Adam Gurri

So the arguments are easy.

It's just a sign of how complacent we have gotten that really and truly some people have found the argument hard to find.

When people look at even Putin, but especially China,

They're like, oh, well, they've really got it figured out, actually.

And it's like, no.

I mean, first of all, if you look at Russia compared to Poland and how they fared after the Soviet Union, Poland has grown as fast as South Korea.

Russia has not, to put it mildly.

Russia is a lot better off than it was under the Soviet Union.

They're an actual net exporter of food now, whereas the Soviet Union famously was terrible at agriculture.

But they're still a very poor country.

I mean, they're middle income, but they're not growing fast.

And they're a complete kleptocracy.

And also, of course, now he's throwing them into the meat grinder of a pointless war.

Then China, I mean, China's story, obviously a little more inspirational in terms of how much it's grown over the last 30, 40 years.

And one thing that they did have is an institutionalized mechanism for rotation in power, not democracy, at least not mass democracy.

But they had a method for the party to change leaders every few years.

But that's broken down, as often happens in these systems.

Xi used his terms to punish his enemies and reward his friends and put them in a position of power to then be able to say, actually, we think you should have another term.

It's like falling the center of gravity that happens in these systems back into a personal system.

Even if they are.