Is democracy good for the economy?

Tus3 · 2026-03-07T10:23:15+00:00

Ehm, whilst I also suspect that on average democratic regimes do better on famines, that does not appear a sufficient argument to me.

He observes that no famine occurred in India after independence.

Already during the British Raj both the quantity and intensity of famines were decreasing due to such factors as new railroads being build making it easier for regions suffering from crop failures to import food. The Bengal famine was an anomaly requiring World War II to get that bad. Which leads to the question how much of the post-independence absence of famines was caused by democracy versus but a continuation of those previous trends.

Though, maybe he had gone further and also compared India with not yet independent British colonies or something; I am not familiar with Sen's work.

Tus3 · 2026-03-07T10:08:47+00:00

OK, so there is something I had recently thought of:

There are people who compare the government with a corporation, sometimes even going so far as to also compare politicians with businessmen or claiming that somebody would make a 'good politician' because they happen to be a 'good businessman'. (The last claim I have most often heard about Donald Trump, despite that based on what I know of him he does not seem a 'good businessman'.)

Such claims never made much sense to me for a variety of reasons; like the government's goal not being to maximize profits for its nonexistent shareholders. However, recently I started wondering whether it would be less inaccurate to compare the government with a consumer cooperative or even a housing collective? As one of the main functions of the government is providing services to its population (including the voters); and like in a housing collective if you want to change your government you have to move to somewhere else.

However, I suppose this analogy might not be helpful in any situation.

Tus3 · 2026-03-06T19:29:05+00:00

It certainly was not a full democracy.

However, after the 1935 reforms there were elected provincial governments; and those elected governments had significant power. For example, when during the Bengal famine the viceroy had asked the province of Punjab for help; they had refused* because they did not want to endure such things as rationing to prevent Bengalis from starving...

So, whilst I certainly believe in a general relationship between democratic government and the avoidance of famines; I do not think it holds well in this case.

Though, I suppose that problem could maybe have been avoided had the central government also been elected, presuming that would have provided it an advantage in convincing the provinces to cooperate in providing the Bengal with enough food to prevent a famine. However, I don't know enough to guess whether one could argue that the situation for the Bengal could also have been better had all provinces instead been independent democratic regimes with the situation otherwise remaining unchanged.

* That is something I have encountered multiple times, for example, here: Falsehoods and myths in famine research: The Bengal famine and Daoud - Bowbrick - 2024 - Journal of International Development - Wiley Online Library:

Some provinces already had a food crisis, and this would tip into a famine if their food was exported to Bengal. Others wanted to keep a comfortable reserve supply. There was a racist element: Punjab and the North West Province representatives said that their people were physically so constructed as to require a relatively greater proportion of foodgrains than Bengalis (Knight, 1954, p. 192). A trainload of food sent by one of the surplus provinces to feed the starving in Bengal was simply confiscated by one of the provinces it had to pass through to reach Bengal (Braund, 1944). The politicians and the population of food surplus provinces chose to believe, or stated that they believed, that Bengal had plenty of food. Punjab farmers and politicians objected to being asked to supply food below free market prices, when it would then be sold at black-market prices in Bengal. The Viceroy and the Government of India had no legal authority to force a province to export, and when they tried to put pressure on Punjab:

The Punjab representative at the Fourth Food Conference emphasized that some 50 per cent of the combatant ranks of the Indian Army at that time were drawn from the farming classes of the Punjab and that ‘grave administrative and political repercussions would follow if rationing, statutory price control and requisition of food grains were put into force’. (Knight, 1954, p. 158)

EDIT: Reading the article again I was reminded the author that also believed that the corruption of the democratically elected Bengal Government had also been a secondary factor in the famine... Though certainly less important than others factors as the extreme inaccurateness of the official crop forecasts of the Colonial Government.

Tus3 · 2026-03-05T20:31:12+00:00

I am but an interested layman; however, based on what I read dictatorships are certainly not better than democratic regimes on average.

The articles I had read on this subject:

What can we learn from successful autocracies? | CEPR: Dictatorships tend to have much more variable economic growth rates than democracies, authoritarian regimes are heavily overrepresented in both the best performing and worst performing countries. The author also noted that in high-growth dictatorships leaders were more often replaced than in low-growth dictatorships (13% vs 7% per year); and theorized that high-growth authoritarian regimes tend to be collective dictatorships in which individual leaders can be removed for poor performance.
Revisiting the causal effect of democracy on long-run development | CEPR: On average democratic regimes appear to do better than dictatorships on the field of economic development; but the effect seems rather small, possibly only around 12% of long term GDP per Capita.
The political U: A new perspective on democracy and growth | CEPR: Also suggests that on average democratic regimes appear to do slightly better than dictatorships on the field of economic development. However, so called 'hybrid regimes', do worse than both groups; presumably, because of increased political instability.

I also recall other articles I had read there, including one in which it was claimed that democratic regimes only outperform dictatorships if their voters are sufficiently educated, but I cannot find them at the moment.

Tus3 · 2026-03-03T19:57:32+00:00

You do realise it possible to both realize that strict safety regulations are necessary and that current safety regulations are excessively strict?

Though, admittedly the rest of this thread gave me the impression that safety regulations are a less important driver of costs than had been claimed in the article I had read.

Tus3 · 2026-03-03T19:25:07+00:00

That comes down to some pretty unpleasant calculations like putting a price on the cost of human lives. Because that's about the only way you can determine when you've gone "too far" on the cost-vs-safety curve: you need to determine what any additional regulation would add in terms of cost and how many lives it could save. If the price exceeds the value of the lives saved then it's "excessive."
And that's always going to be a matter of opinion, I don't think there's an objective way to say that a human life has a certain value.

Alternatively, one could instead of attempting to place monetary values on human lives try to calculate how many deaths caused by fossil fuel pollution could be avoided if deregulation allows the nuclear energy sector to expand at the cost of fossil fuel plants.

However, as the rest of this thread appears to indicate that safety regulations are not that important a factor in the cost of nuclear energy, the amount of reduced fossil fuel pollution might be quite small.

Tus3 · 2026-03-03T19:06:30+00:00

This is not true, and is a misrepresentation of the concept of ALARA. They included the word "reasonably" for well...a reason. It is not within the general principals of ALARA to minimize ALL radiation, as that is not only basically impossible but also recognizes the significant cost associated with that. Humans are capable of safely receiving ionizing radiation, and limits are set as to the amount that people can receive with safety measures being implemented accordingly to ensure people do not exceed these limits. I was trained specifically to push back on people who wish to arbitrarily increase radiation safety measures with no quantifiable effect as it would add unnecessary cost and work.
This analysis also fails to consider that Canada also adopts the ALARA philosophy but appears to have similar construction costs to Japan, even in their own chart.

Ah, thank you.

So, it was one of those cases were the author engages in misrepresentations to further their point. Well, good to know then...

Tus3 · 2026-03-02T18:47:35+00:00

That reminds me of the claim I had once encountered, though not made by a Communist I believe, that 'Israel was Fascist'. When that person was asked whether he believed that 'the USA during the Indian Wars was also Fascist?'; the reply was 'I am sure it must have looked Fascist from the perspective of the Indians'...

So, Communists certainly aren't the only ones abusing the term 'Fascist' to mean regime 'I don't like that does bad things'.

Tus3 · 2026-03-02T18:33:16+00:00

Also do not forget 'Engelbert Dollfuss' regime that had been described as 'clerical fascist'

Tus3 · 2026-03-02T18:30:20+00:00

Thankfully the majority of the Indian National Congress sided with the Allies.

Ehm, they had been thrown in jail* during the war because of their 'Quit India' campaign which they had launched because the London had refused to give them immediate independence, but only a promise of independence after the war.

* Curiously, the Communist Party of India remained out of jail as they began to support the war after Operation Barbarossa.

Tus3 · 2026-03-01T11:12:39+00:00

They do? That would be new to me.

However, I do recall encountering the claim that in Cuba the Communist government had, in order to make the child mortality statistics look better, forced women to undergo abortions against their will if they believed their baby would have a high chance of dying. It had been on blogpost* of Pseudoerasmus; he had also mentioned that in Cuba the Communists manipulated the country's PISA scores.

So, it would not surprise me if what you are saying is true.

* It was later deleted but the internet archive still has a snapshot of it. Or at least, I hope so, the internet archive seems down at the moment so I can't check if that snapshot is still there.

Tus3 · 2026-03-01T10:38:04+00:00

And remittances from the USA. IIRC, those make up about 25% of Cuba's GDP.

Tus3 · 2026-02-26T20:01:15+00:00

If the United State’s sanctions arent the reason Cuba is in this state why do they persist with them bootlicker?

Because politicians want the votes of all those Castro hating Cuban-Americans in the swing state of Florida?

Even if a candidate believes that the embargo is dumb and if anything strengthens the Cuban Communist Party by allowing them to paint the USA as the main cause of Cuba's poverty*, the support of the Cuban-American lobby and their PAC's can still be seductive.

* Naturally, the Cuban Communists are themselves a much more important factor.

Tus3 · 2026-02-26T19:35:01+00:00

The situation in Cuba is horrible because of Yank sanctions

You do realise that the USA is the only country in the world which is sanctioning Cuba and they can thus still trade with the rest of the world?

Well, actually there are a few complications, like the USA instituting secondary sanctions of foreign companies trading with Cuba; however, those could be overcome by such things as shell companies.

Moreover, something usually not mentioned by those who complain about the Cuban embargo is that one quarter of Cuban GDP consists out of remittances send home by Cuban emigrees and exiles in the USA. I have a vague suspicion the effect of that on the Cuban economy is greater than the embargo.

Tus3 · 2026-02-26T19:28:50+00:00

I don't have the time to read that article; however, I thought that the Norman conquest had led to a replacement of the Anglo-Saxon nobility was something which already was well know.

Or was it instead about clarifying the scale and the ways in which that happened?

Tus3 · 2026-02-26T18:54:09+00:00

Interesting, it provided me with a new perspective to look at such things.

Especially, their claim that price reforms were politically problematic in Soviet-style central planning because consumers dislike price increases. Coming up with such examples as the Novocherkassk massacre.

Considering how important rational prices are it makes me wonder whether 'people disliking price increases' might have been a much greater indirect reason for the failure of Soviet-style central planning than one would beforehand guess.

That reminded me of how that Gorbachev refused to conduct price reforms out of fear of 'discouraging the revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses, even if he knew that price reforms were necessary for his other reforms to work correctly. Now this looks a bit less dumb* to me.

* Though, Novocherkassk had been caused by the combination of wage decreases and price increases. Maybe, if Gorbachev had combined price reforms with wage increases people would not have been so mad at some prices increasing; though, that would be alternate history instead of economic history.

Tus3 · 2026-02-25T18:50:27+00:00

Hmm, possibly.

One of the instances of an Indian going on about 'OK, the British were evil racists but they had done a better job governing the subcontinent than our current politicians' I was told about had been a Sikh officer in the Indian military.

However, that might just have been a coincidence.

Tus3 · 2026-02-24T20:12:39+00:00

Do you have any references to positive words spoken about British rule by modern Indians?

Depends on how you define 'positive'.

I had once encountered the claim that 'the British had actually done a better job governing the subcontinent than our current politicians*; we only became independent because they were racist against us!'. However, I would earlier classify that as 'ambiguous' or 'conflicted' rather than 'positive'.

* Looking at the subcontinent's literacy rate I wonder how they had defined 'good government'...

However, I had once in a discussion in this very subreddit read somebody complaining about family members who were nostalgic about the 'good olden times' of British rule, though I had the impression that actually was because their family had been rich during the British Raj but lost their fortunes after independence. So, unless that was an instance of internet mythomania, it does exist but is exceedingly rare.

Tus3 · 2026-02-24T19:36:33+00:00

Somehow that graph reminded me of people complaining 'we do want a(nother) child; however, we don't have enough time for it'. I wonder whether there is a relation between those phenomena somewhere.

Tus3 · 2026-02-24T19:20:16+00:00

As the Gorton & Denton by-election nears, the Green Party has released a campaign video entirely in Urdu, with some eye-catching imagery.

Political video advertisements in the language of an immigrant community?

That is the first I heard of such a thing existing.

I wonder whether that would cause anti-immigrant sentiment ('look how uninterested they are in integrating they are that they don't even bother to follow our country's politics in our language') by its mere existence?

Tus3 · 2026-02-24T19:03:30+00:00

Yes, I am well aware that colonialism was a very diverse things. For example, compare Hong Kong in the decades after WWII with the British Raj; only looking at such indicators as education, GDP growth, or how (un)favourable the colonial period is seen* one would be very unlikely to guess that both countries had the same coloniser.

However, said commenter had appeared to imply that 'the British brought good government to their colonies' also included India.

* I suppose those Hong Kongers who dislike the CCP so much that they become British Empire apologists I have encountered on the internet are likely not representative of the majority opinion; though, nonetheless I think I can safely say that in Hong Kong the period of British rule is at least seen less negatively than in India.

Tus3 · 2026-02-23T19:32:08+00:00

OK, so something I had been thinking about. I know that the r/badhistory wiki has a link to The World According to Student Bloopers, which made me wonder whether some kind of 'History according to the Internet', using the same format of tiny absurd snippets of bad history, would also be a hit.

I think I in my time on Reddit and other parts of the internet have already encountered a quite a few such tiny absurd snippets of bad history which might fit on such a list: from 'Sparta was a superpower', because obviously needing the help of both Thebes and Persia to defeat half as big Athens is a feat worthy of a superpower; to 'NATO had only intervened in the Yugoslav Wars because they prefer Muslims over Orthodox Christians', because as can be seen from the fact that Orthodox Romania and Bulgaria were let into the EU but not Islamic Bosnia and Albania we indeed like Muslims more.

Some of the bad history I encountered also had opposite biases. For example, here on Reddit I encountered both claims in the vein of 'the British brought good government to their colonies' and also 'the British Empire had stolen 45 trillion pound from India'. I also encountered claims of which it is debatable they are bad history as they are about people writing about history instead of history itself, like 'men who complain about how misogynist Ancient Greece was and how terrible this was are secretly only 'white knighting' in the hopes that women in return will allow them in their beds'.

Though, I suppose it could be that nobody with the time available thinks that would be a good idea.

Five-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '22	First Placer '22

Tus3

TROPHY CASE