It’s been a quarter-century since Francis Fukuyama famously
proclaimed the victory of liberal democracy. Perhaps he was not triumphalist,
Michael Ignatieff notes, but Fukuyama argued that Communism’s defeat by democracy
had effectively ended History.
Nothing less….
If History is written in dialectical struggles, the most
recent would have been between liberal democracy and Communism. If these
ideological struggles exist within a grand narrative called History, it had to play itself out, whether we like it or not.
As you know, Fukuyama was taking a page from Hegel. He was
arguing that History follows a script wherein the World Spirit will inevitably
manifest itself in a government that expresses the will of the individual.
In passing, one can wonder why, if liberal democracy and
Communism are thesis and antithesis in a Hegelian dialectic… the synthesis
would be: liberal democracy.
In other words, be careful when juggling big ideas.
More importantly, the Hegelian notion of historical
inevitability suggests that human agency has precious little influence on the
course of events… beyond facilitating or inhibiting the movement of the World
Spirit.
We should, at the least, question this big theory. If there
is no script, if the outcome is always in doubt… then believing in the World
Spirit can lull us into complacency and make us more irresponsible.
Reviewing Fukuyama’s newest book, Ignatieff makes a salient
point: it wasn’t liberal democracy that won with the fall of Communism. It was
capitalism. The two may coexist but they do not need to do so.
Thus, the world today seems to be divided between liberal
democratic capitalism and authoritarian state capitalism. The two systems or
practices are in competition.
I have often posted about this conflict. Ignatieff defines
our historical moment:
Capitalism
did win in 1989—no credible alternative has emerged—but capitalism didn’t lead
to liberal democracy. Market systems turned out to be politically promiscuous:
they could share a bed with any number of political regimes, from Nordic
democracies to Singaporean meritocracies. In Xi Jinping’s China and Vladimir
Putin’s Russia, Western liberal democracy now faces a competitor Fukuyama did
not anticipate: states that are capitalist in economics, authoritarian in
politics, and nationalist in ideology. These new authoritarians are conducting
an epoch-making historical experiment as to whether regimes that allow private
freedoms can endure when they deny their citizens public freedom.
Of course, one might turn this around and ask whether
regimes that allow their citizens political freedom can survive while stifling economic
freedom under a mountain of bureaucratic regulations, government interference
and high taxes.
Have we Americans sacrificed our economic freedom in the
interest of gaining what appears to be freedom of political expression and
personal behavior?
Is the free market hollowing out the middle class
and producing more inequality or is it a government that
insists on interfering in the market?
Ignatieff explains Fukuyama’s argument about the importance
of the bourgeoisie:
Fukuyama’s assessment depends greatly on the global
rise of the middle class. “No bourgeois, no democracy,” the Harvard theorist
Barrington Moore Jr. famously wrote. Fukuyama cites figures showing the
worldwide middle class expanding from 1.8 billion people in 2009 to a projected
4.9 billion in 2030. As their incomes rise, he argues, they demand rule of law
to protect their property and then demand political participation to safeguard
their social standing. They do so not just to defend their economic interests but
also for moral reasons. Beyond a certain level of status and income, people
become insulted when authoritarian systems of rule treat them as disobedient
children.
But, aren’t citizens in our great Republic being insulted
when the government allows them to act like disobedient children, and protects
them from the consequences of their bad decisions?
In the meantime, Fukuyama believes so strongly in the
dialectic and in the advent of the World Spirit that he insists that
authoritarian regimes will necessarily incite rebellion. One is reminded of
Hegel’s myth of the master and the slave, where the philosopher described the slave’s
rebellion as inevitable.
One is obliged to note that, after what happened in
Tienanmen Square a quarter century ago, Nicholas Kristof and Jonathan Mirsky among
others predicted that the government’s victory would be short lived and that
the People who soon rise up to claim their liberal democratic freedoms.
We know how that worked out. And we know that Mirsky did
admit that he had been wrong.
Fukuyama, however, has somewhat hedged his older
declaration. If liberal democracy did not triumph in 1989, it will, one day,
inevitably. Now, he is less sure when it will happen.
We must note that if you do not tell when it will happen, your prediction can never really be tested against reality. It’s not for
nothing that Hegel was considered an idealist.
Being an idealist means never having to admit you are wrong.
Ignatieff summarizes:
If his [Fukuyama’s]
analysis is true, however, then Presidents Xi and Putin should beware. Over the
long term—and nobody knows how long that might be—authoritarian regimes that
allow their citizens capitalist freedoms but deny them democratic rights will
explode, in revolution, coups, civil war, or a combination of all three.
Democratization, Fukuyama seems to be saying, will eventually turn out to be
necessary to Russia’s and China’s very survival as unitary states.
Beyond whatever yearnings people have for free expression it
seems also to be true that people want to live in harmony with their neighbors
and to prosper. In China these values are surely more important than the quest
for individual self-expression. There it’s more important to save face than to
express your feelings. And it’s also more important to prosper than to
sue.
In addition, Fukuyama does admit, these countries are less
likely to follow the path toward liberal democracy at a time when Western
nations seem to be using it to sabotage their economies.
Unfortunately, Fukuyama’s insistence on imposing Hegel’s
fictional History on reality leads him to make what appears to be a very naïve analysis.
In particular, Ignatieff says, his analysis of events in the
Arab world has little to do with reality. Apparently, Fukuyama is the only
person who still believes that the Arab Spring ushered in a new democratic era
in Arab politics.
Ignatieff writes:
He [Fukuyama]
also takes a relatively optimistic view of political developments in the Arab
world, arguing that a middle class is steadily growing there, education levels
are rising, and economies are opening up, all of which mean that autocracy or
military dictatorship cannot last forever. Islam, he insists, is not an enemy
of democracy. Indeed, Islamic parties have best captured the demand for
political voice and dignity.
Oh, really.
Ignatieff easily refutes the claim:
Fukuyama’s
assumption that middle classes always want democracy would seem to break down
in Egypt, where the middle class of Cairo teamed up with the army to restore a
military dictatorship after the first wave of the Arab Spring. Elsewhere,
Islamists have exploited demands for voice and dignity, and Syria and Iraq are
crumbling as their regimes fight to hold on to power. Not even Fukuyama is up
to the challenge of predicting how long this battle will last, or who will win.
Fukuyama is aware of the fact that American democracy has
seen better days. He does not recognize that America was founded as a republic,
not a democracy, so he wants America to solve its problems by eliminating the
constitutional system of checks and balances.
Presumably, this reform would allow the majority to impose
its will on the minority, something that the founders of the American Republic
specifically wanted to avoid.
Ignatieff explains Fukuyama’s position:
The new
element in his analysis, absent from the 1989 essay, is his damning portrait of
the state of American democracy. A declining middle class, starkly increasing
income inequality, overweening special interests, and partisan gridlock have
resulted, he argues, in “a crisis of representation,” leaving millions of
Americans convinced that their politicians no longer speak for them.
Of course, many millions of Americans are in despair because
they believe that the government is the problem, not the solution.
2 comments:
"Thus, the world today seems to be divided between liberal democratic capitalism and authoritarian state capitalism. The two systems or practices are in competition."
It is simultaneously alarming and amusing that so many Western elites are so enamored with the authoritarian state capitalism of the Communist Chinese. I'm thinking of people like Tom Friedman and an array of Silicon Valley techno control freaks who view human beings as numbers (read: Google, Facebook). I suspect the Chinese model is the true destination Western elites want to take us, and it is a naked abdication of Western tradition in every way. But who cares, right? It's just our inheritance.
Why would Western elites turn their back on... the West? Because innovation, new technologies, liberty and freedom are inherently disruptive. People are called "elites" because they are at the top of their field. Being the best is fine as long as you really are the best, and not in bed with the State and rigging the game. However, crony capitalism in DC shows otherwise, and bureaucratic socialism is definitely in the interest of large corporations who want to play the payoff game with legislators and give policy "suggestions" to regulators. Indeed, authoritarian state capitalism gives elites exactly what they want: plenty of control, insulation from competition, and lots of money. This is why big corporations like the idea of the "free market" instead of "free enterprise." Free enterprise means you have to watch your back. Their idea of the free market is what led up to the 2008 meltdown: privatize the profits and socialize the losses.
As I watch what's going on in Hong Kong, I am struck by how human freedom is essential to our being, and how it is inherently disruptive. We hear all the time how American capitalism is cruel and we're all going to be working for the Communist Chinese because of the superiority of their model. I'm not so sure. People can be incredibly unruly and disruptive when they don't like the elitist playbook. How often are revolutions accurately predicted? Or who's going to win whatever war?
There's a lot of uncertainty out there. Methinks there's a lot more history to come.
"Thus, the world today seems to be divided between liberal democratic capitalism and authoritarian state capitalism."
I think they are converging.
In the UK, you get arrested for twitter remarks.
There are all sorts of speech codes in EU and college campuses.
In the US, Christian bakers are forced to bake 'gay wedding' cakes.
In actual practice of power, EU is no freer than Russia.
Look at the Rotherham scandal. So much silence out of fear of PC.
Look at the likes of Adelson and Soros buying up politicians left and right.
Some liberal democracy.
Post a Comment