What would be your verdict on democracy if you had to base it purely on economic
performance of democratic regimes in terms of growth and equal distribution?
Table 2
Answers
Explanation:
Democracy has absolutely nothing to do with economic growth or equal distribution. Democracy is simply “majority rule”. If a democratic system led to poor economic growth or unequal distribution, that is still a democratic system. I believe you are getting your economic systems and your political models mixed up. Socialism advocates for equality of distribution, which makes everyone poor, except the ruling elite, rather than the “prolific producers”. Conversely, Individualism-driven, free-market capitalism leads to equality of opportunity thereby enriching everyone, even those who are at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, because they are poor in a richer country.
Explanation:
(i) If we base our verdict on economic performance of democratic regimes, we see that dictatorial regimes have performed much better in last 50 years. The democratic regimes witnessed 3.95 per cent growth rate on an average while the dictatorial regimes 4.42 per cent.
To our surprise the poor countries under democracy have obtained a better growth rate (4.28 per cent) than all democratic regimes (3.95 per cent). Overall, there is not much difference between the two forms of government so far as economic growth rate is concerned.
The same is true with regard to distribution of national income. For most countries top 20 per cent of their population fetch more than 50 per cent of national income while bottom 20 per cent people have less than 10 per cent share in national income. This shows deep unequal distribution of national income.
(ii) But, democracy has many other positive things that lack in dictatorship or other regimes, so I will go with democracy.