People tolerate so long they gain.

In the 1970s there was chronic shortage of consumer goods in the Soviet Union, forcing people to queue for hours, China was recovering from a major famine, due to the Cultural Revolution unleashed by Mao Zedong and "Ethiopia was the poster country for thin, emaciated children, suffering and on the verge of death," wrote Prof T Cowen. Today, China "has built one of the world's most impressive economic growth miracles ever, with the Communist Party still firmly in power. Ethiopia is coming off of some years of double-digit economic growth and is developing its manufacturing. Yet the country is autocratic and has a history of censoring the internet. Vladimir Putin rules Russia with a firm hand, but today consumer goods of virtually all kinds are widely available and most Russians are free to leave whenever they want." Why have autocrats become softer? They have learnt from Lee Kuan Yew, the first Prime Minister of Singapore, who instituted economic reforms and made Singapore very rich, while maintaining a strict one-party rule. So, " The big innovation in authoritarian governance has been this: subsequent autocratic leaders, most of all in China, have found ways of of both liberalizing and staying in power." Liberalism was based on the inalienable right of self-ownership, wrote Prof Y Varoufakis. "You were your own property. You could lease yourself to an employer for a limited period, and for a mutually agreed price, but your property rights over yourself could not be bought or sold." Today, "many are condemned to labour under zero-hour contracts and wages so low that they must work all available hours to make ends meet" while others, "to avoid falling into this soul-destroying 'precariat', they must invest in their own brand every waking hour of every day". If they are lucky to be called for a job interview they are told, " We want you to be true to yourself, to follow your passions, even if this means we must let you go!" "So they redouble their efforts to discover 'passions'". "I, for one, only wish to live under a vibrant democracy," wrote Cowen. We all do, but social rules are changing, perhaps not for the better. So called Western democracies are being taken over by groups of vocal minorities, suppressing freedom of expression for the majority. "Liberal democracy is inherently fragile because reconciling its terms does not produce a natural political equilibrium," wrote Prof D Rodrik. We need to protect rights of minorities while respecting the wishes of the electorate. Can't be all things to all men. Or women.