Since in this view dictatorships generate development while development leads to democracy, the best way to democracy was said to be a circuitous one… - Adam Przeworski

In general dictators have not done better at [economic] policies than democrats—far from it. Most dictators have ravaged their countries for personal gain. Scholars have asked whether democracy helps or hurts the economic growth of poor countries and despite many surveys, have come to no conclusive answer.

Democracy is a system in which parties lose elections. [Footnote:] Note that the presence of a party that wins elections does not define a system as democratic: The Albanian People's party has regularly produced overwhelming victories. It is only when there are parties that lose and when losing is neither a social disgrace (Kishlansky 1986) nor a crime that democracy flourishes."

The central thing I learned was that reformism was a rational strategy for workers. It was in the interest of workers to support capitalist democracy. An electoral victory of pure workers’ parties was not historically feasible, because the assumption that manual workers in industry and transportation would one day become the overwhelming majority of the population in industrializing countries was mistaken.