Do you think democracy/capitalism is the only way we have in order to build prosperous society?

Question

• If so, why do you think so?
• If not, why not?

Answer 1

"Prosperous" means economic success. There are clear examples of societies throughout history that achieve at least temporary prosperity without the use of democracy or free-market capitalism: after all, capitalism was systematized in the 16th/17th century at the earliest, and only really implemented in the 18th century. There were certainly prosperous societies beforehand; what is unique to capitalism is the quality of prosperity and the ease with which large portions of a population could, seemingly very simply and suddenly, be catapulted into lifestyles of relative wealth and comfort.

Nowadays, the most prosperous countries are built on some sort of capitalist structure, whether that's state capitalism (China and Russia) or full free-market capitalism (the U.S. and almost all E.U. countries). Clear political counterexamples are the Gulf Countries, which are authoritarian (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates) and very debatably capitalist. Wealthy African countries such as Egypt and Nigeria are either undemocratic or very thinly democratic, with weak democratic institutions and powerful partnerships between the state and the oil/energy industry.

The democracy/capitalism combo has worked exceedingly well for the United States and much of the Western world. State Capitalism, with relative flexibility (enough to be admitted in recent history into the WTO!) worked wonders for China and helped it achieve clear prosperity. However, many African countries and the Gulf States are obviously authoritarian & achieved prosperity (for certain portions of their population - elites!) due to incredible natural resource endowments (massive extractives industries: metals/mining, oil and energy). These states sole-handedly manage those industries, meaning they really can't be characterized capitalist.

Authoritarian states that dominate their highly profitable (usually natural resource & extractive) industry can create prosperous (albeit heavily stratified, i.e. unequal) societies, although they are perhaps less profitable & economically-viable in the long-run.