NewsExpress

The question of democracy inhibiting development is an old age topic of discussion. The ramification of this argument can only be achieved by flipping both the sides of the coin and understanding the pros and cons of both democracy and the alternate authoritarian means of governance all over the world and analyzing their success ratio in terms of development index.

What is this debate all about?

All over the decades economists and political scientists have long strived to unearth the secret that why some economies grow at much faster rates than others.

If, we look towards facts, based upon the last few decades of growth results, nations with autocratic rule have experienced over the top growth rates in comparison to stable democracies.

To establish this argument the example of India and China can be taken. While both the countries have almost same population, the rate of development differs where china shot up as economy and military super power, where as India is just deceiving oneself. Though during same time frame some non-democratic countries have failed in terms of growth rate.

Again, the question arises why economists are so “apologetic” about democracy and very importantly how can, India which is of course a developing country adopted democracy, if we talk about growth and development?

Democracy, is a conflict resolvin gmechanism. It also avoids giant mistakes like those in Mao Zedong’s china where his so called great step forwardscheme killed 10 million people and the ongoing pandemic COVID-19 spread across the globe.

Could corona virus wide spread be prevented, if China was a democratic nation?

Well, the answer certainly cannot be yes or no. It lies somewhere in between. What if China was a democratic nation and people had freedom to speak, express on social media platforms. We might had got some bits of pictures much before and the current situation would be completely different.

Democracy also curbs the excesses of capitalism, making development more humane and sustainable.

In contrast with China the development process in India is much more organized and people centric.

So, these are the positives of a democratic government when it comes to government but like every other aspect of life every coin has another side. There are several corns hindering development in such forms of governance.