Does commerce need democracy?

There are two parts of this blog. One is on commerce and democracy the other deals with current democracy politics.

What is the relationship of commerce and democracy? I have no final answer. It is historically too early to tell. We have seen an explosion of democracy in my lifetime. From four dozen democracies before WWII, to four score today. A democracy has regular elections and the government involves more than one party. Power is moved to new people based on popular vote.

Some clearly new democracies are Taiwan, So. Korea, most of East Europe, Chile and Mexico. A few that aren't include Russia, China, India and Singapore.

The thriving commercial centers of the world are all democracies, deep democracies, non-extractive economies, like the U.S., Holland, Israel, Germany and Japan.

The problem examples are China, India, Singapore and Turkey. India is problematic because it has a few cities that are thriving commercially with third world socialist infra-structure. China is problematic because it is a thriving commercial society with no democracy. Singapore, where the brilliant Lee Quan Yew, founder, just died, is a thriving commercial center with a socialist infra-structure and very little democracy. Turkey is doing well economically but has gone from a democracy to an Islamic tyranny.

A few healthy commercial societies are socialist, like Canada, Sweden and Denmark. These are very white societies without an indolent black population.

In my lifetime it is possible to say that successful commerce thrives in democracies, but can also do well in other unique situations. A stronger statement isn't possible at this time.

Now politics. The American president Obama, has done something unique in world history. He is the first leader of a great democracy to publicly criticize another democracy. Obama has virulently criticized Israel for 5 years and after the most recent election in Israel has viciously criticized Israel and its re-elected leader.

This act is significant for one reason other than its historic first. An American president clearly shows he dislikes 'democracy'. A democracy is the creation of its people. To criticize a democracy for the results of its election is to say in the clearest possible language that the people of that democracy are not competent to create and run a government.

Further proof that this American president dislikes 'democracy' is his reaction to the 2014 mid-term election where the president's Democrat party was routed at every level of government in the most decisive overthrow election in a century. He promptly signed executive actions to override the new legislators and announced a refusal to work with the newly elected officials.

We have a stunning anomaly: the elected leader of democracy who publicly dislikes 'democracy'.