Eric Li gives a talk. He argues that China’s process for selecting leaders is more open and competitive than the typical democracy.
Thanks to Greg Mankiw for the pointer.
My thoughts:
1. Exit is much better than voice.
2. We over-romanticize democracy and the leaders it produces.
3. Li probably over-romanticizes the Chinese system and the leaders it produces.
Exit worked better than voice for those in Detroit. Not sure how it worked for those left in Detroit.
@Hunter: I appreciate how you emphasize people rather than cities.
A more dramatic example is New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. People talked about New Orleans as if it had the same cohort of people before and after. In reality, a great many of the people that left did not come back. Pre-Katrina New Orleans is gone for good, even if we spent an entire Obama-level amount of stimulus spending on trying to revive it.
We have to recognize that Democracy is a process and not a condition.
Li demonstrates the coming Age of Oligarchs that the democratic process can bring, as inferred by Minogue in “The Servile Mind.”