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Autocracies restrict freedom for the sake of order.
#IMPERIAL GLORY DEMOCRACY OR AUTOCRACY FREE#
The liberal ideal is that people should be left as free as possible to construct their own ideal. Human beings these days want to have full, rich lives and make the most of their potential.
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Vladimir Putin understood nothing about what the Ukrainian people wanted, how they would fight or how his own army had been ruined by corruption and kleptocrats. The Russian intelligence failure about Ukraine has been astounding.
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No one tells the top man what he doesn’t want to hear. Information flows are distorted by power. Often in autocracies, decisions are made within a small, closed circle. We still make mistakes, but the system learns. Many economists last year said inflation would not be a problem, but Larry Summers and others said it would, and they turn out to have been right. In any system, one essential trait is: How does information flow? In democracies, policymaking is usually done more or less in public and there are thousands of experts offering facts and opinions. The wisdom of many is better than the wisdom of megalomaniacs. This is not an occasion for democratic triumphalism it’s an occasion for a realistic assessment of authoritarian ineptitude and perhaps instability. It’s become clear that when it comes to the most important functions of government, autocracy has severe weaknesses. Yet the past few weeks have been revelatory. Academics have written popular books with titles like “How Democracies Die.” A homegrown would-be autocrat won the White House. The American political system has become distrusted and dysfunctional. In democracies, on the other hand, power is decentralized, often polarized and paralytic. Autocracy has made global gains and democracy continues to decline. China showed that autocracies can produce mass prosperity. Leaders can respond to challenges quickly, shift resources decisively. So which system performs better under stress?įor the last several years the autocracies seemed to have the upper hand. Joe Biden correctly argues that the struggle between democracy and autocracy is the defining conflict of our time.