Monday, March 03, 2008

AUTHORITARIAN CAPITALISM


The liberal democratic camp defeated its authoritarian, Fascist and Communist rivals alike in all of the three major great-power struggles of the 20th century - the two world wars and the Cold War.

The Soviet Union failed because its economic systems limited it. But the nondemocratic capitalist great powers, Germany and Japan, were defeated in war fundamentally because they were medium-sized countries with limited resource bases.

the power of the United States consistently surpassed that of the next two strongest states combined throughout the 20th century, and this decisively tilted the global balance of power in favor of whichever side Washington was on.

By shifting from Communist command economy to capitalism, China and Russia have switched to a far more efficient brand of authoritarianism.

holding considerably more power than any of the democracies' past rivals ever did by virtue of being both large and capitalist.

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