Democracy , so well known, is a word that could well figure among those wildcard terms that are used to fill in crossword puzzles (such as "sun" or "Ra") and that end up being bled of meaning, devalued by overuse.
From this it should not be derived that democracy is not good (although first we would have to determine what type of democracy we are talking about), but neither should we ignore that democracy is not a panacea and is far from being a multipurpose tool to solve all the problems that arise. meet us.
Economic growth
The least democratic countries, for example, are currently the fastest growing in health and economy. Liberal democracy is the best way to govern a country , indeed, but it should not be inferred that, because it is the best, it is the most conducive to obtaining all kinds of benefits.
Democracy brings justice. Democracy is a moral posture. But it is not always an optimal position on a pragmatic level. Democracy, then, will not necessarily bring us health improvements, economic growth, or even peace. Not even democracy is a sine qua non condition to feed these factors.
At least, that’s what the data tells us, as Hans Rosling explains in his book Facfulness :
Most countries that experience great economic and social advances are not democracies. South Korea went from level 1 to 3 faster than any other country in history (without finding oil), being at all times a military dictatorship. Of the ten fastest growing countries in 2016, nine of them had a low democratic rating.
Democracy, then, must be presented as an end in itself, as a moral ideal, and not as a tool to pursue certain material objectives.
In fact, there are so many factors that lead a country to offer better material living conditions to its citizens and are so interwoven in such complex ways that, for that reason, no single magnitude is capable of explaining it : not even GDP per capita , nor infant mortality (as in Cuba), nor individual freedom (as in the United States) … not even democracy.
In other words, there are no star measures to achieve the prosperity of a people. A government is required, yes, but a government cannot solve all problems. Neither the private nor the public sector is always the answer. It all depends on the context. Decisions have to be made on a case-by-case basis .
Economics or politics are the closest thing to non-linear dynamical systems, just as the weather is. That is, each time we analyze something, the solutions to solve it will be different. It is therefore unlikely that the social sciences in general will produce clear formulas, such as E = MC2 .
In fact, if someone announces clear and immutable formulas, you have to distrust their proposals. If the weather is bad, you have to take out the umbrella if it rains, but the umbrella is useless if the bad weather is a blizzard or a low temperature. Each time we approach the dynamic system, we will need a different solution , that is, the least similar to fixed formulas of the type "right wing ideology", "left wing ideology", "libertarianism", "anarchism", "socialism", and so on. Especially if we take into account that the weather can change several times in a single day.
Even social justice should not rely solely on democracy.