Quote Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube View Post
I think the end-result of modern technology and comforts is "Democracy" as we know it in the USA and most (nearly all?) of Europe. You just can't have an educated middle-class and not have democracy, eventually.

What the end result of democracy is... we'll find out, but I suspect it is just as messy as what came before democracy.
Aha! Democratization is a very interesting subject, mainly because what you might expect to happen actually doesn't. Namely - an increase in wealth does not increase the chances of the collapse of a dictatorship. Przeworski showed in Democracy and Development that regime collapses peak when per capita income is about $2,000 (1985), regardless of whether the state is democratic or a dictatorship. What increased wealth does do is secure the regime, particularly in democracies. For example, there has only ever been one example of a democratic collapse in a nation with a per capita income of over $9,000 (1985), and that was Argentina in the 1970s. Furthermore, increased wealth increases the chances that, if a regime collapse occurs, that the state transitions to a democracy. Once per capita income is above $6,000 (1985), collapses are six times as likely to finish with a democracy left standing as opposed to a dictatorship.

There are a couple of things that make collapses more likely though - chief among them is economic recession in poor countries. This means that this thread is looking at the issue backwards - the Chinese won't demand a change in Chinese government so long as they're getting richer, but only once they start getting poorer. As they get richer, they're more likely to demand a democracy, but that's a different question.

You just can't have an educated middle-class and not have democracy, eventually.
Singapore in particular springs to mind, but so do Pakistan, Russia, Iran etc.