The Economist - USA (2020-02-15)

TheEconomistFebruary 15th 2020 71

1

G

arettjones, aneconomicsprofessor

at George Mason University in Virginia,

knew he was on to a good thing when he got

a call from the campus police. A student

journalist had written a report on a lecture

that he had given suggesting that rich

countries would be better off if they were

less, rather than more, democratic. The

hostile reaction, which spread beyond the

university, included a call threatening

enough to trouble the university’s private

security force. Mr Jones concluded that he

had an idea powerful and contentious

enough to make into a book. The result is

“10% Less Democracy”.

This is a fertile time for critiques of de-

mocracy. In light of the use of state appara-

tus by elected leaders to undermine an op-

ponent in America, murder people in the

Philippines, render a religious minority

statelessinIndia,threatenjudicialinde-

pendenceinPoland,and rob thepublic

purseinSouthAfrica,thesystemwhich

haslongprovidedtherichworldwitha sat-

isfyingmixofmoralsuperiorityandstable

governmentislookinga bitropy.Areport

lastmonthfromtheCentrefortheFuture

of Democracy at Cambridge University

found that support for democracy had de-

clined sharply in most of the world since

the 1990s, including in America and west-

ern and southern Europe. The world’s big-

gest autocracy, meanwhile, is bringing

prosperity to its own population and ex-

tending its influence round the world.

But as Mr Jones discovered, criticising

democracy in the West is still a bit like

launching a broadside against the pope in

15th-century Europe—or against a modern-

day authoritarian president. You can sug-

gest that all is not going to plan, but you

will get a friendlier reception if you pin the

blame on dodgy advisers or foreign inter-

ference, rather than on the concept itself.

David Runciman’s recent “How Democ-

racy Ends” attributed democracy’s woes to

decadence.Thesystemwashealthier, he

argued,whenchangeorconflict—the ex-

pansionofthefranchiseinthefirst half of

the20thcentury,thesecondworld war—

hadgivenita shotinthearm.Pankaj Mis-

hra,in“AgeofAnger”,maintained that the

problemliesinthegrowinggapbetween a

politicalsystemthatpromisesequality and

aneconomiconethatleadstoinequality.

Bycontrast,MrJonesplantsresponsi-

bilitysquarelyontheshouldersof the vot-

ers.Asaneconomist,heapproaches de-

mocracyas a productionsystem whose

outputisgovernance,andexamines how it

canbetweakedtoimprove theproduct.

Thecoreof“10%LessDemocracy” is thus

researchonwhethermoreorlessdemocra-

cy produces better or worse outcomes for

countries and citizens.

Early and less often

As the title suggests, Mr Jones’s critique op-

erates within a narrow band. He concedes

that massacres and famines are less likely

to happen in democracies than in autocra-

cies, and that there is a clear correlation be-

tween democracy and prosperity. But he

takes issue with Daron Acemoglu’s claim,

in the title of a paper published last year,

that “Democracy Does Cause Growth”. The

paper found that when undemocratic

countries became democratic, they grew

faster, raising gdpper head by an average of

20% in the long run.

But democracy, Mr Jones points out, is

not like virginity: countries can be a bit

Powerfromthepeople

Toomuchofa goodthing

Aneconomistarguesthatanexcessofdemocracycanleadtopoordecisions

10% Less Democracy: Why You Should

Trust Elites A Little More and the Masses

A Little Less.By Garett Jones.Stanford

University Press; 248 pages; $28 and £22.99

Books & arts

72 Thetriumphof“Parasite”

73 Johnson:Grammar’soriginal sins

74 Tom Stoppard’s new play

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