The record of extreme booms and busts should give pause to any nation that ever yearned for the firm hand of an autocrat. In recent decades, many economically troubled nations have looked to a strongman to restore prosperity. In the long run, however, stable and enduring growth is more likely under a democrat, who lacks the power to engineer spectacular runs of success or failure. Even autocrats who produce long periods of strong growth often become, in the end, predatory defenders of the status quo, trampling on property rights to enrich their own clique, discouraging anyone who is not a
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