Why Democracy Is The Best Form Of Government
"Democracy is the destiny of humanity; freedom its indestructible arm."
-Benito Juarez
I am of the firm belief that democracy is the best form of government available to us right now. Why? Let's start with the basics.
Firstly, democracy allows us to exercise various freedoms, such as freedom of speech and expression, and the freedom to criticise one's own government. Democracy is the government of the people, this is perhaps its biggest and most widely known virtue. Allowing everyone to participate in the decision-making process, at least in theory.
Democracies tend to produce stronger systems of checks and balances, independent media, and rule of law than other governance systems. And these institutions yield the consistently positive results seen in democracies.
Mulligan, Gil, and Sala-i-Martin (2004) find that countries that are more democratic are less likely to execute, regulate religion, or censor the press.
Gallego (2010) presents evidence that democracy has indeed had a causal effect on primary-school enrollment.
Baum and Lake (2001) find that democratization increased secondary-school enrollment. Also, Acemoglu, Naidu, Restrepo, and Robinson (2015) find that democracy is associated with an increase in secondary schooling.
Few autocratic countries enjoy child mortality rates under 10 per 1,000. In contrast, democracies often enjoy child mortality rates below 10 or even 5 per 1,000.
Here we have considered only child mortality, but a broader analysis of countries’ health outcomes would also show that more generally, good health is linked with political freedom. My source is the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation.
A review of the economic growth performances of all developing countries since 1960 finds democracies have, on average, attained rates of per capita GDP growth equivalent to their autocratic counterparts. This holds for each decade as well as in aggregate. There is no empirical evidence of an authoritarian growth advantage.
On nearly every social welfare measure available, democracies exhibit development outcomes that are 15-40% superior to that of autocracies, controlling for income.
Democratic countries tend to be wealthier and have a better distribution of wealth throughout the population.
Everything considered what truly helps democracy be the best form of government is the satisfaction of the people with it.
Over the twenty-eight countries examined happiness levels in democracies stayed robust, even when variables like religion, language, and of course, income, were controlled (Dorn, Fischer, et. al 2007). Incidentally, these particular findings are also supported by (Frey and Stutzer 2000), that household income to have a minimal effect on happiness, in contrast to the effect of direct democracy.
Winston Churchill once said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." And I have to agree, democracy has many flaws and problems but it is still the best form of government compared to all others that have been tried over and over again.
