Admiration for autocracy is built on a pernicious lie that I call the “myth of benevolent dictatorship.” The myth is built on three flimsy pillars: first, that dictators produce stronger economic growth than their democratic counterparts; second, that dictators, unswayed by volatile public opinion, are strategic long-term thinkers; and third, that dictators bring stability, whereas divided democracies produce chaos….

Let’s start with the myth that dictatorships produce stronger growth. This falsehood arose from a few well-known, cherry-picked examples, in which despots oversaw astonishing transformations of their national economy…. But a systematic evaluation of the overall data reveals another reality. Even with these outliers of strong growth, most rigorous studies have found limited or no evidence that authoritarian regimes produce better economic growth than democratic ones… However, the myth of strongmen as economic gurus has an even bigger problem. Dictators turn out to have manipulated their economic data for decades. For a long time, they’ve fooled us. But now we have proof: The reason their numbers sometimes seem too good to be true is that they are…. the notion that Benito Mussolini made the trains run on time was a lie; he built ornate stations and invested in train lines used by elites, but the commuting masses got left behind.

The myth’s second pillar turns out to be no less rickety than the first. It holds that dictators are more strategic long-term thinkers than democrats because they’re not beholden to fickle public opinion. But this lie is believable only if you don’t understand how most dictatorships actually work. ((more details))

The most persistent pillar of the myth, however, is the one that holds that dictators produce stability… Eventually, though, dictatorships tend to fall apart. And when they collapse, they really collapse. Elections in democracies change governments, not regimes. Personalist dictatorships, by contrast, often implode. ((more details)

Approx 2,100 words: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/07/authoritarianism-dictatorship-effectiveness-china/674820/.

And good news from Fix the News:

Europe’s wild predators stage a stunning comeback. Since 2016, golden jackal numbers have surged by 46% to 150,000, wolves have increased by 35% to 23,000, brown bears by 17% to 20,500, and Eurasian lynx and wolverine populations expanded by 12% and 16% to 9,400 and 1,300 animals respectively. The best recovery? Iberian lynx numbers are up from 100 at the turn of the century to over 2,000 today. Guardian

After the best year in history to be among the super-rich, one of America’s 745 billionaires wonders: “What’s enough? What’s the answer?”

(From 2022 but ever more urgent.)

“Tax us, the rich, and tax us now,” said the letter. Otherwise, there will be “pitchforks” over the injustice, they warned.

Article in the Huffington Post: 100 Millionaires And Billionaires Sign Open Letter Pleading For Higher Taxes: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/patriotic-millionaires-more-taxes-injustice-letter_n_61ecbfb2e4b03216750b98a6; Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/01/30/moral-calculations-billionaire. And the website with the open letter: https://intaxwetrust.org:

History paints a pretty bleak picture of what the endgame of extremely unequal societies looks like. For all our well-being – rich and poor alike – it’s time to confront inequality and choose to tax the rich. Show the people of the world that you deserve their trust. 

If you don’t, then all the private talks won’t change what’s coming – it’s taxes or pitchforks. Let’s listen to history and choose wisely.