Most countries that make great economic and social progress are not democracies

I strongly believe that liberal democracy is the best way to run a country. People like me, who believe this, are often tempted to argue that democracy leads to, or is even a requirement for, other good things, like peace, social progress, health improvements, and economic growth. But here's the thing, and it is hard to accept: the evidence does not support this stance.

Most countries that make great economic and social progress are not democracies ...Of the ten countries with the fastest economic growth in the years 2012-2016, nine of them score low on democracy.

H. Rosling, Factfulness (2018), 201

Democracy has never been a single monolithic entity available for export to all parts of the world

Democracy has never been a single monolithic entity available for export to all parts of the world, as George W. Bush and Tony Blair imagined. It is plural, not singular; it depends on tacit understandings of particular cultures as much as on formal rules. ... For Abraham Lincoln, democracy meant 'government of the people, by the people, for the people. For the British High Tory Leo Amery it meant 'government of the people, for the people, with but not by the people'.

D. Marquand, Mammon's Kingdom (2014), 154

I am with Amery, save I do not believe that is democracy, though it is desirable.

Democracy came too early to America

The historian Peter Spierenburg has provocatively suggested that 'democracy came too early' to America. In Europe, first the state disarmed the people and claimed a monopoly on violence, then the people took over the apparatus of the state, in America, the people took over the state before it had forced them to lay down their arms.

S. Pinker, The better angels of our nature (2011), 118

Elsewhere, in support of this thesis (which I suspect is true) Pinker highlights the differential rates of violent crime by regions of the US, where the North East looks a lot like Europe and the West and South, less so.