Very possibly. From “The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers,” by Azar Gat in Foreign Affairs. (Via Shmuel Rosner at Contentions).

Capitalism’s ascendancy appears to be deeply entrenched, but the current predominance of democracy could be far less secure. … the reasons for the triumph of democracy, especially over its nondemocratic capitalist rivals of the two world wars, Germany and Japan, were more contingent than is usually assumed. Authoritarian capitalist states, today exemplified by China and Russia, may represent a viable alternative path to modernity, which in turn suggests that there is nothing inevitable about liberal democracy’s ultimate victory — or future dominance.

The fact that the intellectual class of the liberal democracies seems inclined to blame all of history’s sins on their own side, thus effectively if tacitly advocating the deserving victory of their enemies, bodes very ill in this case indeed. We’ve been here before in the 1930s, and I hope we don’t reprise that low, dishonest decade.

Confucius, Œc. Vol.

Don’t ask impertinent questions like that jackass Adept Lu.