• Monday, October 13 2025 *

Part 5: Rethinking Progress and Success

Final part (5 of 5). This conclusion synthesises arguments developed across four previous parts, addressing counterarguments and proposing implementation frameworks. Reading this section alone provides incomplete context for the recommendations and will misrepresent the full argument. If you are new to my writing, you may also want to read my disclaimer about my thoughts.

Series Part 1: The Evolution of Authority Part 2: The Illusion of Choice Part 3: Individual vs Collective Part 4: Models of Guided Governance Part 5: Rethinking Progress and Success (← You are here)

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GDP as a Measure of Success

The examples thus far provided challenge the assumption that democratic systems inherently produce better outcomes, and the measurement of “success” itself will inevitably reflect cultural bias; different societies expectedly vary in their prioritisation of economic growth, cultural preservation, social stability, or spiritual fulfilment. Institutions that favour democracy—primarily based in Washington DC, London, and other Western capitals, like those housing the World Bank and IMF—often use GDP as a primary indicator of success, despite its poor correlation with quality of life, public wealth distribution, or even sustainable development. GDP doesn’t differentiate between types of spending, meaning that natural disasters boost GDP through reconstruction spending and crime raises GDP through security services and prison construction. Divorces and pollution increase GDP, yet they’re not typically included as positive metrics in the measure of quality of life or individual satisfaction.

Many countries considered the most successful today due to their GDP growth fail to reflect that wealth in their average population. Let’s take Ireland as our example, whose economic transformation has puzzled economists and international scholars studying what some call the “Irish model”. Currently, Ireland’s GDP is among the highest in the world, and it has raced ahead of countries such as Germany and even the US. On paper, Ireland is an extraordinarily prosperous country, but let’s break down whence this GDP comes. Multinational corporations, such as Google and Facebook, are using Ireland as a tax haven by planting, like flags, their European headquarters in the country. Big Pharma has found a convenient home in Ireland by routing their profits through subsidiaries, further inflating GDP. However, these profits aren’t in reality Irish money—they don’t circulate in the Irish economy, nor do they benefit Irish workers and citizens. One petty geopolitical dispute between the US and Ireland could collapse the economy, making Ireland’s tenuous position in world GDP hang by a thread for as long as it’s dependent on US corporations.

Now let’s look whither goes Ireland’s supposed wealth. At the present time, Ireland is facing one of the worst housing crises in Europe. Dublin has exceptionally high rent relative to local wages; many young people can’t afford to buy homes (with many still living with parents in their 30s) or even pay rent, and homelessness has skyrocketed. On top of this, certain crime rates, such as extortion, burglary, sexual crime, and motor theft, are not just rising but at their worst levels in more than a decade. The average household debt is almost a year’s salary at 90%. To provide some context, this means that if you earn a decent salary of €50,000, you’d owe approximately €45,000 in debt, typically via mortgages, loans, and credit cards. Granted, it’s dropped significantly since 2009 after the global financial crisis, when Ireland almost became Atlantis, though it is still twice what it was in 2004.

Furthermore, Ireland’s public healthcare system, the HSE, is chronically and severely overcrowded and understaffed despite the country’s apparent wealth. Long waitlists for procedures, which can range from months to years, and overcrowded A&E departments force some people into paying for expensive private healthcare or insurance plans; meanwhile, rural hospitals are closing or reducing services, leaving many citizens either in need or with the feeling of obligation to move to more expensive urbanised areas. Education has also not gone unaffected. Schools are found fundraising to afford basic supplies, and class sizes in urban and suburban locales are swelling to unreasonable levels, affecting the quality of education and leaving students with challenges without help. Parents are often faced with pressure to make voluntary contributions to schools.

Regional inequality is seen as much in other sectors as in healthcare and education; public transport outside of Dublin is sparse, some areas still don’t have reliable Wi-Fi connections, water infrastructure is old and problematic, and the void of affordable childcare leaves young parents with no choice but to quit work and live meagrely or find relatives to watch their children. Democracy is supposedly a government for the people, by the people. Which people? Call me presumptuous, but I’m certain the Irish people didn’t collectively vote to have swollen debts, poor healthcare, soaring crime rates, bulging rents and bloated property prices, nor neglectful education for their children. And the incontrovertible truth is that these circumstances obviously don’t serve the people.

In an attempt to be fair, I will say that Ireland’s quality of life is, of course, cushy relative to other countries, particularly indeed developing nations. However, it is not as rosy as GDP, QoL indices, nor EU political discourse might have you believe. For a closer look at life on the ground, see the provided [appendix] that references statistics from the Central Statistics Office of Ireland to further explore the scope of these problems.

This paradox of sorts we find in Ireland, caught between extraordinary GDP growth alongside homelessness, healthcare failures, and rising inequality, exposes the inherent flaws in modern liberal democratic governance. Sustained policy implementation is necessary for genuine prosperity and stability, but short-term election cycles don’t provide this. Irish citizens face deteriorating living conditions that no rational population would vote for, yet the system continuously and repeatedly sacrifices long-term collective welfare for immediate political gain. In contrast, Singapore’s “managed democracy” reveals an alternative supported by history: technocratic leadership insulated from electoral pressures that can deliver on multi-generational planning, maintain economic sovereignty, and prioritise citizen welfare over speculative profits. Critics may discuss accountability concerns, but how can they keep a straight face when weighed against liberal democracy’s evident failure to solve even basic quality of life issues—even in ostensibly wealthy nations?

Ireland’s hollow affluence proves that impressive international rankings don’t mean a whole lot if your people can’t afford homes, healthcare, or even hope for improvement in the future. The choice is not simply a binary between democracy and authoritarianism, but between governance systems that serve genuine collective interests and those that merely optimise for metrics while abandoning their people.

Progress Misunderstood

There’s an assumption floating around that change equals progress, and that, I believe, deserves some serious scrutiny, particularly when many “progressive” changes have demonstrably worsened human welfare. Urban renewal projects have destroyed functioning communities in the name of modernisation, while educational reforms have reduced literacy rates, meaning some of us are less educated, and many of us are now more educated but less intelligent. Social policies have weakened family structures that provided stability for generations, and economic liberalisation has increased inequality despite promising prosperity for all. When measuring progress, real progress, we should not do so by how many changes are made, but by how well societies preserve and refine what works while also carefully adapting to genuine needs and beneficial advances. Social stability matters. Cohesion matters. Intergenerational knowledge matters. Community resilience—you guessed it—matters. More than GDP growth or the number of new rights gained each and every year, managing and sustaining resources and preserving our culture matters.

And of course, this doesn’t mean rejecting all change. Technological advancement that improves quality of life (without degrading the culture, I may add) can be genuinely beneficial. Where would we be without antibiotics, the printing press, and food preservation? But we need to approach this change with prudence rather than naked enthusiasm and ask whether the proposed changes will actually strengthen or weaken the social fabric holding up functioning communities. At times the most progressive thing you can do is to instead preserve what works. Further, cultural evolution isn’t always necessary or beneficial either. We need to carefully evaluate changes rather than blindly accept them or prematurely label them progress. Is this change beneficial? Why? Will it remain beneficial for the greater good in the long term? Or could it potentially erode the stability that makes civilised life possible? Prudence holds more weight than sheer innovation when guiding cultural policy.

The proliferation of rights and freedoms also isn’t automatically of benefit, despite what progressive doctrine insists. With every new right created, new responsibilities and obligations are created, and this raises potential conflicts with existing social arrangements. We can see this clearly, regardless of our stance, in today’s world. The right to gender self-identification has led to tensions in women’s spaces and sports. Free speech absolutism has produced information chaos and political polarisation. Handing out the right to opt out of traditional social expectations has weakened the family structure and community bonds that, as already stated, provided stability and purpose for generations. Irrespective of your stance on whether these changes are right or wrong, they still necessitate careful evaluation rather than automatic celebration. If rights create more problems than they solve, that is not progress. In fact, it can be considered social vandalism masquerading as a moral compass.

Governmental Guidance and Economy

Without strong governmental guidance, societies become tremendously vulnerable to capitalist exploitation that rots a culture and community from within, and when free markets are left to operate without constraints, corporations such as Amazon, Apple, and Google begin dictating lifestyle choices and personal values to maximise their profits, effectively enslaving citizens to consumption. Circling back to the idea of manufactured consent, we can find its close relative “dark patterns”, which are the tricks and traps that websites and apps use to manipulate consumers into signing up for subscriptions, into purchasing products they neither want nor need, or into sharing personal information designed to extract wealth while providing minimal, shallow satisfaction to the consumer.

Markets are tools, not ends in themselves, and treating them as the latter leads to societies serving economic systems rather than economic systems serving societies. Unregulated capitalism inevitably concentrates wealth and power, then uses that power to capture political systems, irrespective of whether they’re democratic, authoritarian, or somewhere in between, but strong governance can harness market efficiency while preventing market dominance over society. This requires treating essential services such as healthcare, education, housing, and utilities differently from consumer goods, as they shouldn’t be profit centres where artificial scarcity drives up prices, but neither should they be a Soviet-style bureaucracy nightmare (that is, you will get free housing, you just have to wait years for it). Singapore demonstrates this approach effectively: over eighty per cent of the population lives in government-built housing that they can purchase at subsidised rates, which creates both social stability and individual investment while also preventing the artificial scarcity we see in privatised housing markets elsewhere. Meanwhile, their markets remain highly competitive for non-essential goods and services, maintaining the innovation incentives that make capitalism, to some degree, useful.

However, social welfare systems require extremely tight regulation to prevent abuse and dependency culture. The current system in some developed countries illustrates the dangers of systemic manipulation: families pretending separation to receive extra benefits, people deliberately appearing unemployable to retain job seekers’ allowances, and others manipulating psychologists to get artificial anxiety diagnoses to excuse them from work permanently. Poor safeguards allow this behaviour to flourish and create a culture of entitlement rather than genuine assistance for those in actual need, meaning socialism often necessitates strict regulations as capitalism does.

Strong government involvement should protect citizens from predatory capitalism while preventing permanent dependency classes that drain resources and undermine social unity. An assertive government can provide essential protections from capitalism gone rogue, including social welfare systems, affordable healthcare, wealth redistribution mechanisms, and effective barriers to monopolistic and anti-competitive practices. These sorts of interventions require long-term planning. And they’re usually viewed with distaste by the general population in the short term. Asking people to make sacrifices now for future stability and prosperity is usually an unpopular option for democratic populations trained on instant gratification, so effective governance must distinguish between targeted support for genuine hardship and open-ended welfare that becomes a lifestyle choice.

Conclusively, the supervision of capitalism deserves particular attention because unregulated markets inevitably distil wealth and power, then use that power to seize political systems, and this happens regardless of governance style.

Addressing Counter Arguments

Critics may raise concerns about alternative governance that leans towards the authoritarian, believing it to inherently be rigid and less adaptable (which the historical examples disprove—those systems were adaptable and innovative for hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years before succumbing to collapse due to an eventual lack of adaptability, a potential pitfall of any government). But it’s more than possible to design institutional paternalism that maintains creative tension and diverse perspectives while avoiding democratic chaos, as illustrated by Singapore and Rwanda. (I’d also point out that a culture should be asked what it values before being criticised for not following the values we’ve been conditioned to believe are “correct”). Structured mechanisms that channel dissent through expert analysis rather than popular assemblies, regional advisory councils that are selected through merit to provide local perspective, and professional civil servants can analyse public concerns and translate them into policy recommendations. Multiple independent oversight institutions, such as economic advisory councils, social impact assessment boards, and constitutional compliance courts, can provide accountability without electoral volatility. The overseers can be overseen, meaning each body is accountable to another.

Regarding minority rights, we find that democratic systems often produce majoritarian tyranny, despite claims that they represent the voice of the people. The loudest voices, notwithstanding the aforementioned voter ignorance, are the ones that are usually addressed. Institutional paternalism can actually better protect vulnerable minorities by insulating decisions from popular prejudice while maintaining expert evaluation of policies affecting different groups, and so the key lies in building protection for those interests into the design rather than relying on the restraint of the majority. That’s not to say that the voice of the majority should be ignored, but rather that it doesn’t always reflect what’s best for the society or for societal unity and harmony.

Additionally, leadership transitions can present challenges for any system, but clear succession processes with multi-decade career tracks in public service can ensure continuity of competent leadership. No one should reach top positions before demonstrating a long, thorough history of public service dedicated across different regions and departments. This thesis is not a prescription: the scale and cultural difference among communities requires sophisticated institutional design rather than simple extrapolation from one state to another, and to reference the Singapore example, it is a relatively small city-state, and geographically as well as socially, it faces different influencing factors compared to many countries. Rwanda has its own unique history. China is a vast nation with diverse cultures and populations from one end of the map to the other. Hungary is caught somewhere between its modern position and historic culture, wanting to align with Europe economically but not quite sharing its liberal roots. Turkey has a long imperial past characterised by remarkable longevity despite periods of instability. While governance styles can theoretically be successfully transplanted from one state to another, there are innumerable variables that influence how this process takes place.

Effective Governance

Effectual governance should work for most people, most of the time, for most of time. This seemingly simple principle actually requires sophisticated design that balances competence, accountability, and stability. Let’s have a look at what effective governance might look like given all we’ve discussed thus far.

Firstly, leaders should emerge from pools of experienced, educated individuals who have demonstrated competence over decades, rather than being selected in an arbitrary popularity’s contest. This means, as hitherto stated, multi-decade career tracks in public service, potentially with mandatory rotations through different regions and departments to prevent local capture and ensure a broad understanding of governance challenges (the caveat being that this rotation shouldn’t interfere with specialisation and expertise but instead bolster it). Ideally, leaders shouldn’t reach top positions before in and around the age of forty-five and should only graduate to these levels after proving their dedication to public service rather than personal advancement, status, or monetary incentives.

There is sometimes an assumption that older leaders can’t handle technological progress, but this is a particularly narrow and unfounded viewpoint. Lee Kuan Yew was 72 when the internet commercialised, yet Singapore became a global tech hub under his guidance (though he had stepped down from Prime Minister to Senior Minister just before this time). Park Chung-hee’s rule, lasting until he was assassinated at 62, drove meteoric industrialisation and technological evolution through implementing policies that metamorphosed South Korea from an agrarian economy, laying foundations for companies such as Samsung and LG. From the age of 60 until his death at 86, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan of the UAE oversaw momentous modernisation efforts of the oil industry, leading to massive infrastructure and technology projects. And China under Deng Xiaoping, when he was already 74, saw China opening up to foreign technology, the development of Special Economic Zones, and the inception of China’s manufacturing boom that later evolved into technological leadership. Young leaders can become enamoured with innovation to the point of exploiting it for profit rather than for the greater good, while experienced leaders can more often understand that technology is a tool that needs direction, not a force that should direct us. We should not merely ask, “Can we build this?”, but rather, “Should we build this, and how do we ensure it serves the people?”

Additionally, regarding leadership candidates, divesting assets into blind trusts managed by independent institutions can eliminate direct financial incentives for corruption. Compensation should be sufficient enough to reduce corruption temptations but structured enough to prevent wealth accumulation during service, leading to well-paid civil servants, not oligarchs. Regarding corruption, we should also address the issue of loyalty, which is as complex as it is nuanced, and I don’t have exacting answers for this. The distinction between valuable loyalty and dangerous cronyism lies in the object of said loyalty, as institutional loyalty (that is, dedication to the state’s long-term welfare) differs fundamentally from personal loyalty to individual leaders. Performance metrics should measure long-term societal outcomes as opposed to leader satisfaction, and term limits for advisory positions could potentially prevent entrenched personal networks from forming. That said, a leader must surround himself with experts and advisors they trust.

Responsiveness is not an issue that goes unaddressed outside of Western liberal democracies either, and, in fact, it requires structured mechanisms that channel public concerns through expert analysis rather than direct democracy per se. Putin’s annual Direct Line demonstrates how governance systems can maintain direct connection with citizens, demonstrating accountability to the people, while maintaining authority over the interpretation and implementation of proposed problems and solutions. Moreover, China’s petition system, both historically and in its modernised forms, provides another model of accountability to the population. Regional advisory councils, selected through merit in lieu of elections, can offer local perspectives, and professional civil servants analyse public concerns and translate them into policy recommendations. Regular forums are held where leadership explains decisions to educated representatives, instead of responding to pressure from the general masses, which maintains liability while preserving decision-making coherence.

Unlike short and chaotic fouror even seven-year election cycles common in democratic systems, effective governance requires much longer terms that allow for well-reasoned strategic planning and implementation. Successive governments shouldn’t easily undo their predecessor’s work every few years, as this undermines social harmony and stability, and needless to say, long-term thinking becomes possible when leadership doesn’t face constant electoral pressure.

Decentralised power structures like federalism aren’t particularly ideal either. It can lead to unnecessary tensions or even separatist movements, civil conflicts, and cultural backlashes, destabilising the society. Therefore, effective governance requires centralised decision-making authority while maintaining sensitivity to regional cultural variations, essentially providing some cultural autonomy in exchange for political autonomy. As populations grow, authority needs to become more centralised, meaning that it’s imperative to recognise that larger societies need stronger institutional coordination to function at all. The alternative is fragmentation, conflict, and eventual collapse as different regions, communities, and social groups pull in incompatible directions.

Forbye the obvious matters, transparency needs to be deliberated as well. Complete candour, while alluring in theory, often creates perplexity when it comes to convoluted decisions that call for specialised or inside knowledge. The average citizen doesn’t need to understand every aspect of governance, any more than airline passengers need to understand how the aircraft is engineered merely to catch a flight. Information should be managed strategically, informing, not manipulating, to create a more stable and understanding populace.

Furthermore, strategic information management doesn’t entail lying to people—it means understanding that information without context creates confusion rather than enlightenment. When governments release every detail of complicated negotiations, they don’t conceive enlightened citizens, but rather endow political opponents with ammunition to misrepresent and sabotage necessary compromises. When every policy discussion is conducted in public, leaders end up playing to the crowd instead of solving problems. What the average person needs is competent management and clear communication about outcomes, not to access each internal deliberation that might confuse them rather than inform.

It’s worth mentioning that all political systems are vulnerable to exploitation, so mechanisms to prevent the erosion of constraints on benevolent authority are essential. There are several options here, such as having multiple independent councils of specialists from various fields which can hold accountable those who make major decisions, and clear succession processes that oversee the continuity of competent leadership are important. There needs to be strong traditions that emphasise leadership as a sacrifice rather than a privilege or desirable status, with fair compensation relative to the role and responsibility. It’s crucial to carefully cultivate values that reward public service while stigmatising self-serving behaviour. In addition, comprehensive documentation of all decisions and their outcomes can create historical accountability.

Moving from democratic systems to institutional paternalism often insists on gradual evolution rather than revolutionary change (depending on the context and nuances in some cases). Existing democratic establishments can be refashioned to emphasise adeptness over marketability and popularity, such as extending terms, adding merit requirements for candidates, and creating expert advisory bodies with real authority. Singapore’s model demonstrates how democratic forms can coexist with guided governance, maintaining electoral procedures while structuring information environments and institutional rules to favour long-term planning over populist appeals and allowing gradual transition without social disruption.

If institutional paternalism failed, degradation should default back to federal rather than direct democracy, allowing regional variation in governance approaches while maintaining central coordination for essential functions. Multiple oversight institutions can provide enough redundancy to prevent complete system collapse.

Conclusion

We find the fundamental challenges of governance not in choosing between freedom and oppression, but rather in balancing competence and consent. Democratic ideals appeal to romanticised egalitarian sensibilities, but practical reality consistently shows us that most people lack the knowledge, time, and inclination to make informed decisions about complex policy matters. A ship requires one captain for the very reason that a camel is a horse designed by committee. Societies require experienced and knowledgeable leadership guided by expertise and constrained by institutional safeguards and accountability. Taking this approach doesn’t eliminate freedom but channels it towards productivity rather than destructive ends.

While it’s true that all governance models carry the risk of being exploited, libertarian and democratic systems have time and again failed when faced with complex challenges that require sustained effort and sacrifice, or simply time itself. So, the path forward requires moving beyond the false dichotomy of chaos or tyranny and instead towards sophisticated systems that combine authority, expertise, and accountability. Just as much as the government is responsible to its people, the people are responsible to their government. Cooperation over radical individualism and the sacrifice of small civil liberties to gain social harmony are things that don’t eliminate human choice but create conditions where societies can achieve stability, prosperity, and genuine progress under the guidance of those best equipped to understand and navigate the complexities of the modern rule. This approach doesn’t represent a retreat from human development but a de facto more rounded, perhaps more mature, expression of it: recognising that true freedom comes not from an absent or laissez-faire authority but from a wise one that serves the long-term flourishing of its people.

Governance should work for most of the people, most of the time, for most of time, and this standard requires competent authority guided by expertise, not theatrical democracy that promises everything while delivering chaos.

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That concludes the five-part series. If you’d like to discuss any of the ideas addressed in the series as part of some friendly discussion, please feel free to reach out to me. I don’t bite. Usually.

#politics [#thoughts on](https://inconclusive.net/blog/?q=thoughts on)