In fact, the mandarins wanted McKinsey’s advice on how exactly to implement their planned TV stimulus: Should the price of televisions be cut by 25 percent, or should consumers be required to pay the full price, then apply to the mayor for their 25 percent rebate? Once he understood what the officials wanted, Mr. Barton, who recalls being “amazed at how precise” their request was, then “did the McKinsey thing” of talking about how important it was to make sure this project worked and that it had an impact.

His spiel, Mr. Barton told me, did not much impress the Chinese official. “He says, ‘I think we have a different definition of impact than you.’ And I said, ‘What’s that?’ And he says, ‘If this doesn’t work, we are going to have probably 12 million people that won’t have jobs. And you should know that all of the revolutions in our 5,000-year history have occurred in the countryside.”’

The Middle East’s remaining autocrats are swiftly learning the Chinese lesson, as illustrated vividly by Saudi Arabia’s new $36 billion stimulus program, which includes a 15 percent pay increase for public-sector workers. As Jack Welch, the former chief executive of General Electric, described it in a discussion with my colleague Steve Adler this week, “In this recession, China did incredible things,” adding that “it is a little bit like what the Saudis are trying to do now to keep everyone happy.”

Of course, as Mr. Barton’s Chinese interlocutor readily admitted, these dictators’ concern about keeping their people employed is hardly selfless.

Both China’s long history and current events in North Africa show the smart autocrat that if too many of his subjects are unemployed, their supreme leader is at risk of losing his job, too. Moreover, instant job creation is easier in economies where the state plays a dominant role — and that is particularly true for power exporters like China and Saudi Arabia, who have plenty of cash on hand. Nor do government handouts — especially in oil-dependent Saudi Arabia — necessarily offer a path to long-term economic growth and job creation.