How important is democracy to you when living in a country? Would you live in a democracy even if the standard of living was lower than in an authoritarian country?

32 comments

1. 100%. I don’t love the US because I have nice things, though I certainly won’t complain about nice things. I love the US because I can shout about how much the government sucks in the Capitol building without getting arrested.

   For the record, this is something I have done.

2. Sure, I would trade material comfort for freedom any day. Living in fear under the whims of a regime that might decide to destroy my life at any moment for no reason is not a higher quality life even if the creature comforts are greater.

3. So a higher standard of living until what?

   You can live in your super amazing force field enforced spy cam monitored glass house until you say something someone doesn’t like? Do something someone doesn’t like? Are accused of something someone doesn’t like?

   Authoritarian government is…well, really just too much authority to be enforced on a whim by whoever decides they’re upset by something at some point. I feel like there would be so much fear of stepping out of bounds and the inevitable excessive punishment that comes with it.

   I’d rather live in my van down by the river, thank you. Lol

4. Quite important. I’m pretty adaptable so as long as I’m not living in squalor, I’d be fine.

   Another factor I’d have to consider is how free women are in that country.

5. Yes. I would rather live in a functional democracy with a lower standard of living.

6. I think not many people on here would ever admit to it, but I think a sizable chunk of the population would, provided that the dictator came from “their” side.

7. I don’t care how nice my apartment is and how clean the road are if I have absolutely zero rights or freedom to live my life how I want

8. *Brave New World* is all about this very concept. I’d highly recommend it.

9. The degree to which you are guaranteed freedom and human dignity is an extremely important part of your standard of living. I completely reject the idea that a country where people are killed for criticizing the government has a “high standard of living” because the roads are better paved or whatever.

10. If I had the choice to leave a dictatorship for a place that wanted me, yes I would leave to be free.

11. >Say there was a hypothetical country which had a much higher standard of living than the US, but was a dictatorship.

    There’s a reason no dictatorship has a higher standard of living than the US. Dictatorships invariably hit a wall in economic progression due to the incompetence and corruption inherent in political systems which prioritize loyalty to the party over loyalty to the country and which prohibit changes in leadership.

    There are democracies which have lower standards of living than the best run dictatorships, but that’s a temporary state of affairs.

12. Absolutely the democracy. The thing about an authoritarian country is that no matter how high the standard of living is, all it takes is pissing off the wrong person, expressing the wrong opinion, or even just being a race/religion/whatever that becomes disfavored for whatever reason, and suddenly that standard of living becomes irrelevant because you’re in prison or worse. You’re liable to *lose* your standard of living at any time, for the most minor thing or even for nothing at all.

13. It’s very important to me.

    Democracies tend to be more ‘stable’, in that disputes over power tend to be between the elite who are jockeying for positions of power than between the elite and the hoi-polloi who just want to go about living their own lives.

    In fact, I’d suggest the major problematic feature of authoritarianism is the power of the authorities to seize property by fiat without at least some check to that authority; the constant risk that if you become too successful your property will be seized as a result discourages success. And not “discourages people from being Bill Gates-levels of success” but “discourages someone from opening a semi-automated bread bakery that can churn out loaves at cheaper prices for the masses” levels of success.

    Go anywhere in the world where there is abject poverty, and I guarantee you will find either a government rife with corruption (and I mean lower-level bureaucrats stealing your car, not top-level people failing to file disclosure statements), a government lacking any capacity to enforce the law (so the area is essentially under the defacto control of gangs), or an authoritarian government which sees itself as the protector of the people who strip wealth away from the successful bakers and distributes it to the poor who have never run a bakery before. (In point of fact this happened in Zimbabwe; white farmers who knew how to farm, but whose farmlands were taken by their ancestors from the black natives there, had their farms confiscated by the government and turned over to blacks whose ancestors were native to the area, but who currently haven’t a clue how to farm. Needless to say, farm output dropped and folks starved.)

    It’s why I worry about eminent domain in this country, why I am far more worried about police corruption than I am about if Biden’s kids or Trump’s kids had their hands in the cookie jar somewhere, and why I am far more worried about civil forfeiture and would like to see civil forfeiture banned across the country.

    And why I’m glad for this [9-0 Supreme Court case](https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-curbs-states-property-tax-windfall-2023-05-25/) ruling a state cannot confiscate more from you than what you owe in back taxes. (Yes, some states were helping themselves to a ‘windfall’ by keeping everything someone owned, even beyond what they owed.)

    And all this is one reason why I say that we have a thousand problems in the United States–but none of them are either what the Left think they are, or what the Right think they are.

    —-

    And I guarantee any country where it seems like everyone is just happily singing “cumbya”, I guarantee behind the scenes somewhere someone has a boot to the back of their heads.

    It’s why so many in Europe misjudge the stability or peacefulness of the United States: we air our laundry in public and rather loudly, rather than in places like China where there are millions living with a boot to the back of their necks that no-one ever talks about.

    —-

    All of this, by the way, is why when you see a place like China which seems so wealthy, and seems more wealthy than a place like India–you have to ask yourself “who are the wealthy ones?” Are they the majority? Or just small clusters of people in ‘economic freedom zones?’ (Keep in mind also that authoritarian governments routinely cook their books to make themselves look better. Do you think some low level bureaucrat in China responsible for some village somewhere is going to tell the truth and make himself look bad to his boss, which then makes his boss look bad?)

    And if you were to live there, would you be one of the wealthy ones? Or one of the ones no-one ever hears about, with a boot to the back of your neck?

14. All the money in the world won’t stop the secret police from disappearing someone in the middle of the night.

15. In a democracy you can fight for better things with words. In a dictatorship you have to fight for better things with bullets. As a non bullet proof person, I’d right just talk about stuff I care about

16. Most people in any given country are not at the highest standard of living. You give China and India specifically as examples, two countries with hundreds of millions of peasants living at a subsistence level and hundreds of millions of people who would be reasonably considered as having a middle class standard of living as well as the usual few *really* rich people.

    At any given income level, I’d rather be in the democracy. If my choices were subsistence farmer in India vs millionaire in China? I’d probably pick China and do my damndest to keep my head down and not catch the wrong sort of government attention. But middle class in India vs millionaire in China? I’d take India. Both countries have their problems, but at least in as middle class in India I’d only have to worry about my fellow citizens, not about the government making me dissappear overnight for thought crimes.

    Material possessions are only the smallest part of quality of life. Money can buy security and safety, but China’s crackdowns on billionaires the last few years have been a stark demonstration that even for billionaires there are always bigger fish and if your government does not have even a semblance if the rule of law, no amount of money can really protect you.

17. I’d prefer not to live in a country where they “reeducation camps”

18. Americans hold freedom in pretty high regard, even if it means giving up certain comforts or securities. Whoever is providing those things can use them to oppress you or stop even providing them should they deem necessary. That’s pretty inconvenient if you depend on whatever is being provided. I prefer to not have to enter that kind of relationship at all and provide what I can myself.

    I have a former classmate that’s a teacher in China, and she lives in one of the provinces that was hit pretty hard with COVID. The authorities locked her and her neighbors in her apartment building when someone tested positive. They couldn’t even leave to get groceries. They were provided rations from the government every two weeks so they wouldn’t starve. So yeah, I prefer taking my chances with a mask and social distancing at the store over being forcibly imprisoned in my own home.

19. Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither

20. Jews don’t fare well in autocratic states. Sooner or later we get the blame for the monarch’s fuck ups and get ethnically cleansed.

21. Yeah I mean I wouldn’t live in the United Arab Emirates even if I had a bugatti because if the dictator decided one day to just fuck my shit up, and I constantly lived in fear of that, what quality of life is that?

22. It’s definitely a qualifying factor. I have no interest in being subject to the whims of some despot.

23. Yes, I don’t think I’d last long in China. I have a big mouth.

24. I don’t believe benevolent authoritarians exist. History just doesn’t bear that out.

25. If I can be vanished and nobody is able to even comment on it, what good is being wealthy?

26. >Say there was a hypothetical country which had a much higher standard of living than the US, but was a dictatorship.

    Yes, your life could be very comfortable. Until you’re suspected of WrongThink and sentenced without appeal — maybe even without trial — to hard labor in a camp no one returns from.

27. I definitely prefer freedom. I can theoretically imagine an authoritarian country that better for everyone with a higher standard of living. But I can also imagine it being a facist place that targets those who don’t fit the specific “ideal person” and that’s terrifying. So I’d rather a country of freedom even if the overall quality of life might be worse.

28. I mean… democracy is not the opposite of authoritarianism. Plenty of despots come in Democratically

29. Better to die on your feet than live on your knees

30. Limited Government is. Democracy that is unlimited is not necessarily different than dictatorship though it comes out different. Dictators say “I will make so many people miserable because I can”, unlimited democracy says, “We will make those people miserable because they’re not our kind of people and we always did that.” But if there is no limit than all property is provisional. Property like everything else only exists when there is a standing “Play nice” that everyone has to obey.

31. Well it’s my time to shine ! Joke aside, I am from a country that’s poorer than the US (though I’m in the process of becoming US citizen soon). However, my family is rich, we have enough wealth that would put my family at the top 1% in the US, let alone our home country. So I have access to many “privileges” like 24/7 housemaids and drivers, things that I would have to give up when I come to US.

    Sure I’m not giving up much when I move to US, but still a “step down” from my lifestyle if you say so. And I’m willing to give it all up because the US government is “reliable”, citizens’ rights are respected, and you are all equal before the law. That’s important to me, since you never know when the government change its mind or want to make a certain class of people a scapegoat.

    But on the other hand, I know quite a few rich people in my country not willing to give up such things, and I understand. US isn’t perfect either. But from my observation, most rich families I know already had a second citizenship elsewhere (be it US, Canada, UK, Australia, or some EU country), or in the process of obtaining one (like I am).

32. Ask Jack Ma how living a quality life in China turned out. I am choosing Democracy every time.