases show. capitalism promotes wealth generation; that's essentially what it is. might as well be called "wealthism."
so the point of this exercise is that you can't have an economy without a political system and vice versa; but you can't attribute democracy to wealth nor wealth to democracy
>>1283086
Most rich countries are democracies because most European and European-descendant countries are democracies.
>>1283293
Yes, pretty much everyone on the planet is governed by an oligarchic republic even if they aren't too fond of calling themselves an oligarchy. Developed countries are "democracies" because they have to hide this fact. To do this they set up elections, which have never been anything more than a meaningless formality used to serve elites. Democracy without sortition is completely impossible.
Democracy and wealth are both correlated with a third, somewhat more imprecise factor, rule of law.
Societies with rule of law don't have to be democracies. Taiwan and South Korea managed to create societies where multinational corporations could operate free of government shakedowns, without any interference.
But rule of law, as in not having corrupt officials shake down money at every turn, having contracts consistently enforced and property rights consistently respected, is key to economic growth.
>>1283086
>Are rich countries often democracies because democracies are good for the economy?
Yes, liberal democracies that promotes freedom and in turn market economies, liberal capitalism, is the best for economies.
>>1283086
Canada, for exemple, is rich despite the democracy. In a traditional monarchy, the king should see his land as a private property, while a president sees his land as a source of wealth for his own. The average mandate of a president is 4 years, so he has 4 years to steal the wealth of a country and pass the power to another, while the king controls for life and will do the possible to make his property a nice place for living. (sorry if you didn't understand what i meant, english isn't my first language.)
>>1283451
Or he'll just neglect it and use it as a personal playground until he dies, as happened plenty in history.
This reasoning is inherently fallacious anyway. Since it assumes that after their career as head of government or head of state that a politician just vanishes entirely, his performance in his previous role having no impact on his future career, and that it assumes that these politicians have absolute power to steal or squander willy-nilly, as an absolute monarch would.
>>1283451
Not to mention that in monarchy is your family who inherits the property, instead of your hated ideological enemies.
>>1283486
Yes, instead it's your family who are now political rivals rather than just family.
>>1283478
Forgot to mention, The power of a monarchy um minimized. Traditional monarchy isn't the same as absolutist monarchy. Altough, Hans-Adams II of Liechtenstein has a great power, but rules with the principles of the austria school of economics. But it's an exception.
>>1283086
Democracies as a government type has nothing to do with the GDP of a country.
Its the economic system that is most important.
To be fair, a democracy could vote in capitalism, state capitalism, socialism, or communism.
Its just in recorded history, no country has ever voted in communism without a violent overthrow of the government.
That said, I don't necessarily think that Communism automatically means GDP growth will be shit. Its just that because the violent overthrows tended to put in people who were geared for violent revolution rather than a technocracy which is needed for a solid communist economy to work.
And to be really fair, I don't think United States could currently transfer to communism even if everyone voted it. Would require more automation and AI to efficiently run the economy. Maybe in 20 years, but not now.
Bump anally
>>1283451
If a president fucks up he's going to prison.
If a king fucks up he kills some of his subjects.
>>1283086
Because they're white
