Perception, Power, and Prosperity: How Subjective Authoritarianism Shapes America’s Economic Divide
Abstract
This paper explores how perceptions of authority, legitimacy, and fairness shape both political and economic outcomes. It synthesizes global research on authoritarian regimes and democratic systems, drawing on Rizio and Skali (2020), Wang and Guan (2018), Pizzolitto et al. (2023), Martinez (2022), and Bibbins Sedaca (2025). Findings show that democracies consistently outperform autocracies in sustainable economic growth, yet perceptions of success or failure are rarely objective. Citizens interpret leadership through moral and cultural lenses; what feels like stability to one group appears authoritarian to another. The analysis then applies this framework to the United States, where partisan divisions over abortion, gender, and the judiciary symbolize deeper disagreements about fairness and truth. Incorporating data from Mian, Sufi, and Khoshkhou (2023) on partisan bias in economic expectations, the article argues that Americans’ beliefs about prosperity mirror their beliefs about legitimacy. It concludes by asking whether any measure of growth can remain objective when a society no longer agrees on what is true.
Introduction
Debates about the relative performance of authoritarian and democratic governments are as old as political economy itself. Advocates of strong, centralized authority claim that decisive leadership creates efficiency, suppresses corruption, and accelerates growth. Defenders of democracy counter that openness, accountability, and participation foster innovation and long-term stability. Both views contain partial truths. The question is not simply which system delivers higher output but why citizens perceive one as legitimate and the other as dangerous.
Authoritarianism traditionally describes a regime in which power is concentrated in a single ruler or small elite. Democracy disperses authority through rule of law, checks and balances, and competitive elections. Bibbins Sedaca (2025) notes that democracies, despite their slower decision processes, tend to generate higher and more stable economic growth because transparency attracts investment and reduces corruption. Citing Acemoğlu, Johnson, and Robinson’s institutional framework, Sedaca emphasizes that inclusive political institutions expand opportunity and encourage innovation, while extractive ones enrich the few at the expense of the many.
Yet authoritarianism endures and sometimes thrives because its efficiency can be compelling. In moments of crisis, citizens often trade freedom for order, believing that concentrated power can deliver faster solutions. The paradox is that perceptions of authority are rarely neutral. To those who benefit, strong leadership feels competent and necessary; to those excluded, it feels coercive. Authoritarianism, therefore, is as much a matter of perception as structure.
This subjectivity also defines the contemporary United States. Americans live under democratic institutions but disagree sharply about whether those institutions are functioning fairly. One group sees decisive action such as tariffs, deregulation, and border enforcement as evidence of leadership; another interprets the same actions as creeping authoritarianism.
These conflicting perceptions extend beyond politics into morality, culture, and economics. Disputes over abortion, gender identity, and judicial power now shape how people judge not only justice but also prosperity. A nation that cannot agree on what constitutes fairness or truth will inevitably struggle to agree on what constitutes economic success.
The pages that follow first review global research on the economic outcomes of authoritarian versus democratic regimes, then connect those insights to how Americans interpret authority at home. The central claim is that perceptions of legitimacy—whether moral, cultural, or partisan—determine how citizens evaluate both power and prosperity. Authoritarian growth, democratic resilience, and public confidence in markets all rest on the same foundation: trust in the fairness of the system.
Synthesis of Literature
Authoritarian Rule and Economic Performance
Empirical research challenges the belief that authoritarian systems outperform democracies. Rizio and Skali (2020) examined 133 countries between 1858 and 2010 and found that only about 10 percent of autocrats oversaw statistically significant economic improvements. The majority presided over stagnation or decline. The so-called benevolent dictator appears to be the exception, not the rule. Their analysis suggests that authoritarian growth spurts often coincide with commodity booms or external aid rather than sound governance.
Martinez (2022) reinforced this conclusion by comparing official GDP statistics with independent indicators such as satellite-measured nighttime light intensity. He found systematic inflation of growth figures in autocratic regimes, on average between 15 and 30 percent. The manipulation of data serves a political purpose: projecting competence to maintain legitimacy. The result is an illusion of prosperity that obscures underlying fragility.
Democracies, by contrast, generate stability through predictability. Bibbins Sedaca (2025) reports that transitions to democracy raise per-capita income by roughly 20 percent over 30 years. Transparency International’s (2025) Corruption Perception Index shows a similar pattern: full democracies score 73 on average, flawed democracies 47, and autocracies 33. Openness and accountability, though slow, build confidence that sustains long-term investment. Economic success, in this view, depends less on the will of a single leader and more on institutional trust.
Authoritarian Leadership and Context
At the organizational level, studies reveal that authoritarian leadership can produce mixed results depending on culture and context. Wang and Guan (2018) surveyed 409 Chinese employees and found that directive leadership improved performance when subordinates possessed high power-distance orientation, meaning they expected and accepted hierarchical control. When employees valued autonomy, however, the same behavior decreased motivation. The authors conclude that authority succeeds only when perceived as legitimate.
Pizzolitto, Verna, and Venditti (2023) reached similar conclusions in their systematic review of 54 studies. They found that authoritarian leadership may enhance short-term coordination but harms creativity and long-term engagement. The review recommends hybrid styles combining clear authority with empathy and participation. This balance echoes democratic governance itself: structure without tyranny, freedom without chaos.
Subjective Authoritarianism and Perceived Legitimacy
The line between authority and authoritarianism often lies in perception. Citizens tolerate or even welcome strong control when they believe it protects them but resist it when they feel excluded. Legitimacy, not power alone, determines whether authority is accepted.
This explains why authoritarian regimes sometimes maintain popularity despite repression, and why democracies can face unrest despite procedural fairness. People respond not to constitutional design but to how that design aligns with their moral expectations.
This psychological dimension links political science with behavioral economics. When individuals perceive leadership as fair and protective, they invest, spend, and plan confidently. When they see it as unjust, they withdraw. Thus, the economic outcomes of governance are mediated by perception. Authoritarian or democratic performance cannot be measured solely by GDP; it must also be understood through collective sentiment.
Cultural and Moral Foundations of Perception
In many societies, moral and cultural values shape perceptions of authority more strongly than economic data. Within the United States, debates over abortion and gender illustrate how definitions of fairness, autonomy, and truth diverge.
To progressives, abortion rights symbolize personal freedom and gender equality, while restrictions feel like an authoritarian intrusion into private life. To conservatives, abortion represents the taking of an innocent life, and protecting that life is a moral and legal duty. Each side claims to defend human rights. Neither sees itself as authoritarian, yet each views the other’s stance as a form of coercion.
A similar divide appears in discussions of gender. For some, gender identity is fluid and self-determined, an expression of autonomy consistent with democratic ideals. For others, gender is biological and immutable, and rejecting that reality undermines social order. This disagreement is not only moral but epistemological; it reflects different ideas of how truth is known and who has the authority to define it.
When even basic categories such as life and gender are contested, shared meaning becomes difficult to sustain. The moral divisions that separate Americans also shape their perceptions of leadership, law, and the economy.
General Discussion
Cultural Symbols of Fairness and Morality
The divide over abortion, gender, and the judiciary represents more than a clash of policies; it illustrates how Americans construct moral legitimacy. The same psychological mechanisms that shape perceptions of authority in authoritarian and democratic systems also shape domestic debates. Each side interprets fairness, law, and justice through its moral lens.
The progressive worldview tends to associate fairness with autonomy and self-determination. The conservative worldview associates fairness with order and moral consistency. When each side believes its position embodies justice itself, compromise feels like betrayal. The conflict is not simply political; it is existential.
This has profound implications for economic perception. If people interpret fairness differently, they will interpret leadership and prosperity differently as well. When a conservative administration enforces borders, cuts regulation, or imposes tariffs, its supporters may see stability, sovereignty, and strength. Its critics may see oppression, isolationism, and control. The same policy can therefore generate both optimism and despair, depending on moral orientation.
This dual perception mirrors what the research on authoritarian and democratic systems has shown globally: outcomes depend not only on governance but also on belief in legitimacy.
Gender and the Expanding Subjectivity of Truth
A further example of this divide appears in the debate over gender identity. For much of history, gender was understood in binary terms, aligned with biological sex. Recent decades have seen the rise of a more fluid concept of gender, understood as an aspect of personal identity shaped by experience and culture.
To many progressives, this evolution represents freedom, inclusivity, and human dignity. To many conservatives, it symbolizes confusion and the erosion of objective truth. Both sides see themselves as defending what is real. For one, truth lies in lived experience and self-definition; for the other, it lies in biology and tradition.
These opposing frameworks demonstrate that the divide is not only moral but epistemological. If society cannot agree on basic truths such as life, death, or gender, it will inevitably struggle to agree on what prosperity means. The gender debate reveals how deeply subjectivity now shapes civic life.
When truth itself becomes negotiable, trust in institutions and shared data weakens, including trust in economic measures. Disagreement about reality translates into disagreement about the state of the nation, the fairness of markets, and the meaning of growth.
Partisan Economic Expectations and the Stock Market
This moral subjectivity extends into the economy. In one of the most detailed studies of political identity and economic belief, Mian, Sufi, and Khoshkhou (2023) analyzed two decades of U.S. survey and spending data to measure partisan bias in economic expectations.
Their findings were striking. After the 2016 presidential election, Republicans’ optimism about the national economy rose by approximately 40 percentage points, while Democrats’ optimism fell by nearly the same amount. When President Biden took office in 2021, the pattern reversed. Democratic confidence increased sharply, and Republican expectations declined.
These shifts occurred without major changes in GDP, employment, or inflation at the time. The authors also found that partisan differences in expectations did not translate into corresponding differences in household spending or income. In other words, people’s economic behavior remained largely the same even as their beliefs diverged.
The study concludes that partisan identity, not objective data, drives perceptions of economic performance. People feel positive about the economy when they trust the party in power and negative when they do not.
This dynamic provides a domestic parallel to the international evidence on authoritarian and democratic governance. Just as citizens of autocratic states may interpret control as stability or repression depending on their loyalty, Americans interpret the same economic facts differently depending on partisan identity.
One group may view deregulation and tariffs as restoring fairness and strength, while another views them as protectionist and authoritarian. Each side inhabits a distinct economic narrative. The implication is that perception itself becomes a determinant of market sentiment, consumer confidence, and investment behavior.
Perception and Economic Reality
Markets have always been influenced by psychology, but the deepening partisan divide has magnified this effect. Investor sentiment, consumer confidence, and political identity now move in tandem.
When citizens see leadership that aligns with their values, they interpret rising stock prices or falling unemployment as proof of competence. When they distrust leadership, they interpret the same data as unsustainable or manipulated.
This divergence reinforces echo chambers in which facts lose common meaning. Media sources, social networks, and community affiliations filter information to confirm existing beliefs. The result is not merely disagreement about policies but about reality itself.
This mirrors Martinez’s (2022) findings in authoritarian contexts, where inflated data distort public perception of success. The difference is that in a democracy, the distortion arises not from centralized control but from cognitive bias. The outcome, however, can be similar: decisions based on perception rather than evidence.
This is dangerous for markets and institutions alike. When people no longer trust data, they act according to emotion. The economy becomes a reflection of collective psychology more than policy fundamentals. Authoritarian and democratic systems thus converge in one respect: both depend on public faith that reported numbers and proclaimed values correspond to truth.
Perception, Morality, and the Economy
The intersection of morality and economics is not new, but it has become more visible in the age of instant communication and moralized politics. For example, climate policy, corporate diversity initiatives, and tax reform are debated not only on financial grounds but also on ethical ones.
To some, government regulation of business represents responsible stewardship; to others, it represents socialist intrusion. To some, tariffs protect domestic workers; to others, they punish global cooperation. The economic data are the same, but the interpretation differs.
The question of whether authoritarian regimes promote or hinder growth therefore depends partly on whether one values order more than openness. A citizen who equates regulation with oppression will see authoritarian efficiency as beneficial. A citizen who equates freedom with fairness will see the same efficiency as dangerous.
Subjective authoritarianism thus provides a lens for understanding not only political systems but also public attitudes toward economic policy. When people disagree about the moral meaning of control, they will disagree about the economic meaning of success.
Democracy, Trust, and the Role of Legitimacy
Bibbins Sedaca (2025) argues that democracy’s economic strength lies in its ability to generate trust. That trust allows people to invest and innovate even amid disagreement. In authoritarian systems, fear replaces trust, and short-term compliance replaces long-term confidence.
Yet the United States today faces a subtler challenge: the erosion of shared trust within a democratic structure. Citizens across the political spectrum increasingly view the system itself as rigged or corrupt. Conservatives distrust federal bureaucracy; progressives distrust corporate and judicial influence. Both perceive bias.
When both sides view institutions as compromised, the legitimacy that sustains markets weakens. In this sense, the American divide replicates the problems of authoritarian states without the formal structure of authoritarianism. The issue is not lack of elections but lack of belief in fairness. Without shared trust, democracy loses its economic advantage.
Economic Growth, Morality, and Measurement
Rizio and Skali (2020) demonstrated that economic success under dictators is rare and often temporary. Martinez (2022) showed that much of what appears to be growth under autocracy is statistical illusion. Nevertheless, authoritarian systems often maintain a reputation for competence, while democracies are criticized for inefficiency.
The discrepancy lies in measurement. Authoritarian systems measure success by output; democracies measure it by legitimacy. A dictatorship can point to rapid industrialization, while a democracy points to citizen well-being. Which measure counts as growth depends on values.
This subjectivity mirrors the moral and cultural debates seen in abortion and gender. Just as people disagree on when life begins or what defines gender, they disagree on what counts as progress.
If growth enriches a few but erodes freedom, is it success? If freedom preserves equality but slows development, is it failure? The question of economic growth under different political systems therefore cannot be separated from the moral assumptions underlying the evaluation.
The Role of Perception in Policy Response
Economic policy outcomes depend not only on design but on perception. A tax cut intended to stimulate spending may fail if citizens view it as favoring elites. A public health mandate may succeed or fail depending on whether it is perceived as protection or control.
In this way, perception becomes policy. Mian, Sufi, and Khoshkhou (2023) found that people’s economic confidence often predicted their satisfaction with democracy more than objective indicators did. Optimistic individuals were more likely to view institutions as fair; pessimistic ones saw them as corrupt.
This reciprocal relationship suggests that legitimacy drives confidence and confidence drives legitimacy. The perception of fairness is thus both a political and economic variable. Authoritarian regimes attempt to maintain it through propaganda; democracies maintain it through transparency.
When transparency fails or becomes politicized, the distinction between democracy and autocracy begins to blur.
Summary and Conclusion
The question of whether authoritarian regimes produce better economic outcomes than democracies has long divided scholars and policymakers. The evidence indicates that democracies outperform autocracies in sustained, transparent, and equitable growth.
Rizio and Skali (2020) show that most dictatorships fail to deliver consistent prosperity. Martinez (2022) reveals that reported gains under autocracy are often exaggerated. Bibbins Sedaca (2025) connects democratic institutions with durable development. Wang and Guan (2018) and Pizzolitto et al. (2023) demonstrate that legitimacy, rather than control, determines performance at the organizational level. Mian, Sufi, and Khoshkhou (2023) add a crucial insight: perception itself shapes economic reality.
Citizens interpret prosperity through partisan and moral filters. Their optimism or pessimism depends on whether they trust the authority in power. In the United States, moral debates over abortion, gender, and the judiciary reflect the same pattern of subjective interpretation that defines global views of governance. Each side believes it defends truth, fairness, and democracy. Each accuses the other of authoritarianism.
As a result, shared trust in institutions declines, and economic confidence follows. Authoritarian growth may promise efficiency, but it sacrifices transparency. Democratic growth may appear messy, but it fosters legitimacy. Yet legitimacy itself now feels subjective.
If citizens cannot agree on whether their leaders are fair, their courts are just, or their data are real, the distinction between control and consent becomes blurred. Authoritarianism ceases to be a foreign concept and becomes a matter of perception.
The future of both prosperity and democracy therefore depends on restoring agreement about truth. If fairness is only what aligns with one’s beliefs, then every government becomes authoritarian in the eyes of its opposition.
The economic question, whether authoritarian or democratic systems produce greater growth, thus converges with the moral question of what growth means. If growth enriches material wealth but erodes trust, is it still prosperity? And if societies can no longer agree on the meaning of fairness, truth, or even gender, how can they agree on the meaning of progress?
The evidence suggests that democracy remains the better engine of growth, but its advantage rests on the fragile foundation of shared legitimacy. Without that foundation, even accurate numbers lose meaning. Perhaps the final question is not which system grows faster, but whether growth itself can hold meaning in a world where truth has become subjective.
