Expert answer:Revise essay#2 and extend it to 8-10 pages
Expert answer:Below is the requirement from the instructor.For this assignment, you will identify a current event and write an argumentative essay in which you take a stand on that event. The event must be a debatable topic about which reasonable people may disagree, and it may NOT be related to pornography or drugs. Some possible topics include banning (or not) performance enhancing drugs in sports, modifying the use of the death penalty, or changing current immigration laws in some way. This semester, I am NOT taking papers on gun control or on paying college athletes to play.
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Democracy Does Not Boost Economic Growth
Over the past decades, there has been a decline of democratic ideals in the world. On one
hand, some countries like Russia and Turkey are proactively giving up the pursue to a
democratic government. For example, the Soviet Union used to be the second largest economic
entity next to the US. During the Cold War era, the competition between the US and Soviet
Union ultimately led to the economic collapse of the Soviet Republic. Many thought and placed
the blame of the economic depression from a non-existing democracy. Since the collapse of the
Soviet Union, the living quality significantly reduced. The article “Russian Economy in the
Aftermath of the Collapse of the Soviet Union” by Marshall Poland points out that in Russia,
“the GDP had dropped each year, and went down by close to forty percent from 1991 to 1996.
This was even worse than the Great Depression in comparison to the United States”. The citizens
of the republic were greatly disappointed by the harsh reality. Based on the circumstances,
people started to wonder if democracy is the key to economic growth. In contrast, some countries
such as China and Vietnam, which have been widely criticized for their democracy, were able to
achieve higher economic growth than their Western counterparts. China especially, have become
the second largest economic player in the world. One of the most important reasons for this turns
out to be their One-party political system. According to Tom Friedman, New York Times
columnist, he claims that “One-party nondemocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is
led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great
advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important
policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.”
Many research papers have tried to argue that democracy contributes a significant and
positive role in economic behavior. Till today, there is still not enough evidence to support these
claims. In the article “IS DEMOCRACY NECESSARY TO BRING DEVELOPMENT?”, the
author points out there are two types of democracy, the only possible one in modern society is
representative democracy, which is a person or a party elected to represent the voters and
develops their ideas and actives. The author lists two countries of this type of democracy, one is
Switzerland and the other is India. After quoting the data from world band regarding crime rate,
death rate and Proportion of population living below $1.25, the authors drew diametrically
opposite conclusions, “the two cases of study presented were democratic, one of them showed
development through democracy but the other did not.” This result proved that there might be
some relationship between economy and democracy, but there is no causal relationship. At least,
democracy does not absolutely have positive effects on economic growth. Let us look deeper at
economic growth on the perspective of democracy.
One disputed that democracy influences GDP growth. Today’s popular theory regarding
the positive effect of democracy on economy is based on the study of 38 democratic transitions
since 1990s against a background of “The Third Wave of Democratization” which “began in
1974 (Carnation Revolution, Portugal) and included the historic democratic transitions in Latin
America in the 1980s, Asia Pacific countries (Philippines, South Korea, and Taiwan) from 1986
to 1988, Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and sub-Saharan Africa
beginning in 1989”. In “Does democracy boost economic growth?” by Daron Acemoglu, “Our
central estimates suggest that a country that switches from nondemocracy to democracy achieves
about 20% higher GDP per capita in the long run (over roughly the next 30 years).” This is the
widely accepted idea thus far. Unfortunately, this research was based on incomplete samples. All
the samples selected were those countries of which the economy was in bad condition before
democratic transition, while those which were running well in economy before democratic
transition were not considered. Based on their selected samples, it is easy to draw the conclusion
that democracy has a positive effective on economic growth. However, with full samples, such
as Russia, which had gone down forty percent after democratic transition, we could see a
negative impact on the economic conditions.
What democracy can bring to the public is wealth transfer, not wealth production. In
another word, democracy does not have a positive and direct effect on the economy. According
to “Core Democratic Values Defined”, there are two values related to the life quality of
individual, one is common good and another is equality. Neither of these two has a direct effect
on the economy. In general, common good and equality implied that the government should be
in favor of the minority and low-income groups, just as we learned the American Dream and
Human Rights in previous classes, people are treated equally regardless of rich or poor. In the
modern democratic society, in order to complete this, the wealth has to be redistributed equally
in the form of welfare to the lower socioeconomic groups. However aggregate economic volume
does not increase accordingly. Michael Ross, who is a Professor of Political Science at
University of California Los Angeles and author of “Is Democracy Good for the Poor?”, he said
“There is good evidence that democracies fund public services at a higher level than
nondemocracies. But it is not obvious that these infusions of money actually reach the poor; nor
is it obvious that they produce better social outcomes, such as longer, healthier, or more
productive lives, if democracy produces better outcomes for low-income families, then countries
that transit from autocratic to democratic rule should see improvements in their infant and child
mortality rates, in general, they do not”.
Democratic transition breaks the stability of the political system. A political instability,
on the one hand, will impact the continuity of economic development. In “Political Stability vs
Economic Development”, Professor Ganfu Yang, who is an expert on intercultural
communication and previously worked as a Chinese language lecturer at the University of
Namibia, states that “Political stability and economic development are deeply interconnected, the
uncertainty associated with an unstable political environment may reduce investment and the
speed of economic development”. That is to say, the government needs to design their economic
plan for a long run, usually lasting for several decades. Meanwhile, the economic strategy should
be executed by a stable government without interruption of its leadership. In a democratic
country, the government is voted by the majority of people who are not satisfied with the current
economic policy. They will simply vote for another party with different opinion regarding
economy. After the establishment of the new government, they should be responsible for their
voters, by either abandoning or adjusting the previous economic policy, the new government has
to fulfill their commitments for the voters during election. As a result, the previous economic
plan would be changed or discarded, slowing down the growth of the economy, in worse matters
it leads to a decline. On the other hand, instability of policy frightened the foreign investors.
Professor Ganfu Yang also pointed out that “Foreign direct investment also plays an important
role in the development of an economy” in his article. However, with complete political
breakdown brought by democratic transition, foreign investors will halt their interest and look to
another country with a more stable politics to fund new investment opportunities. As a result of
rediverting investment interests from foreign investors, the domestic economy will suffer
growth.
In short, Democracy does not boost economic growth because it cannot act upon
economy directly. It does not help to produce wealth rather wealth transfer. Even worse, for
some countries, democracy comes with chaos and instability, this, in some extent, jeopardizes
the economic growth. The western governments and scholars are claiming that democracy is the
only way for a country to become strong and rich. Their conclusion is not convincible. In fact,
more and more countries realize this, and that’s why they do not take democracy as the pivotal
steps for the development of their economy.
References
“Cite A Website – Cite This For Me.” Learningtogive.Org, 2017,
https://www.learningtogive.org/sites/default/files/handouts/Core_Democratic_Defined.pdf.
“Does Democracy Boost Economic Growth?.” World Economic Forum, 2017,
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2014/05/democracy-boost-economic-growth/.
Friedman, Thomas. “Opinion | Democracy Is In Recession.” Nytimes.Com, 2017,
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/18/opinion/thomas-friedman-democracy-is-in-recession.html.
“Is Democracy Necessary To Bring Development?.” Freedomforthechange, 2017,
https://freedomforthechange.wordpress.com/2014/12/08/is-democracy-necessary-to-bringdevelopment/.
“Political Stability Vs Economic Development.” New Era Newspaper Namibia, 2017,
https://www.newera.com.na/2015/03/13/political-stability-economic-development/.
Ross, Michael. “Is Democracy Good For The Poor?.” American Journal Of Political Science, vol
50, no. 4, 2006, pp. 860-874. Wiley-Blackwell, doi:10.1111/j.1540-5907.2006.00220.x.
“Russian Economy In The Aftermath Of The Collapse Of The Soviet Union.”
Www2.Needham.K12.Ma.Us, 2017, http://www2.needham.k12.ma.us/nhs/cur/Baker_00/0304/baker%20poland%20p1/ussr.htm.
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