The leaders of liberal democracies have assumed that democracy is not only the best political system but that it delivers the strongest economies. Biden's Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, recently claimed democracy delivers a '20% higher GDP per capita'. But critics argue this is illusory. China’s state-led authoritarian capitalism has radically outpaced the West. Thirty years ago the UK's economy was five times that of China, today China's economy is five times the UK's. Meanwhile Singapore’s model of illiberal capitalism, despite being resource poor, has surpassed many European nations' GDP per capita by a substantial margin. While Russia's economy, far from being strangled by Western sanctions, has grown in the past few years.
Will the most successful economies of the future not be democratic but be autocratically run? Are democracies undermined by their need to avoid policies that deliver short-term pain even if they have the potential for lasting benefit? Or will authoritarian economic success in due course be overturned by political breakdown and dissent?
