He Made His Country Rich, but Something Has Gone Wrong With the System
Summary
While established democracies do better economically than autocracies overall, the handful of autocrats who focused on economic growth — rather than their own Swiss bank accounts — have managed to outperform fledgling democracies, according to Ronald Gilson, professor emeritus of law and business at Columbia University, who co-wrote a 2011 paper, “Economically Benevolent Dictators: Lessons for Developing Democracies.” Chile under Augusto Pinochet, South Korea under Park Chung-hee and China under Deng Xiaoping stand out as countries that achieved wholesale economic transformation, while weak democracies stagnated.
The paper, which was co-written by Curtis Milhaupt of Stanford Law School, spells out why benevolent authoritarians have an easier time plugging their countries into the global economy.
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