[the_dune_13]

> statistical good dictator

There were many more dictators / kings / leaders than proper democracies. Even they are often diluted into autocracy. There might more examples but percentage wise democracies are winning in the long term.

[loa_in_]

> Even they are often diluted into autocracy.

That doesn't make them necessarily bad leaders

> percentage wise democracies are winning in the long term

Democracies are the most stable of governments. I assume you mean they're winning in that case. But as far as the decision-making in the government goes democracies tend to be slow to respond and tend to prefer non-complex and low-risk solutions. Autocracies "do as they please", which can take them to great heights (or great lows, depending on the person in charge). Note though "tending to" doesn't mean those are constrained from making big steps, that's only a general observation.

[jollybean]

"Autocracies "do as they please", which can take them to great height"

History informs that by and large, autocracies are exceedingly slow and inneficient, and tend to perform well only in periods of post-trauma with acute nationalism and oversight/economic aid from friendly partners. And when there was some kind of civilization there previously.

The reconstruction of Japan and Korea after WW2/Korean War were exemplary of this but they had a lot of key favourable conditions.

One could argue that China's recent development is frankly just a delayed post-WW2 kind of rejuvenation but they'll get diminishing marginal returns on authoritarianism as leaping ahead of other systems is much harder than doing the obvious of building new bridges and roads.

And over the last 6 years China has increased centralized control even further.