Democracy and Economy - Essay Example

DEMOCRACY HAS NOTHINGTO DO WITH DEVELOPMENT In today's era the prime objective of any country is to enhance its economic development along with maintaining its political stability. The universal concept of political stability is glued with stability of democracy in the country. Firstly we must define the two major concepts one the democracy and other the development. Democracy is define as "government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system" (Random House Unabridged Dictionary). In my point of view democracy is the right of people to elect their government representatives which can solve their problems of private property, law and order, judiciary ,health and care, food and shelter, employment, infrastructure, social equality and higher standard of living etc. All the mentioned measures are imperative in measuring countries' development. Now if we look to the meaning of development then according to American heritage Dictionary of English Language (2006) it is define as "A progression from simpler or lower to a more advance, mature or complex form of state or stage" it is also define as "act of developing ". Development also have some key indicators which help the economist to access the development rate of the country some of them are per capita income, literacy rate, unemployment rate, standard of living, availability of basic facilities like electricity and gas etc. If we put together these definitions and look analytically whether the former is necessary for the latter The answer of most of the people would be yes but there also exist some exceptions in the world where all the developed countries or wealthiest economies are democratic. Those exceptions are Singapore, South Korea and China. Reginald Chua (2000) quotes the words of Singapore's senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew "contrary to what American political commentators say, I do not believe that democracy necessarily leads to development." The reason, he said, was that democracy's "exuberance" leads to "undisciplined and disorderly conditions" which hamper development." The Asia's democracies like India and Philippines are less progressive than the other authoritarian government. ( Reginald Chua (2000)) .Democracy do have its cons which hinders the path of development in one way or another for example in the country where literacy rates are very low , where the cast system are very much prevalent , people are emotional there the very basic foundation of democracy, the right of people to elect their representative to govern them is massively distorted , the people there usually are unaware of their own rights and their usage so in those countries only corrupt people come in democracy and use it only for their own self interest and people's development is totally ignored. Well if any authoritarian country's administration make sure the right of people are well protected and assure their personal , professional and economical growth, maintain good standard of living for its inhabitants, provide them with basic facilities of life, provide them with employment then the development of the country is inveterate. The living example of it is China and Singapore. Hans F.Sennholz (2007) stated "The most startling progress over the last two decades has been in China which labors under and authoritarian regime". The world poorest democratic states are also as much democratic as the wealthier states but the difference lies in governance (Hans 2007). The key point of this statement is that development is not correlated to democracy that much than it is related to the governance of the country. Some of the countries which has been liberated in early twentieth century like Australia in 1901and New Zealand in 1947 they had government institutes running previously with much of an ideology and legal methods so after freedom they didn't have to work from scratch but those countries which were deprive of such institutions and rely mostly on aid from rich countries there the miseries of the people remained unchanged even after democracy was declared. Reginald Chua (2006) mentioned that "political freedoms are a desirable long-term goal, but for poor countries and poor people it's an immediate luxury they can't afford, and don't want. Given a choice, this argument goes; a starving man is more interested in food than in the right to vote. Starving man is not usually given that choice - the assumption is that his government knows best what he wants, and it's not political freedom". So if this is the case, can we say that democracy in any such country is a real democracy I don't think so. The democratic concept is very luminous for the societies which are not struggling for day-to-day necessities and where majority population is not living below or fairly above the poverty line. In these developing countries the people can be easily manipulated by making food and shelter promises. The wealthier are politician which use democracy for their self interest so such democracies are way behind in economical development like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh. Minxin Pei (Feb 1999) although mainly focused on both democracy and economic development but he has also highlight some facts which supported that in the past the autocratic government has been successful in bringing development for its citizen. Historical non-democratic regimes of Germany,Pre-1945 Japan, Hong Kong under Colonial rule ,Singapore, Spain most of the Western European countries had progress because they had tendency to maintain rule of law (Minxin Pei 1999). According to the author the most important thing is to maintain rule of law and it can only be maintain if there exist any political constraint upon the ruler. It is far more important to protract rule of law whether democratically or otherwise to make the nation progress effectively. So even this indicate that democracy may not be the only prime factor for the development of any country. In another word the emphasis is being laid on that if the political constraints are being raised then the ruler whether in democracy or not can affect the economic progress. There are three major disadvantage of the democracy which provides edge to autocratic regimes over democratic; firstly the property rights of the wealthier become insecure because the poorer people use their voting power for redistribution of the wealth. Secondly short term demands are mainly focused to gain interest of voters. Thirdly special interest group which support leaders during electoral campaign influence social policies by their self interest (Minxin Pei Feb 1999). Kenneth Benoit (2006) stated that economic development requires considerable investment and large saving is required for large scale investment which is not possible other than the sacrifice from population side. K.Benoit also quoted "the no political party can hope to win a democratic election on the platform on current sacrifice for a brighter future (Olson (1982))". Another aspect of democracy that hinders development is the "Time inconsistency problem" which subject democracy more to inflation (Barro and Gordon 1983). Thus sustaining democracy laid burden to the economy and if the country lack political stability then this expense is even elevated. Some more basic conditions required for development to foster are minimum legal and contractual structure and a set of well-define and enforced property rights Parnab Bardhan (1999).As the elections has become more expensive in term of campaigning, the influence of wealthier on law is becoming greater and thus generating biased policies and obstructing the benefits to reach to the common people therefore development is not observed. The Senior Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew provided a thesis in which he stated "I believe what a country needs to develop is discipline more than democracy. The exuberance of democracy leads to indiscipline and disorderly conduct which are inimical to development "(Lee Kuan Yew, 1994). So according to Lee Kuan Yew Singapore doesn't require democracy but discipline and he has made Singapore a country which is not lacking behind in economic development when compared to any developed country today. Some points where democracy lagged behind an autocrat government like Democratic regimes are bound to increase social welfare spending thus decreasing the national saving required for large investment , Ethnic and sub-national conflict are more difficult to handle by democratic regime where as an autocrat government can forcefully handle it ,last but not the least development require decisive policies and effective policies implementation which is more effectively done under authoritative governance rather than democratic rule Sirowy ,Larry and Inkeles (1990). For Authoritarian development there is requirement of two kinds of policies one is development policies which are necessary for accelerating the growth in private and public sector and second is supplemental policies to resolve growth-induced problems like pollution, urbanization, corruption, inequality in wealth and income (Kenichi Ohno (2006)). For development three things should be caters well one is weak policies, other is Economic stagnation and last is Social crisis and if authoritarian leader is strong and capable of eradication of these three factors then development process can be initiated (K. Ohno 1996). Thus summing up the discussion I can say one thing with utmost authentication and that is the factor that matter much more than democracy or no democracy is the leader, along with his/her leadership qualities, social culture and pressure economic policies and rule of law, if these factors and may other major and minor factors of economy are being effectively implemented and foster into positive direction then the development is 100% bound to come else nothing can guarantee development what so ever. Sources: Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Random House, Inc. 2006) http://www.dictionary,com. 1. Hans F. Sennholz (May 22/2004): "Democracy Does Not Beget Prosperity" http://www.sennholz.com/demnopros.html 2. Reginald Chua:" Development and democracy: the debate post-crisis": the Asian Wall Street journal: The Research Institute for Asia and the pacific, 2000 http://www.usyd.edu.au/riap/pubs/papers/chua.htm 3. Sirowy, Larry and Inkeles (1990):"Democracy and development" http://www.personal.umd.umich.edu/delittle/Democracy%20and%20development.pdf 4. Parnab Bardhan "Democracy and Development: A Complex relationship", in I. Shapiro and C. Hacker-Cordon (eds.), Democracy's Value, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999 5. Minxin Pei (Feb. 1999) Economic Institutions, Democracy, and Development: World Bank Conference on Democracy, Market Economy, and Development: Carnegie Endowment for international Peace http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfmfa=view&id=66&prog=zgp&proj=zdrl 6 Kenneth Benoit (2006) Consequences of Democracy: Economic development www.tcd.ie/Political_Science/Staff/Kenneth.Benoit/transitions/economy.pdf 7. Kenichi Ohno, GRIPS and VDF (2006) Leadership, Political regime and economic development http://www.grips.ac.jp/forum/pdf07/07FebUK/attach3.pdf Read More