The major ‘authoritarian’ regimes, against which we define our own democracies. Both created by democratic…

The major ‘authoritarian’ regimes, against which we define our own democracies. Both created by democratic revolutions modelled on Western political ideas, in reaction to imperial rule. In the West those same ideas are crumbling, leading to imperial rule by populists. /1 https://t.co/SDfT0KUy9I

What really matters is social stability, over the longer term. Both China and the UK had that. Both because of one thing, their bureaucracies. The UK bureaucracy is modelled on the Chinese. Look up ‘bureaucracy’ and the definition will include ‘non-elected officials’. /2

The Chinese bureaucracy is rooted in actual expertise. It’s the secret of their longevity. The democratic revolutions in China sought to bypass this bureaucracy. The libertarian revolution in the UK the same. Both lead to the same outcome, increasingly autocratic rule. /3

But more dangerous than the old imperial autocratic rule, because expertise is removed from the governance. Bureaucracy was the way humans invented to get expertise into decision making. Not elections, which are easily gamed by autocrats. /end