I know this is an old entry but just a few quick comments:
1. Olson's pessimistic view of voter intentions merely reflects classical economic theory's self-interest focus. Abundant behavioural research demonstrates this misrepresents human nature, as cooperation benefiting those beyond one's in-group and altruism are fundamentally human traits.
2. You've overlooked significant theoretical findings and empirical evidence from Acemoglu and Robinson. While Lee Kuan Yew may be an outlier, his governance approach was exceptional for an autocrat, and Singapore remains a special case.
3. Your suggestion that the wealthiest 50% might form a better governing majority (presumably having more to lose) depends critically on the origins of their wealth—which brings us back to institutions and Acemoglu and Robinson's work.
Behavioural research does not invalidate the existence of public good problems — far from it. I cite A&R, and Singapore is one of several East Asian “developmental dictatorships” (Taiwan, S Korea, now mainland China, arguably HK and even MacArthur’s Japan). Lastly the “wealthiest 50%” argument is an implication of the Olson model, not my own argument, and as such doesn’t depend on where the wealth comes from — I mean, empirically maybe you’re right, but it is not the logic of his model.
I don't think the fact that free riding remains a problem in the long run in anonymous laboratory settings is sufficient to wish away altruism, other regarding preferences, and the ability of humans to cooperate. (I say wish away, because theorists prefer not to consider it since it makes their model harder to handle)
Concerning A&R, I know the connection in their work between liberalism and democracy on the one hand and development is very intricate, but I think it deserves more attention.
Olson is often used to argue for a rule by the wealthy, but I think this argument is fundamentally flawed since 1. the wealthy may also simply be a self serving interest group and 2. if wealth is primarily inherited and/or based on rent seeking, (both points reinforce each other) then this conclusion is simply wrong.
... just to put this into context. The political right in the US usually point to examples of self-made (B)millionaires in order to justify laws that give wealthy people disproportionate political influence (mostly ignoring their wealthy upbringing). However, the US consistently has one of the highest intergenerational elasticity of wealth among developed economies....
Concerning developmental autocracy and the examples you gave, I think they illuminate that a key requirement for their success was some degree of liberalism, which for many led to reasonable levels of democratic institutions and/or governance. China and Hong Kong represent one important and related exception, with Singapore being the other. Although I would argue that the latter still maintains some degree of liberalism.
The important question should be why liberalism in China faltered. The answer is complex, but I think a possible explanation was the ruthless liberalisation of markets that enabled massive levels of fraud and corruption whilst leaving the populace exposed to exploitation with little to no social protection. The discontent that must have grown due to real estate scams that eliminated hundreds of billions in savings, combined with the lack of any social security net and accessible public healthcare, is now being suppressed with an iron fist and drowned in extremely nationalistic posturing, propaganda and policies.
Many versions of the "rational ignorance" argument (economists who argue voting is waste of time) sound often too much overstated overcorrection to a particularly idealist notion of democracy.
Agreed, very few people have done a PhD level study of their interests and party platforms and vote according to super duper deep analysis. Some people vote for extremely shallow reasons. Yet there is something a bit more to politics in democracies than random fads. Here is a choice quote from your own text:
"Most of the world’s countries are either democracies where everyone can vote, or autocracies where nobody can vote or votes are meaningless."
In a democracy, votes in aggregate are not meaningless, they decide elections. However, one can't be blamed for thinking all votes must be meaningless if one thinks a single vote is meaningless.
Voting in a democracy is probably best viewed as a sort of contract or coordination problem. One vote is not enough to affect the election, but "one x 50% of the electorate" votes is enough. Thus, it is a worthwhile thing to have around a large coalition of voters that can affect an election outcome aligned with your interests. Likewise, it is worthwhile to spend some effort in support of its continued existence as long as it appears to be around, for instance, occasionally go out and cast a vote, or donate to the party to support their "get out the vote" campaign. (Facilitating that coalition is costly for the party / lobby group, so they probably must get something out of it to make the deal worth their while, too.)
I grant the rational ignorance must kick in at some point, because people often are ignorant of politics and most people spend minimal amount of time in any coalition building work. But it is more than zero, and voting in elections is not maybe as irrational as it may appear. I think it can partly understood as just people understanding deals on intuitive level: "my vote for part A is not needed, but everyone thought so, nobody would vote, and nobody voting would make it stupid easy for party B to win because they could send just one person".
About the rational interest: Consider any labor / social democrat / socialist party in Western / European democracies during the 20th century. Predominantly they tried to get votes by presenting party platforms that appeared / claimed to serve labor interests, and often had better relations with the local trade unions than the local conservative party. Some politicians and economists would disagree were such policies truly in their rational interest, but it is a different discussion altogether. Many would concede they tried to appeal to working class interests. A large number of thoughtful people thought so. I think it is compatible with a model of working class people directionally voting according to their supposed interests (within confides of information environment and cost of information).
The second point: in the middle of "democracy - autocracy" spectrum in your analysis, the place where various forms of oligarchy would go, I think this is where more detailed model would be nice. There are very few formal constitutional oligarchies, but I think there needs to be more consideration the polities that are more oligarchic than they appear. It is common to make allowances for this in case of autocrats -- Putin governs a country that is formally a democracy, with elections and parties, yet Russia is not sensibly modeled as a Western style democracy.
Also, an unrelated random point concerning democracy and oligarchy and your graph of electorate size: Is it coincidence that "some hundred(s)" is about the right ballpark for the Roman senate or the Athenian oligarchy of the Four Hundred or size of most parliaments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legislatures_by_number_of_members ?
Is LKY truly an exceptional leader? Like Singapore had similar foundations as Hong Kong - majority Chinese population, Port city in a economically dynamic region, British common law and education. Hong Kong also became a dynamic and rich economy despite never having a charismatic leader. In the 80s the government claimed to not collect statistics to ensure government intervention into the economy doesn't happen.
Even LKY claimed that culture is destiny and hence leadership is probably endogenous to a society and not exogenous. One question one must answer is whether LKY could have turned any country in Africa or Middle East into a successful finance hub (without oil money of course).
Perhaps. I definitely agree he's above average. Perhaps the economic development of Hong Kong and Macau is understudied since they didn't have a famous charismatic figure.
I know this is an old entry but just a few quick comments:
1. Olson's pessimistic view of voter intentions merely reflects classical economic theory's self-interest focus. Abundant behavioural research demonstrates this misrepresents human nature, as cooperation benefiting those beyond one's in-group and altruism are fundamentally human traits.
2. You've overlooked significant theoretical findings and empirical evidence from Acemoglu and Robinson. While Lee Kuan Yew may be an outlier, his governance approach was exceptional for an autocrat, and Singapore remains a special case.
3. Your suggestion that the wealthiest 50% might form a better governing majority (presumably having more to lose) depends critically on the origins of their wealth—which brings us back to institutions and Acemoglu and Robinson's work.
Behavioural research does not invalidate the existence of public good problems — far from it. I cite A&R, and Singapore is one of several East Asian “developmental dictatorships” (Taiwan, S Korea, now mainland China, arguably HK and even MacArthur’s Japan). Lastly the “wealthiest 50%” argument is an implication of the Olson model, not my own argument, and as such doesn’t depend on where the wealth comes from — I mean, empirically maybe you’re right, but it is not the logic of his model.
I don't think the fact that free riding remains a problem in the long run in anonymous laboratory settings is sufficient to wish away altruism, other regarding preferences, and the ability of humans to cooperate. (I say wish away, because theorists prefer not to consider it since it makes their model harder to handle)
Concerning A&R, I know the connection in their work between liberalism and democracy on the one hand and development is very intricate, but I think it deserves more attention.
Olson is often used to argue for a rule by the wealthy, but I think this argument is fundamentally flawed since 1. the wealthy may also simply be a self serving interest group and 2. if wealth is primarily inherited and/or based on rent seeking, (both points reinforce each other) then this conclusion is simply wrong.
... just to put this into context. The political right in the US usually point to examples of self-made (B)millionaires in order to justify laws that give wealthy people disproportionate political influence (mostly ignoring their wealthy upbringing). However, the US consistently has one of the highest intergenerational elasticity of wealth among developed economies....
Concerning developmental autocracy and the examples you gave, I think they illuminate that a key requirement for their success was some degree of liberalism, which for many led to reasonable levels of democratic institutions and/or governance. China and Hong Kong represent one important and related exception, with Singapore being the other. Although I would argue that the latter still maintains some degree of liberalism.
The important question should be why liberalism in China faltered. The answer is complex, but I think a possible explanation was the ruthless liberalisation of markets that enabled massive levels of fraud and corruption whilst leaving the populace exposed to exploitation with little to no social protection. The discontent that must have grown due to real estate scams that eliminated hundreds of billions in savings, combined with the lack of any social security net and accessible public healthcare, is now being suppressed with an iron fist and drowned in extremely nationalistic posturing, propaganda and policies.
Two points I want to make.
Many versions of the "rational ignorance" argument (economists who argue voting is waste of time) sound often too much overstated overcorrection to a particularly idealist notion of democracy.
Agreed, very few people have done a PhD level study of their interests and party platforms and vote according to super duper deep analysis. Some people vote for extremely shallow reasons. Yet there is something a bit more to politics in democracies than random fads. Here is a choice quote from your own text:
"Most of the world’s countries are either democracies where everyone can vote, or autocracies where nobody can vote or votes are meaningless."
In a democracy, votes in aggregate are not meaningless, they decide elections. However, one can't be blamed for thinking all votes must be meaningless if one thinks a single vote is meaningless.
Voting in a democracy is probably best viewed as a sort of contract or coordination problem. One vote is not enough to affect the election, but "one x 50% of the electorate" votes is enough. Thus, it is a worthwhile thing to have around a large coalition of voters that can affect an election outcome aligned with your interests. Likewise, it is worthwhile to spend some effort in support of its continued existence as long as it appears to be around, for instance, occasionally go out and cast a vote, or donate to the party to support their "get out the vote" campaign. (Facilitating that coalition is costly for the party / lobby group, so they probably must get something out of it to make the deal worth their while, too.)
I grant the rational ignorance must kick in at some point, because people often are ignorant of politics and most people spend minimal amount of time in any coalition building work. But it is more than zero, and voting in elections is not maybe as irrational as it may appear. I think it can partly understood as just people understanding deals on intuitive level: "my vote for part A is not needed, but everyone thought so, nobody would vote, and nobody voting would make it stupid easy for party B to win because they could send just one person".
About the rational interest: Consider any labor / social democrat / socialist party in Western / European democracies during the 20th century. Predominantly they tried to get votes by presenting party platforms that appeared / claimed to serve labor interests, and often had better relations with the local trade unions than the local conservative party. Some politicians and economists would disagree were such policies truly in their rational interest, but it is a different discussion altogether. Many would concede they tried to appeal to working class interests. A large number of thoughtful people thought so. I think it is compatible with a model of working class people directionally voting according to their supposed interests (within confides of information environment and cost of information).
The second point: in the middle of "democracy - autocracy" spectrum in your analysis, the place where various forms of oligarchy would go, I think this is where more detailed model would be nice. There are very few formal constitutional oligarchies, but I think there needs to be more consideration the polities that are more oligarchic than they appear. It is common to make allowances for this in case of autocrats -- Putin governs a country that is formally a democracy, with elections and parties, yet Russia is not sensibly modeled as a Western style democracy.
Also, an unrelated random point concerning democracy and oligarchy and your graph of electorate size: Is it coincidence that "some hundred(s)" is about the right ballpark for the Roman senate or the Athenian oligarchy of the Four Hundred or size of most parliaments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legislatures_by_number_of_members ?
Is LKY truly an exceptional leader? Like Singapore had similar foundations as Hong Kong - majority Chinese population, Port city in a economically dynamic region, British common law and education. Hong Kong also became a dynamic and rich economy despite never having a charismatic leader. In the 80s the government claimed to not collect statistics to ensure government intervention into the economy doesn't happen.
Even LKY claimed that culture is destiny and hence leadership is probably endogenous to a society and not exogenous. One question one must answer is whether LKY could have turned any country in Africa or Middle East into a successful finance hub (without oil money of course).
I think he’s clearly a successful autocrat. “Exceptional” would be a stronger claim.
Perhaps. I definitely agree he's above average. Perhaps the economic development of Hong Kong and Macau is understudied since they didn't have a famous charismatic figure.