Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I think there's no way to answer that question, because governments do a range of things -- build sewers, start wars, etc. -- that people care about beyond per capita income. This is the reason that left-wing governments get elected in places like Brazil (to take a recent example). A real respect for democracy demands that when the people vote to place some other objective above their future GNP, you let them do that, instead of subverting their government and replacing it with a brutal junta.
If you're not quite getting the principle I have in mind, club can refer to the right passages in the most recent State of the Union speech.
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What I am trying to say is that Prosperity is the key to a sustained democracy. An economics professor (whose name escapes me right now) demonstrated that generally countrys whose PCI rises above $4,000 a year become stable democracies. By this point they throw off their dictatorship, and they tend to stay democratic once they do. Countrys that are below that number are not that stable. In addition, Demoracy ain't all that great when your people are starving and uneducated. So the key is get your country to a $4,000 per year PCI. I believe US policy should be to get as many countrys past that threshold as possible. To get a country to the $4000 PCI there are certain policies they should follow. Stable currency, investment in infrastructure, investment in Education (critical), no subsidizing inneficiency, enforcement of contracts, atmosphere respecting foreign investment, no currency controls, respect for property rights, etc. I would assert that anyone that encourages countrys not to adopt these policies is promoting poverty and dictatorships.
