The crisis in the West because liberal democracy is under attack?

I was an eager-beaver graduate student when Francis Fukuyama's the "end of history" article was one of the biggest ideas that we wannabe intellectuals were all excited about.  And for a decade, it seemed like his thesis was a clear articulation of the future liberal democratic world that would blossom.  The collapse of the Soviet Bloc and the shaky Chinese system that was recovering from the Tianmen incidents gave us plenty to rejoice.

But then, with 9/11 and its aftershocks, with China's Communist Party tightening its grip on politics, and Putin becoming a tsar, everything changed and even the most ardent fans of Fukuyama's thesis have to wonder whether liberal democracy is indeed winning.  And now we have more to worry about with new agents like ISIS.

So, where are we today, twenty-five years into Fukuyama's thesis?

Today, it’s hard to imagine Fukuyama being more wrong. History isn’t over and neither liberalism nor democracy is ascendant. The comfy Western consensus he inspired is under threat in ways he never predicted. A new Cold War has broken out. China’s “Marxist capitalism” suggests you can have wealth without freedom. And the advance of ISIS may herald a new, state-oriented Islamic fundamentalism.

Were we a tad over-confident in celebrating the coming global liberal democracy?

The problem is that hubris has blinded its defenders to the crisis consuming liberalism’s identity, leaving them unable or unwilling, to respond to pressing challenges around the world.

So, what should we do?

If liberalism is to survive and flourish, it has to be rescued from Fukuyama’s grasp and from the perils of historical determinism. It has to be defined and defended all over again. This of course raises the question of what liberalism actually is—and it’s notable that so many liberals skip this step in debate as though it was unimportant.

It does sound crazy that we have to get into this all over again.  We have to start explaining what liberty is and debate and defend it?  Have we not been doing this for, well, forever it seems like?

Liberalism will not work if too much emphasis is placed on total human autonomy at the expense of all others, nor if it is obsessed with materialism and consumerism. In contrast to the Fukuyama model of yoking liberal values to economic self-interest—a combination that, when given free rein, has often damaged society at large in recent years—a model that emphasizes human dignity allows for a more positive, relevant kind of politics that constantly struggles to assert itself. Instead of encouraging us to rest easy in the assurance that liberalism will certainly triumph, a conception of liberty based on human dignity recognizes that there is nothing inevitable about its success. While each of us may wish to be free as an individual, it shows that individual freedom is dependent on us all being free; and that means that we all have to cling to our shared humanity, our shared dignity.

I agree with the point there that one of the big problems was with how American politics began to equate liberal democracy to unfettered market interactions, which was not a free market anyway with all the ugliness of crony capitalism.

Does it mean that the Western liberal democracy project is under threat of being overrun by Putinism or the Chinese "communist capitalism" or the theocratic ISIS?

Liberal democracy is not under any threat by any means in the West.  However, the advance of liberal democracy has been halted, and is also being pushed back.  All the crisis in the West is, in the grand scheme of things, something like what President Truman's mother supposedly told him, which I paraphrase to "if that is your biggest problem, then consider yourself to be very lucky."

Pessimism has its advantages: to predict the worst—and, in the event of catastrophe, to boast of having seen it coming—pays off. Optimism is more perilous, since it requires looking at the horizon and discerning positive developments, while risking being called Pangloss, whom Voltaire ridiculed for believing that all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds. The optimist is also shadowed by the temptation to set aside unexpected events that don’t corroborate his original theory. At every moment, he must ask if it is reasonable to stay optimistic; he must also be a skeptic. This is no contradiction

Ah, yes, to be a skeptic. This blogger is always proud to display his skepticism, even while being optimistic.  It is the cautionary stance, that skeptic view, that makes sure we don't fall victim to the prevailing sentiments of any mob.

Crisis and freedom are surely bound together, since the West is essentially driven toward self-criticism and what economists call “creative destruction,” an expression that really should apply to all aspects of our society. To a Chinese person oppressed by tyranny, creative destruction is eminently desirable. Perhaps, then, it’s time to love the West, and our times, more, as others envy us so much. 

It is not jingoistic flag-waving, and prostrating before our governments, that we need to do in order to demonstrate our love of liberty and liberal democracy.  In fact, those acts of obedience are exactly how we have internally weakened the glorious liberal democracy.  We need optimistic skeptics instead.  Easier said than done when people can get so easily distracted by videos of cats playing the piano or by the news of nude photos of Jennifer Lawrence.  Oh well, no wonder we have a crisis in the West!

They don’t make economists like Albert Hirschman any more :(

Throughout my life, I have not been a great fan of buying books.  I have extensively relied on libraries, which,   here in the US, are wonderfully stocked.  Out of the few books that I did purchase as a graduate student on a restricted budget, I re-sold most of them.  But, I made sure I retained two books by Albert Hirschman:  Exit, Voice, and Loyalty and The Rhetoric of Reaction.

(Yes, Marx is a holdover from my teenage years!)

There was one other book of his that I loved, but didn't buy; I borrowed from USC's libraries Hirschman's Development Projects Observed.  I learnt considerably more from these three books than I did from many, many journal articles and books put together.  They were phenomenally educational, showed me how powerful ideas do not have to be presented in obese books, and that those ideas can be presented relatively jargon-free for any thinking person to understand.

In writing about Hirschman, Francis Fukuyama, too, writes about these three books, for the most part of his essay.

He did very little quantitative work, and will be remembered for a series of slender books written in an accessible English that non-economists have no trouble understanding. He did not observe the methodological straightjacket his discipline imposed, but wandered off instead into other fields like politics and philosophy in an attempt to recover some of the unified social theory of the 18th and 19th centuries–hoping to avoid, as he put it, the “specialization-induced intellectual poverty in this field.” His legacy is not data collection or micro results, but rather some very big concepts that continue to shape the way we think about not just development but public policy more generally.

Yes, yes, yes a gazillion times to this.

In graduate school, I was not a fan of the quantitative work that most economists were pursuing.  I felt that most of those economists were not convincing me with their stories and were, therefore, playing with calculus and statistics to razzle-dazzle me.  Hirschman, on the other hand, spoke to me.  Commonsense thinking.  Logical, and not rhetorical. Nothing polemical. Nothing ideological. Unchained to any particular field of inquiry.

I am delighted that Fukuyama notes about Hisrchman's "hiding hand" argument.  I hope that the likes of the do-nothing GOP will read this essay, particularly the concluding paragraphs, where Fukuyama writes:

One of my favorite Hirschmanian concepts was that of the Hiding Hand, a play on Adam Smith’s Hidden Hand, which he laid out in his 1967 book Development Projects Observed. The book analyzed a number of World Bank projects on which he consulted, and noted how a number of them failed to achieve their objectives or else produced unexpected results. But he argued that the failure to anticipate unintended consequences was actually a good thing. If we could foresee all the possible negative consequences of our actions, we would become completely paralyzed–not just as governments seeking social change, but as individuals wanting to try new things in work, love, or life in general. The Hiding Hand that blinded us in this fashion was thus Providential.

There are quite a few of us who are fans of Hirschman.  The uber-blogging academic, Daniel Drezner is one of those. Drezner even awards, well, not a real prize, an "Albie."  Drezner refers to:

any book, journal article, magazine piece, op-ed, or blog post published in the [last] calendar year that made you rethink how the world works in such a way that you will never be able "unthink" the argument.   

Yes, it is impossible for me to "unthink" the idea of "exit, voice, and loyalty," for instance.  I relate that idea of the "hiding hand" even to the neurosurgery that my daughter is pursuing.  She said that if she had known everything that she now knows about the hours and stress of being a neurosurgery resident, leave alone the life after the long seven year residency, she might not have ever gotten into this specialization.  To a large extent, all our lives, and the progress of humanity depends on this variation of fools rushing in.  Because, knowledge can also paralyze us from doing.  Which is why a 23-year old rushes with excitement to a neurosurgery residency without that knowledge.  If ever your health needs a neurosurgeon's treatment, then be thankful for that "hiding hand."

Fukuyama ends with this:

They don’t unfortunately make development economists like Albert Hirschman any more.

Well, not only "development economists."

But, at least, we had one Albert Hirschman.

Quote of the day (Fukuyama)

You simply can't get good governance without democratic accountability. It is a risky illusion to believe otherwise

Read the interview with Fukuyama. (ht)

The coming benign authoritarianism in India

Over the last couple of years, every time I visited India somebody or the other commented on how I look like Narendra Modi--the chief minister of Gujarat. Sometimes it was just the beard that triggered such a comparison. They thought it was a compliment, and I always had to smile outside but cringe inside! As a visitor, the last thing that I wanted to do was pick a fight on this.

Why cringe? This is a guy who oversaw the worst communal violence when, as Robert Kaplan writes, "More than 400 women were raped; 2,000 people, overwhelmingly Muslim, murdered; and 200,000 more made homeless throughout the state." All in a matter of hours :-( The US government, at least in this context, has done the right thing by denying Modi visa to visit the US.

But, Modi is a popular guy in India. He is one mix of contradictions. In a land of corrupt politicians, Modi is known for high levels of fiscal integrity. A workaholic's schedule he has. Has created a business-friendly environment in Gujarat. Has a reputation for being an authoritarian leader. And, yes, has a strong anti-Muslim outlook. I was visiting India during his recent re-election. With all the election noise in the background, one television news channel, mimicking the hysterical news shows in the US--more like Hardball--had one of the most bizarre and awful discussions ever. The topic, if I remember correctly, was "All Muslims are not terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims." Talk about (ir)responsible journalism!

I won't be surprised at all if Modi, or somebody like him, becomes the prime minister really soon. Kaplan echoes the sentiments I have heard all too often in India--both when I was growing up there, and during my recent visits, when he writes:

India’s rise as an economic and naval power has invited frustrating comparisons with China: whereas the authoritarian government in China can make things happen, development happens in India mainly in spite of the government. Hanif Lakdawala told me that, especially because of the nightmarish chaos of Indian cities, “there are some in this country ready to accept a fascist, or at least a very strong dictator.”

Not a fascist, in my opinion, but certainly someone like Modi. As Vimal Ambani, a prominent, liberal-minded Gujarati businessman, told me, “At the end of the day, Modi still offers the best model for governance in India.”

Because, the reality is that most Indians are sick and tired of the lack of governance, and corruption, which they correctly perceive as holding them and the country back from a much more rapid advancement. What good is a right to vote when the choice is between tweedledum and tweedledee and when even water is in shortage, is a typical comment.

I am afraid that the collapse of Pakistan will not only embolden the likes of Modi, but that a larger number of Indians will also prefer that kind of a "stronger" leader. When that happens, Francis Fukuyama can write about why history did not end, and is being re-written!

Photo of Modi: The Atlantic

How to restore the "idea" of America

Remember Francis Fukuyama of the "end of history" fame? His argument that liberal democracy has triumphed and, therefore, history as a struggle among alternative organizations of society has ended? Well, he wrote that just after the Berlin Wall fell, and American economy was growing by exploring new electronic frontiers.

Now, Russia is again getting aggressive. China has worked out a strange system that mixes economics and politics in ways we won't dream of (I hope). The Islamic world is trying to figure out how to balance religion, economics, and politics. Latin America seems to be off on its own with Venezuela and Bolivia marching to a different beat. So, what does Fukuyama think now?

Well, he says that America as a "brand" has undergone some serious damage. I am thinking, hey, I wrote about this in two opeds a few months ago. Reminds me of one of my graduate school professors who remarked that who you are when you say something is often more important than whatever important you might have to say :-)

Anyway, Fukuyama notes that

Ideas are one of our most important exports, and two fundamentally American ideas have dominated global thinking since the early 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was elected president. The first was a certain vision of capitalism—one that argued low taxes, light regulation and a pared-back government would be the engine for economic growth. Reaganism reversed a century-long trend toward ever-larger government. Deregulation became the order of the day not just in the United States but around the world.
The second big idea was America as a promoter of liberal democracy around the world, which was seen as the best path to a more prosperous and open international order. America's power and influence rested not just on our tanks and dollars, but on the fact that most people found the American form of self-government attractive and wanted to reshape their societies along the same lines—what political scientist Joseph Nye has labeled our "soft power."
It's hard to fathom just how badly these signature features of the American brand have been discredited.

The end of laisser faire capitalism?

As we learnt from Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History", and later from John Horgan's "The End of Science?", it is not a good idea to talk about the end of anything, I guess. But, "the end of X" always works as an attractive title though, as this piece from the Financial Times shows. But, don't be fooled by the title--some pretty neat observations there. A few excerpts:

Europe is headed towards the end of laisser faire capitalism. Nicolas Sarkozy is only the latest leader to toll the bell on principles that have delivered, over the past 30 years, unparallelled global prosperity – and now a tremendous bust. “The all-powerful market which is always right is finished,” said Mr Sarkozy. Even Hank Paulson, former Goldman Sachs boss, has said “raw capitalism is a dead end”.
Before everyone dons Mao suits, however, it is not clear how raw that capitalism really was. The economic freedoms of the recent past were more of a tremendous party than a defendable principle, fuelled by cheap credit and state support.

That cheap credit and extensive state support is what has come back to bite us big time. I can imagine that the left will use this to bolster their argument that more state intervention (regulation) is needed, and the right will argue that too much of state intervention was why the markets got it so wrong. I tell you, ne'er the twain shall meet!