Democracy is a buzz word today.US is considered to be a symbol of democracy eventhough history tells us that US in past have supported many autocratic regimes including auguste pinochet,s regime in chile and zia ul haq,s islamofascist regime in pakistan.Still i don,t want to be a US basher in my this blog.Democracy is not a new phenomenon it is being practised from last 2500 years.The earliest examples of democracy is ancient greece in the 5th century BC and vaishali kingdom in india in 6th century BC.In the modern history Britain can be considered first nation state to adopt democracy eventhough its Westminster parliamentary democracy followed by india, canada and many other countries has lots of flaws in it. Democracy is not a perfect political system but i can say with firm belief that no superior system than democracy has ever been invented till now.The best quote on democracy can be abraham lincoln,s speech in US senate."GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE FOR THE PEOPLE BY THE PEOPLE".
Now lets come to my main point is democracy important for economic growth.i will present 2 main examples in defending my point.The first example being North korea and south korea.Both countries have same culture,same language,same geography but one thing is totally different between these 2 countries and that is political system while North korea is absolute authoritative state south korea is liberal democracy.This has made all the differences in the fortunes of these both quite similar countries while the per capita gdp of south korea is $29000 the per capita gdp of north korea is $1800 and i doubt on even on $1800 because these are estimates of govt sources and you can,t beleive govt statistics atleast in north korea.The second example i want to give is of India and Pakistan.Both these nation states were carved out of a single british India.While Muslim majority areas became pakistan and hindu majority became india.The leaders of both india and Pakistan jinnah and nehru aspired for a democratic secular state but eventhough india remained democratic state till now pakistan after the death of jinnah and liaqat ali khan have been ruled majority of its post independence years by military generals.This is the only difference between these 2 countries which have brought different fortunes for these 2 countries because other than political system the culture,geography and the language of both these nations are almost similar.While India today is one of the most fastest growing economy in the world Pakistan is a failed state both politically and economically.
Now growth rate is not the only measure of well-being .we are actually too obsessed with growth rate and per-capita income.People can give example of many autocratic regimes doing well on economic front.There is something called opportunities which is missing in all these non-democratic countries.The economic growth of Tunisia was 6.3% during last 6 years which is in world economic standard a more than decent growth rate but than why did people overthrow the regime of zine el Abidine Ben Ali .Even egypt under hosni mubarak was flourishing economically but than why did arab spring happen.The reason being unequal economic growth which is a basic virtue of any autocratic political system thus people closed to the political elite made millions but the common masses didn,t share the pie in the growing fruit.Thus as per by belief Democracy is the most superior political system man has developed till now.
Now lets come to my main point is democracy important for economic growth.i will present 2 main examples in defending my point.The first example being North korea and south korea.Both countries have same culture,same language,same geography but one thing is totally different between these 2 countries and that is political system while North korea is absolute authoritative state south korea is liberal democracy.This has made all the differences in the fortunes of these both quite similar countries while the per capita gdp of south korea is $29000 the per capita gdp of north korea is $1800 and i doubt on even on $1800 because these are estimates of govt sources and you can,t beleive govt statistics atleast in north korea.The second example i want to give is of India and Pakistan.Both these nation states were carved out of a single british India.While Muslim majority areas became pakistan and hindu majority became india.The leaders of both india and Pakistan jinnah and nehru aspired for a democratic secular state but eventhough india remained democratic state till now pakistan after the death of jinnah and liaqat ali khan have been ruled majority of its post independence years by military generals.This is the only difference between these 2 countries which have brought different fortunes for these 2 countries because other than political system the culture,geography and the language of both these nations are almost similar.While India today is one of the most fastest growing economy in the world Pakistan is a failed state both politically and economically.
Now growth rate is not the only measure of well-being .we are actually too obsessed with growth rate and per-capita income.People can give example of many autocratic regimes doing well on economic front.There is something called opportunities which is missing in all these non-democratic countries.The economic growth of Tunisia was 6.3% during last 6 years which is in world economic standard a more than decent growth rate but than why did people overthrow the regime of zine el Abidine Ben Ali .Even egypt under hosni mubarak was flourishing economically but than why did arab spring happen.The reason being unequal economic growth which is a basic virtue of any autocratic political system thus people closed to the political elite made millions but the common masses didn,t share the pie in the growing fruit.Thus as per by belief Democracy is the most superior political system man has developed till now.
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