[alephnan]

> They assume that people will execute their orders perfectly, even under extreme hardship

China has also taken 1 billion people out of poverty in just 3 decades.

> For all its failures, democracy at least has taught us to incorporate the human imperfection into the process and the decisions.

Since we’re talking counter evidence:

- Singapore is a benevolent dictatorship - Japan’s schooling system prepares its citizens to be model minorities, and most of the orderliness or Japan is because of cultural reasons. Additionally, people are expected to not make mistakes.

America does have other ways it recognizes and adapts to human flaws: by embracing the free market. Adam Smith’s wealth of nations mentioned it not out of altruism, but selfishness that everyone thrives.

It’s not entirely attributable to democracy. In fact, many are arguing to remove the electoral college. A popular vote would be more Democratic in the Ancient Greek sense no? But our founder fathers designed America against that, to prevent tyranny of the masses.

> For all its failures, democracy at least has taught us to incorporate the human imperfection into the process and the decisions.

This is not uniquely America or contemporary. Any great past civilization accounted for this if it lasted for a long time.

[native_samples]

"China" didn't do that. The Chinese people did that after Deng Xiaoping got into a position where he could stop the government actively destroying all progress in the country.

And whilst I used to be impressed by this "lifted a billion people" take, the reality is that lots of countries industrialized, modernized and huge numbers of people left behind agrarian poverty. This isn't unique or special and in fact when ranked against other countries like Taiwan, Korea, Japan - let alone countries like the USA or UK - China has turned in one of the worst performances. China still has widespread poverty and in many ways is still a developing country, 80 years after Europe utterly destroyed itself in WW2 and Japan had two of its major cities leveled by atomic bombs.

There's really nothing impressive about China beyond the sheer number of people the government has managed to hold back. If your foot is constantly on the brake of a very large vehicle, lifting your foot even half way will cause a lot of mass to start moving. That doesn't mean you get credit for it.

[alephnan]

> Taiwan, Korea, Japan

Japan has less than 1/10th China’s population. Taiwan has less than 20% of Taiwan.

Japan was far richer than China per capita before WWII. Japan was the superpower that believed it could take on the West. Until recent, did China ever try to expand and attack the West?

Japan was never occupied by a resource colonizer, while China had the opium war.

Right now, both Japan and Taiwan’s economy are at stagnating. How do I know? I’m a permanent resident of one, and have a passport from the other. The argument that democracy exists, and let people do whatever they want will lead to prosperous is false. Otherwise America wouldn’t be at risk of slowing growth, potentially civilization decline.

Also, what are your thoughts on Singapore which is a one family dictatorship ?

> Japan had two of its major cities leveled by atomic bombs.

Have you been or is this armchair philosophizing from intro to WWII? I’ve been to the monuments at both, but the fact of the matter is those were military cities. Those cities by themselves are not what crippled the Japanese economy post WWII.

> There's really nothing impressive about China beyond the sheer number of people the government has managed to hold back.

Is that why India and Africa with a billion people are in poverty still?

[FredPret]

Being from Africa and now living in the first world, my experiences align with what native_samples is saying. We had colonialism and then most countries in Africa had governments with understandably anti-Western ideas - for decades.

Even today a very serious issue holding back progress there is thousands of little regulations that are designed to lead to bribes.

If Africa’s national borders and governments could be redrawn from scratch, it would organize itself into a much happier, richer place.

[please-reread]

> Taiwan has less than 20% of Taiwan.

You are mistaken. Taiwan is 100% of Taiwan.

[cycomanic]

> It’s not entirely attributable to democracy. In fact, many are arguing to remove the electoral college. A popular vote would be more Democratic in the Ancient Greek sense no? But our founder fathers designed America against that, to prevent tyranny of the masses.

That's at least a gross oversimplification. One of the primary reasons for the electoral college was that it allowed the compromise with southern states that they could count slaves as population (well half actually), without letting them vote. There was also the difficulty of the voting process during those times. I'm not aware of documents actually stating that the electoral system was about preventing the "tyranny of the masses".

[digital-cygnet]

Federalist 10 (James Madison) does pretty explicitly state this. It seeks to explain how the proposed US Constitution protects against one of the key problems with representative government -- that of faction (aka, what we would call parties today). The tyranny of the majority is described as follows:

> When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens

And the remedy provided by the indirectness of the American system (i.e., election of representatives, senators, and electors instead of direct democracy) is that it will

> refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose

Generally I recommend reading this whole paper, 18th century prose aside, as it provides a fascinating insight into how the framers thought of some of the key points of the Constitution

https://billofrightsinstitute.org/primary-sources/federalist...

[voldacar]

>China has also taken 1 billion people out of poverty in just 3 decades.

Capitalism took them out of poverty once Mao died and the Chinese government mostly got out of the market's way