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World affairs in the Middle East once again point out the difficulty of exporting “Democracy”  to countries not quite ready for it. The famous Churchillian quotes which I mentioned earlier http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-750725.html laments its well-known ills and emphasizes the need of a well-educated populace to practice it.  Another related but fundamental difficulty with democracy and its associated capitalistic economy was  recently pointed out by the French economist,Thomas Piketty. His observation in his new bestselling book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” is that inequality is not anartifact

of  some market  failures but a structural feature of capitalism – the historical  return on assets is between 4-5% while the GDP per capita grows at 1-2%. This means  over the long term “the rich get richer” and income inequality will grow   regardless which is a fundamental difficulty with a capitalistic-democratic society  (In 1990 the ratio of CEO pay to that of the average worker  pay in the US is 20:1. But by 2014 it has grown to 300:1). Although government  tries to equalize this by various taxation schemes, the effort often stalls due to  political stalemate as in the current Democratic-Republican dispute in the US.  Money talks. The rich have very powerful allies and means to stymy various  equalization attempts. Yes, a rising tide lifts all boats. But the  amounts of lifts are unequal. Whether or not the US and other democratic society can overcome  this   inequality remain to be seen. The Nordic countries, such as Sweden,  seem to have solved this problem reasonably.But Sweden is a much smaller country. We don’t   know if such equality can be implemented worldwide in all countries.  The US has managed reasonably well for the past century. But whether a capitalistic democracy with socialistic remedies can endure in the long term remains to be seen.  A complete  set of laws and a healthy respect for the law with an educated populace  are necessary ingredients.

On the other hand, China for thousands of years until 1911 had  authoritarian emperor with an educated elite of government  officials that rules the populace. From 1912 to 1978, China  endured Japanese invasion, World Wars, civil war, and the  Cultural Revolution. Since 1978, meritorious authoritarianism with term limit  (staring in 1989) was instituted with its attendant economic  miracle that lifted hundred millions of people out of poverty. The “Beijing model” is being touted as a viable alternative to democracy. However, here we are reminded of the famous Lord  Acton quote: power corrupts  and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  A succession of benevolent authorities forever with term limits is difficult to achieve. But at a more basic level   authoritarianism often does not have mature laws to go with  it since the authorities are the law. As a result people  constantly face unexpected changes in the minds  of the authority. With this lack of consistency, one does not know how to play by the rules since there are no rules except what the authority says. For example the powerful can do many things  since there is no law which says  you cannot do this or that.  The ordinary people on the other  hand cannot do many things  since there are no law which  specifically  permits you to do  this and that. Once a visiting Chinese told me perceptively  that in the US you are in control of 80%of your lives while  in China it is often  the reverse. Not being in control of  ones lives and the  unpredictability  of rule changes are the  major weakness of an authoritarian regime - you don't quite  know how to adapt.  This is reflected in the flight of capital out of China  from rich or even middle class people because they don’t  have enough confidence in the future of  the environment,political, social, or otherwise. The large  number of Chinese students (75%) who chose to remain in the  US after completion of studies despite incentives back in China is another piece of evidence of this phenomena.

There is no perfect system of governance as Ken Arrow, the Nobel  prize laureate, famously proved long ago  http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-4695.html.   You always need wise and capable leaders - a democratic authority http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-736976.html .

The above are just personal observations to get off my chest.  I am sure they are nothing new to political and social scientists.