Supporting Moldbug

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita (BBdM), who I count among the current crop of most-important thinkers, collected and published a set of papers from like-minded thinkers in book form called Governing for Prosperity.  Among the most interesting new pieces of information I found in the book was Chapter 8: Democracy and the Rule of Law.   In that chapter, Robert Barro examines the antecedants of growth.

Simple summary:

1. Moving from a system of low/no property rights/rule of law to high rule of law is worth about +3% GDP growth.
2. Moving from a system of low/no democracy to high democracy may have a small positive GDP growth.
3. Moving from a system of low/no democracy OR high democracy to a moderate (highly constrained) democracy is worth about +1% GDP growth.
•  This is somewhat contra the earlier Economist finding that democratic freedoms are worth about 1% GDP growth.
  
4. One should therefore expect places like Singapore, with some democratic institutions (as many as Chicago, anyhow), but excellent property rights to track near 4% better GDP growth than democratic places with poor property rights.

This supports Moldbug's pills numbers 1 and 2 rather strongly.  Especially given that Growth rates >> everything.