A quick talking point is that colonial Rhodesia used to be practically a first-world country.
Cite?
(Is now zimbabwe).
Which is definitely not a democracy.
The fact that only rich imperialist powers happen to be progressive democracies isn’t much evidence;
It isn’t true that “only rich imperialist powers are liberal democracies”. What is a “progressive democracy”?
if democracy fails in 9 cases out of 10,
Does democracy fail in 9 cases out of 10?
Mind you, this is not an argument for tearing down democracy
Sure. Though I am rather interested in hearing from the people who think we should tear down democracies.
merely that it could be the case that setting up a new democracy is a bad idea (see afganistan, iraq, etc).
Those examples certainly apply to invading a country and then telling it to become a democracy. It’s less obvious that, say, a Saudi or Iranian citizen should oppose domestic democratizing efforts. And there are older examples that suggest a conqueror willing commit sufficient resources can start a stable democracy (at least given certain populations).
Further, if you accept the cynical take, realizing that you live in a brainwashing theocracy ought to affect your intuitions about what looks like “doing a pretty good job”. Have you taken this into account?
Quite. But I still need some evidence that we haven’t always been at war with Eastasia and that Eurasia isn’t our eternally loyal ally. Romanticism about colonial Africa isn’t doing the trick.
A quick talking point is that colonial Rhodesia used to be practically a first-world country.
Cite?
I know very little about the history of that part of the world, but the GDP graph for Zimbabwe has quite an unusual shape. (Graph shows per-capita GDP in 2000 dollars, with aggregate data for all of sub-Saharan Africa displayed for comparison.) On the other hand, “practically a first-world country” sounds like an exaggeration at best: as the graph shows, GDP per capita was actually below that of sub-Saharan Africa in general until the first of those spikes, and fell back again after.
For a very different story, see Botswana, which Wikipedia informs me gained its independence from Britain in 1966.
Cite?
Which is definitely not a democracy.
It isn’t true that “only rich imperialist powers are liberal democracies”. What is a “progressive democracy”?
Does democracy fail in 9 cases out of 10?
Sure. Though I am rather interested in hearing from the people who think we should tear down democracies.
Those examples certainly apply to invading a country and then telling it to become a democracy. It’s less obvious that, say, a Saudi or Iranian citizen should oppose domestic democratizing efforts. And there are older examples that suggest a conqueror willing commit sufficient resources can start a stable democracy (at least given certain populations).
Quite. But I still need some evidence that we haven’t always been at war with Eastasia and that Eurasia isn’t our eternally loyal ally. Romanticism about colonial Africa isn’t doing the trick.
I know very little about the history of that part of the world, but the GDP graph for Zimbabwe has quite an unusual shape. (Graph shows per-capita GDP in 2000 dollars, with aggregate data for all of sub-Saharan Africa displayed for comparison.) On the other hand, “practically a first-world country” sounds like an exaggeration at best: as the graph shows, GDP per capita was actually below that of sub-Saharan Africa in general until the first of those spikes, and fell back again after.
For a very different story, see Botswana, which Wikipedia informs me gained its independence from Britain in 1966.