, Columnist
Authority Doesn’t Always Win. Take Markets, for Example
If you exclude commodities and the ‘resources curse,’ then the returns from free and democratic economies easily beat authoritarian systems.
Plato has a word with Aristotle in Raphael’s “The School of Athens.”
Photographer: Franco Origlia/Getty
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The debate between the notions of freedom and democracy on one side, against order and authority on the other, has been going on at least since Ancient Greece. Plato didn’t manage to resolve the discussion, and neither will anyone in our lifetime — although the pendulum has certainly swung a long way toward democracy over the last two-and-a-half millennia.
