Rosefielde
S. The Illusion of Westernization in Russia and China
Russia and
China have similar heritages. They were and remain authoritarian
martial police
states, deviating substantially from the cultural, institutional, and
behavioral requirements of efficient democratic free enterprise. Both
modernized without westernizing(preserving their authoritarian martial
police
states), but with conspicuously different results. These disparities
are
catalogued, analyzed and attributed to cultural factors inclining
Beijing to
pursue a disciplined, value-adding development strategy that is nearly
the
antithesis of Moscow's reliance on natural resource extraction and
rent-seeking. China's relative authoritarian success, and its stellar
growth
performance vis-a-vis western democracies leaves open the question of
comparative systems merit. Could some culturally contexted
authoritarian
martial police states be superior to democratic free enterprise as some
scholars are beginning to suggest? Close scrutiny indicates that they
can't;
that authoritarian systems are crisis prone, dynamically inferior and
welfare
diminishing after the advantages of relative backwardness have been
exhausted
in the long run.
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