[fighterpilot]

Sure, liberal democracies have had many recent failures, but they're still the most prosperous societies on a per-capita basis by a gigantic margin. If an authoritarian or non-democratic country can achieve over $40,000 GDP per capita, then we can revisit.

[dirtyid]

If you go by PPP, top 5 per capita territories are Luxembourg, Singapore, Ireland, Qatar, Macau. That's 3/5 non democracies. Rank 6-10 is Switzerland, Norawy, US, Brunei, HK. 5/10 non democracies.

Many systems can become prosperous if relatively small and sufficiently aligned to US foreign policy to preserve the hegemony. Democracies that don't will get crushed / contained inspite of "democratic peace". The real disruption of PRC's rise is an alternate system that could create a prosperous or even moderately wealthy society, despite US supremency.

[bllguo]

that's true. but none of this is happening in a vacuum. liberal democracies are also the ones trying to change or destroy non-democratic regimes by force. imo you can sum up everything evil China is accused of, and it would not come close to what we pulled in South America, the Middle East, and Asia

I'm all for a fair comparison. And as someone who currently benefits from Western ideals of personal liberties, I'd be happy to see it proven that they are superior. But let's make it fair

[quickthrowman]

> imo you can sum up everything evil China is accused of, and it would not come close to what we pulled in South America, the Middle East, and Asia

I know you said Asia and that includes China, but Western countries (and Japan) did similar things to China in the 19th and 20th centuries:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation