> The great technological leaps forward ... All that happened under democracy.
I think you're conflating "governments were democratic at a time these things happened" with "the government did these things directly itself via its institutions".
Of those achievements, only the space race was actually executed by the government, and it's not a great counter-example because it was done purely to compete with the achievements of an autocratic government (the USSR).
The rest was private sector efforts. It wasn't a government institution that built toilets.
> it begs the question of why the Industrial Revolution and many of the great leaps forward didn't happen under them?
They did. USSR famously went through forced industrialization.
Democracy is successful when it creates the business-regulatory environment and marketplace that let the private sector advance human welfare as well as technology.
I think you're conflating "governments were democratic at a time these things happened" with "the government did these things directly itself via its institutions".
Of those achievements, only the space race was actually executed by the government, and it's not a great counter-example because it was done purely to compete with the achievements of an autocratic government (the USSR).
The rest was private sector efforts. It wasn't a government institution that built toilets.
> it begs the question of why the Industrial Revolution and many of the great leaps forward didn't happen under them?
They did. USSR famously went through forced industrialization.