IF it is a benevolent dictatorship. Many are not, many are just kleptocracies. A government has to keep whomever it needs to keep running on their side. A democracy has to keep 51% of the voters happy (or misled, or angry, or deluded with false promises, etc. Whatever works). A dictatorship generally only has to keep the elites happy as they can use terrorism against the masses. So generally the incentive of a dictatorship is to have a wealthy upper class and masses of terrorized proletariat. There is no real incentive to run a government well in a dictatorship. At least in a democracy if the roads, schools, healthcare system, environment, etc fails you run the risk of losing support of 51% of the people. In a dictatorship you just open some more torture chambers until people stop protesting.
On another note, China now spends a bigger % of GDP on science and technology R&D than Europe does. With a per capita GDP half of Brazil, China is now becoming a world leader in science & technology spending. I don’t know if that translates into actual scientific advances coming from them, but sooner or later it should as they need to become good at exporting original tech to grow their economy. They are becoming too expensive to just be in manufacturing.
http://www.nature.com/news/china-tops-europe-in-rd-intensity-1.14476
It should be interesting to see what China contributes to the world in the 21st century. They are already showing leadership in renewable energy and leadership in bringing Africa out of poverty. It’d be awesome if their upcoming labor shortage due to the 1 child policy causes them to become a world leader in robotics and automation (to cope with all the elderly who need care and the lack of workers to support them). Or providing high quality health care on a shoestring as both those issues will become big in China in the next 10+ years.
The idea that the government is accountable to no one just isn’t true. Yes, it’s not a democracy. But the government rules with permission from the cities, which are ruled by industry, which is where the real power lies. Beijing is not as powerful as it is made out to be. Think of the Party as a franchise, franchised out to hundreds of cities. Beijing mostly manages the branding and marketing, long-term strategy and discipline. The implementation is farmed out to local governments, and it’s the local governments that really have control over the assets. Beijing is well aware that if Guangzhou and Shanghai decided to do their own thing, there isn’t at on Beijing could do to stop them. And so Beijing must continually demonstrate it’s relevance and manage a complex set of carefully balanced powers that each have their own agenda.
Accountable to the random Joe? No. But it’s still not able to just go do whatever it wants. And pressure does work. China is taking the environment seriously (even if it is too little too late.) They have gotten better at not doing media blackouts of natural disasters. It’s a slow change and not a direct route, but china really does want to sit at the Big Kids table, and they are slowly realizing that will only come with demonstrating responsiblity.
I disagree that the benevelont-ish dictatorship is the best means for development. Having a huge population with a youth bulge and getting into an export-driven economy at just the right moment are what did it with China.
Well look at the last Olympics held in China. What other country could have built all that stuff for that price so cheaply and so fast? For example they decided where they wanted to build that big bird’s nest stadium and who cares about the people living there. The Chinese government just sent in the bulldozers.
And look at their olympic team. The girl gymnasts were not even sure of their age and hadnt seen their parents in over a year or more.
Of course even dictators are accountable in some respects. They have to keep power in some way or another, and it’s a rare dictator who can go the full Caligula route and still have officials and soldiers willing to carry out his every order.
But yes, back in Mao’s day, he really did rule as an absolute dictator. There really were soldiers and officials who would obey any order with fanatical devotion, no matter how insane. That’s what happens when you win a 20 year war against foreign invasion and re-unify a lawless country and are worshiped as a living god. And so the the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, which shows that dictators can be as short-sighted as anyone else.
There are no such rulers today, the party chairmen and top officials are not dictators, they are oligarchs who hold power only by the consensus of the elites. None of the party bosses are allowed to have a cult of personality, not even to the extent Putin does.