It’s not. There are centralist countries that do better than Americans.

I’m not criticizing democracy. It works and has good sides and downsides compared with say communism. But man does democracy like communism come with major downsides.

The question is why is democracy worshipped? Don’t worship it. It’s one side of complex 6 sided die. I was going to say one side of a coin but the situation is much more complicated than that.

Which non-democratic, centralist countries would you say that of?

China. The country dominates the US in many many ways because of centralized decision making.