Why democracy is so important

I live in Russia, and many people around me call themselves opponents of democracy. Their logic is simple - we can live pretty well without democracy. I will prove that there are holes in this logic.

Currently in the world there are quite prosperous monarchical countries - Jordan, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, etc. But these monarchies are very different from the ancient monarchies - Eastern despotism. This is explained by the fact that in modern monarchies, which are adjacent to democracies, the authorities must be good, otherwise they will be overthrown. In civilizations that did not know what democracy in general was, there was such an oppression of the upper classes to the lower classes that it is scary for the reader.

When an authoritarian (for example, a monarchy) state is in the neighborhood of democracy, the authorities in it are afraid of revolution and therefore cannot afford to exploit the population too much. They understand that if the population lives worse than in the neighboring democracy, it will arrange a revolution and change the government to a democratic one. In other words, democracies exert an “ennobling” effect on neighboring authoritarian ones. Despite this impact, these authoritarian countries often pose a military threat to them.

Ancient Macedonia was more civilized than ancient Persia, despite the fact that both of these states were monarchies. This is explained by the fact that Macedonia bordered on Greece with its democratic traditions.

Another example from history is Germany in the first half of the 20th century. Germany was an authoritarian country in the neighborhood of democratic France and England, and these countries exerted an “ennobling” influence on it; thanks to the English and French revolutions, in 20th century Germany there was no serfdom and other vestiges of the Middle Ages. And despite this influence, Germany posed a military threat to England and France.

One more example is the confrontation between medieval Muscovy and the Novgorod Republic. When the Novgorod Republic existed, the peasants both in it and in the Muscovy were relatively free. But after the conquest of Novgorod by Moscow, a gradual enslavement of the peasants began, which reached its peak under Peter the Great.

If democracy in the world is discredited, then the world will slide into the second Middle Ages, and this possibility frightens me very much now. The likelihood of such a scenario will be higher if in current confrontation between Russia and Ukraine the latter is defeated.