History shows us that autocracies were way more stable than republics. Nearly all known empires were autocracy. There were only few known republics exists: Venice, Genoa, any other? Imho democracies have tendency to covert to autocracy especially after a successful ruler

@Gorkem, Democracy in the modern sense of the term was only born in the 18th century. Since then dozens of countries switched to it, almost none reverted back.

for example France? France had several revolutions till WW2 so i do not think it can be called stable. And there were still very few democracies till 20th century.

@Gorkem, yes, France did. So did Germany in 1933. But that’s why I added ‘Established’. Young systems are inherently unstable, that’s obvious. Thing is, no older democracies (30+ years) ever gone back. Older autocracies did.

"Those are young autocracies and are extremely unrepresentative of autocracies as a whole." This ties in tightly to the OP's source of 4X games, rather than real-world history. Those games, by definition, involve you as a new (and usually benevolent) autocrat. By contrast, democracy in that context involves other agents working towards goals that may not exactly match the win condition that you are aiming for. I don't think the notion/perception of inefficiencies in democracies is wrong--I think it's just more specific to that exact situation than the OP initially realizes.

A great example would be the Space Race. The USSR got off to the better start (Sputnik, Gagarin, Luna 1...) but their attempts at a manned lunar mission ended in abject failure, while the US quickly caught up and then successfully landed on the moon no less than six times.

The stablished democracies clause seems like a classical "true scotsman" fallacy. Since most countries have been only recently democratic you may label any counter-example to your "general rule" as a "not stablished democracy". Spain was a Parlamentary Monarchy since 1868 and a dictatorship was stablished in 1868, Portugal Parliamentary Monarchy and Republic (since 1834) that led to dictatorships since 1915. Greece, Romania, Cuba, Philippines, Argentina, Chile, Italy are probably good examples, too, and I would not be so fast in disqualifying Germany. And look right now at Turkey...

It is worth to note that a few of the more developed countries in the world (Norway, Sweden, Denmark...) aren't democracies, and a few democracies are incredibly corrupt and messed up (Brazil). You can't really generalize like that. We have examples of both failures and successes for both systems.

Don't confuse autocracy with planned economy. It is absolutely not necessary that in an autocracy the state choses the job for most citizens. In fact, this is very uncommon, even in planned economies like the former Sovjet Union. If a state wants to increase scientific output, it will put more money into research. It will typically not take successful pupils and force them to become researchers. This may have happened (I don't know), but it is definitely no necessity in autocracies. In fact, a main criticism of autocracies is that they don't care about their citizens as long as they are quiet.

@Nebr, Of course, an autocracy could have a market economy, but that isn't what the OP described. The state won't have to force a kid to become a scientist, but it very well might tell him what to do and, more importantly, how to do it. Those were the flaws that ultimately lead to USSR's technological inferiority - they did not pivot their scientific focus as the world changed (e.g. missed out on computers). The fundamental argument is that state-directed research does not work, aside from short-term, specific projects.

@Laetus The OP describes a state that focuses its resources on scientific research. This typically means that money is spent for universities, research labs, special programs etc. Taking an inept and counterproductive approach (telling a kid what and how to do to achieve scientific progress) is neither mandatory nor typical for an autocracy and does not disprove the assumption. Having a singular example (USSR vs. USA during the race to the moon) doesn't do either, and there are counterexamples (China has not missed out on computers and owns some of the largest supercomputers).

China appears to be doing rather well. How'd you explain that?

@T.Sar In what ways are the scandinavian countries not democracies?

@MrGerber They are in the most part parliamentary kingdoms, which is a tad different from what we usually call "democracy". Yes, they have some democratic process in place, but they are still monarchies.

Yeah, well - in the sense of not being a direct democracy, that is correct - but not in the sense of the royal family having any real power. I can of course only really answer for Norway, which is where I live, but it is the same for Denmark and Sweden as well - there is a parliament and a prime minister, and it is formally a parliamental democracy. It might diverge from what is typically concidered a democracy on WB.SE, but in tns context it comes off a bit strange to state that the Scandinavian countries are not real democracies, as they are of the most democratic countries in the world.

The correct formal governing model is a constitutional monarchy with representative democracy. With the risk of going completely off topic, I would strongly argue that it is entirely possible to have a democratic government whether a country is a republic or a constitutional monarchy.

@gerrit Extensive theft of intellectual properties?

@T.Sar The king of Sweden has zero formal power. Even less than ordinary citizens, for he can't vote or stand for election. It's ludicrous to consider that Sweden (and Norway, Denmark, etc.) are not democracies because they kept a historical institution for the sake of symbolism and tradition and nothing else.

Speaking of younger democracies, would it make more sense to compare authoritarian China with democratic India (the largest functioning democracy on Earth), rather than with the much older U.S. and U.K.? China and the U.S. aren’t really an apples to apples comparison because the U.S. had such an enormous head start by nature of being a westernized country. And authoritarian regimes today have gotten much better at keeping the scientists from escaping, you don’t hear too many North Korea style escape stories of scientists fleeing China now do you.

@gerrit China rapidly modernized over the past 20 years, with GDP growth in excess of 7% per year for most of it. People were making good money, and thus were willing to overlook to an extent the social injustices of the regime. Take a look at Saudi Arabia for a similar example. However, this growth did not last forever, the Chinese economic growth is beginning to shrink and you can now see increased unrest and increasing cracking down by Xi to combat the unrest. In the context of the question, this accelerated growth would be impossible as there's not another society to "catch up" to.

@Gramatik I am not convinced there is presently increased unrest in China, compared to 20 years ago. As the French revolution, the Arab spring, and the current Iranian protests illustrate, mass protests are often for economic reasons. The Chinese leadership is safe as long as they can keep up the growth and make it benefit ordinary people. I agree that if the Chinese economy would stagnate and suffer, that would make its leadership vulnerable. Time will tell whether the Chinese model is more, less, or equally sustainable compared the democratic models.