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“My take is that Erdogan is not really better than the past
(corrupt, more than incompetent) leaders - except for the initial package of business law improvements he instituted, at the behest of the EU. Back then, getting into the EU was a real prospect for Turkey.

The EU bureaucrats spoon-fed his administration (as they would have any regime in power at that time) much improved best practices, while Erdogan and his cronies focused on milking (especially) the energy sector for corrupt profits, consolidating political power, and radicalizing the education system and society with islamism.”

But that’s all it takes. There’s no magic to this. Lee Kuan Yew was a genius who graduated with the equivalent of a summa cum laude in two majors at Cambridge, and could well have been first in his class, but it wasn’t his genius that propelled Singapore to First World status. The ingredients for economic growth are well-known. What is lacking is personal honesty and political skill to prevail over all of the other money-grubbing scumbags who want the throne for personal enrichment, and their financial backers.

I could make a strong case that Erdogan is emphatically lacking in personal honesty, and wants the throne for personal enrichment.

He has been repeatedly, publicly busted in widespread public corruption (smuggling oil from ISIS, busting Iranian sanctions, systematically scamming citizens of the wealth with corrupt judges, etc.). There is a big court case in New York over massive fraud, that he apparently led.

If it was the case that his good management is what led to the decade of relative prosperity, what has changed? His power to effectively manage is greater than ever.

Lee Kuan Yew is great example of a leader whose wise economic policies lifted up a nation. I would argue that in his case, it was based on a clear understanding of, and commitment to, sound economic principles.

That does not have to be tied to democratic political behavior to work - it worked for the South Korean Military Government, Pinochet in Chile, and Sheik Mo in Dubai, just as did for Ronald Reagan.

I am saying that unlike them, Erdogan adopted his economic positions not out of intellectual commitment to them, or even with a deep understanding of them, but out of sheer political expediency. Just like he said of democracy - it is like a train you get off of, when you arrive at your destination - his old economic policies were just political props for him, which he has now widely discarded.

That is why I doubt that he will be able to manage the Turkish economy successfully through bad times - he is making things worse now, much worse.