The first paragraph did little two allay my skepticism. It presaged yet another editorial critique or paean -- I couldn't tell which -- of Bush's Inaugural Address. But then I came to this:
But the problem with the speech is actually [that] Mr. Bush has too little hope, and too little faith. He underestimates the impetus behind freedom and so doesn't see how powerfully it imparts a "visible direction" to history. This lack of faith helps explain some of his biggest foreign policy failures and suggests that there are more to come.Huh? The problem with Bush is that he has too little faith? Too little hope? Are you kidding me?
Wright's basic thesis is this: Bush is right that history has "a visible direction" toward freedom and away from tyranny. But Bush and the neocons are wrong to suggest that this direction needs to be buttressed by American power. In fact, Wright argues, the exercise of coercive power in pursuit of freedom is actually counter-productive.
Wright argues that the greatest enemy of tyranny is not American (or Western) military or economic power. Nor is it the craving for "freedom" and "democracy" that Bush supposes to be universal. Rather it is, quite simply, the "pre-eminence of capitalism as a wealth generator." Given this pre-eminence, a country must "either embrace free markets or fall slowly into economic oblivion." But to secure the benefits of capitalism, the tyrant must provide his citizens "with access to information technology and the freedom to use it - and that means having political power." Given this, Wright argues that best -- perhaps the only -- way to effectively pursue the spread of political freedom is to draw tyrants into the world economic system. "Involvement in the larger capitalist world is time-release poison for tyranny."
To illustrate this point, Wright invites the reader to contrast Cuba with China. "Four decades of economic isolation have transformed Fidel Castro from a young, fiery dictator into an old, fiery dictator" and have utterly failed to advance the cause of either freedom or democracy in Cuba. In contrast, the West's consistent commitment to integrating China into the world's economy has resulted in significant progress toward political freedom. "[T]o be sure, neoconservatives can rightly point to lots of oppression and brutality in China. But anyone who talks as if Chinese freedom hasn't grown since China went capitalist is evincing a hazy historical memory and, however obliquely, is abetting war. Right-wing hawks thrive on depicting tyranny as a force of nature, when in fact nature is working toward its demise."
(I had to smile at this -- and at the reference to Cuba in particular. A number of years ago a colleague posited that the best way to bring about democratic reform in Cuba was not to embargo them but to bombard them with LL Bean catalogues and pre-paid Visa cards.)
This train of thought crystallized the reasons for my considerable ambivalence about Bush's speech. I fully support the goals. It is the means I have a problem with -- not just because they are violent and naive, but because they are doomed to be self-defeating.
Bush has the cart before the horse. His goal is political freedom and he seeks to achieve that goal through coercive means -- military, economic, and diplomatic. The means he should be using is economic integration. First, progress toward economic integration it is much easier to achieve (a) because it does not pose a direct or immediate threat to the tyrant's political power and (b) because even tyrants want their countries to be "players" on the world stage. Second, as Wright argues, economic integration is by far the most effective way for the outside world to foster political change within a politically repressive country.
This is not to say that there is no place for coercive power. But, the immediate goal for the exercise of such power should not be political change but stability. Threats against one's neighbors are a no-no, and tyrants should understand that aggression simply will not be tolerated. Similarly, coercive intervention in the internal affairs of countries may also be appropriate in places like the Balkans in the 1990s and the Sudan today, where people are actually killing each other. But the goal of such efforts should not be to advance freedom and democracy as such. It should be to restore basic order.
Beyond those types of situations, we would be far better served by offering inducements than by imposing punishments. Rather than using economic and diplomatic sanctions to punish "bad" behavior, it would be more productive to use economic and diplomatic rewards to encourage "good behavior." What if, instead of standing aloof and threatening to bomb Iran -- a tactic that only confirms for them the need for a nuclear deterrent -- we said that if you agree to give up your nuclear program, we will give you "most favored nation" trading status and sponsor membership for you in the WTO. As Wright argues, such an approach is far more likely to be effective in getting Iran to renounce its nuclear ambitions. But, beyond that, it has the potential to actually be "a twofer - you draw tyrants into a web of commerce that will ultimately spell their doom, and they pay for the privilege by disarming."
Perhaps it is trite, but I am reminded in all of this of the following the Aesop fable:
Courtesy of Professor Copper Giloth and his students, U. Mass, Amherst.The Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger. Suddenly they saw a traveller coming down the road, and the Sun said: "I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that traveller to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the stronger. You begin."
So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began to blow as hard as it could upon the traveller. But the harder he blew the more closely did the traveller wrap his cloak round him, till at last the Wind had to give in despair.
Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the traveller, who soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on.
5 comments:
I really like this one dad. "Positive reinforcement" stricks a bit of skepticism in me, though, becuase it involves a very high level of trust that these leaders are rational thinkers. If they had wanted their countries to be a world economic player, why dont they go for decomcracy/capitalism on their own. They must KNOW of its economic superiority. Or why does it seem like we have so many Sanni Abachas who insit on skimming billions of dollars of thier country's economy for thier private use. I dont think we will ever be able to count on a dictator to willingly cross over.
But then again, I guess we do have Bush for a backup.
Jon
Jon --
It's not really positive reinforcement. More like bribery. These people are rational actors. It's just that their first priority is preserving political power. If you try to directly attack their hold on political power they will resist. But, they are also greedy. So, if you offer them the road to riches, they will take it -- and, by doing so, doom their hold on political power.
It's slow, admittedly, but sure nonethless. And better than the road the Bushies have been pursuing.
Ok, so here is what I am understanding....basically the US should flood the country with capitalism like the sears catalog etc while telling the ruler how much this will enrich his country and therefore him. So he takes it for the personal gains. However, our assumption (i dont mean assumption in a bad way...it probably is the right assumption) that the people will fall in love with the new way of life...see the light of democracy and therefore revolt and overthrough the leader? I dont know, but It seems to me that this happens a lot (Russia, Indonesia...)....but the end result is always just a nother guy who takes power solely for the sake of power and riches and just overrides the incredibly weak new democratic institutions and forms a new dicatorship. I dont know...maybe i'm totally missing the boat here.
However, as I write this, I keep thinking, "what are the other options?" And to tell you the truth, I can't think of any.(besides military action. I agree, that is also futile) Whenever I try to think of a solution, I try to first find the cause, and the only cause I can think of is American foreign policy for the past century, every since 1890's when it started its campaign of economic and cultural expansion. Through this entire time, the US seems to have acted as if itself, Europe and Japan were the only things on earth, and the rest exisited only as means to beat those two. It started with Cuba when US refused to pull out troops after helping Cubans defeat the Spanish until the Cubans agreed on becoming a protectorate. We then went in set up this who political, and social structure to look exactly like ours (NYC police were sent model the police force),failed to adress any of the real problems such as the tax structure, created a economy based solely on sugar that could only be traded with us, then went home and patted themselves on the back becuase now that we were buying all the sugar (something that is doomed to only temporary success) the Cuban enconomy had grown tenfold.....hurrah for the glory of america!! It then did the same thing with Nicaragua, Panama and most of the other LA countries.
I dunno dad, its really wierd. Most of this just developed tonite after reading about 29053802945783-40 pages in my history books. I never ever ever thiought that I would start to beleive all the talk about the horrors of the US. But it seems like I cant excape it. It's in every class and I never hear anything opposite. So no matter how much I try to beleive that there has to be a "silver lining" or that these people are just looking at one side I realize that I dont even know what the other side is!!! So, it just seems ignorant not to accept it. It makes me so sad and deflates my pride so much to think that the tremendous greatness of this country was truely based on nothing but a bunch of conceited self righteous notions that we were desetined to "civilize" the world. However, that could be abdicated if it didnt seem to me that it is happening still today. What Bush says about spreading democracy and freedom rings incredibly true with what McKinly, Roosevelt and Wilson said in there times...and all they wanted were economic advantages.
Dad...take me down...already I just feel like I am over reacting and falling into the trap of resenting my country.
Jon
Jon --
Don't get carried away. There's a lot in America's past and present to be embarrased by, even ashamed of. And, since this fact tends to get lost in the common discourse, one of the purposes of a good, "liberal education" (in the classical sense)is to make you, as a student, more aware of that fact than you are today. Don't rue your discomfort. Discomfort is exactly the point. The very essence of a liberal education is to challenege your preconceptions; to make you uncomfortable with what you have always accepted to be true. But don't let this process of challenge convince you to throw the baby out with the bath water. There is also a lot that America has done right and well. And, on balance at least, I tend to think that the good outweighs the bad.
Consider that last 70 or so years years -- from, say, the depths of the Depression to today. One can identify all kinds of mistakes America made during this period, both domestically and internationally. You identified a few of these in your post, and there are no doubt many, many more. Yet, over that same period, first fascism and then communism were discredited and defeated; the people of Europe and Japan were liberated from near-fuedal political structures, reconstructed and made thouroughly, passionately democratic; rule by right of birth was largely eliminated in Europe and Japan; and peace (at least among the major powers) was mainatained. Even Russia and China are starting (however shakily) down the road away from totalitarianism. And the western world, at least, has expereinced three generations of material prosperity and private freedom (both political and economic) unlike anything the world has ever seen before. America accomplished all of that almost single-handedly, despite its misktakes, and if anyone tells you the world is worse off for all of that, he's an idiot.
That's not to say, that there aren't still problems. Nor is it to deny that the success of the West (and Japan) may have compounded hardship elsewhere. Nor, finally, is it to say that America is not still making mistakes as it fumbles along. But it is to say that, on balance, the world is better for having had America in it.
The cynics, of course, will argue that even if America has done some "good", it has done so soley becuase that was in its own self-interests. Agree with them, becuase it is true (for the most part). But then ask "So what? Would you prefer that America act contrary to her best interests?" I suspect that will involve you in a debate as to what America's best interests truly are. And that is good, becuase that is really what we should all be talking about.
Of course America acts in what its leaders believe to be America's self-interest. How could it be otherwise? What other nation does not? Sometimes our leaders are wrong about what is in America's self-interest at a given point in time (think Vietnam for sure, Iraq probably) and that is when we make what history will ultimately call "mistakes". But to argue that America's leaders should act in a way that they believe is not in America's best interests becuase it is "the right thing to do" is, at best, politically naive and at worst dangerously simple-minded. First, the leaders won't do it. You can't act contrary to what you yourself believe is in America's best interest and get elected. Second, and more important, they shouldn't do it, even if they want to.
Allowing people to pursue what they percieve to be their own best interests is what we mean by Freedom. The principal alternative to this is totalitarianism, where someone else gets to decide what is in your best interests. In both the political and economic spheres, Freedom has proven to be a far superior method for producing the greatest good for the greatest number. The reason for this is that allowing people to pursue their own best interests forces those views to compete the views of others, since one person's views of his own best interests will inevitably conflict with what others view as being in their best interests. Out of this conflict, assuming it can be waged with triggering a totalitrain reaction, something approaching the "optimal" resolution eventually emerges.
The same is true for nations. The most that you can expect of the leader of any nation is that he pursue those policies and actions that he believes lie in his nation's best interests. In same cases, of course, a leader will go wildly astray in judging what his country's "best interests" truly are. Take Hitler for example. You have to hope, and campaign, and perhaps even fight, to see that people like that do not get put into a position of power. But when such hopes and campaigns fail, the competition with other nations who have a conflicting view of what is in their own best interests eventually imposes a "correction". Sometimes this correction is pretty quick -- as it was in the case of Hilter. In other cases, it takes generations, as was the case with the Cold War. But, the competiton does work -- and, I submit, it works better and faster than any other system you can decribe.
Three final points. First, even well intentioned leaders frequently take a much too narrow view of what is in their country's best interests. We have, for instance, a long history of exploiting but otherwise ignoring the Third World. A pretty strong argument can be made that this was not in America's best interests and that we are paying a part of the price for that misjudgment in our relations with the Arab world today. My sense, though, is that, at least with regard to the Arab world, there is now a "correction" under way. The process will be faltering -- as filled with mistakes as were our relations with Latin America. But, I do not think we will ever return to the days when we felt we could just take their oil and run again. In this regard, Africa poses the big nascent challenege. Continuation of the current levels of backwardness, disease and violence that plague much that continent is not in our best interests. We need to do something about that. However, the problem right now is that the threat to our interests posed by Africa's problems is probably not yet immediate enough to provide the political will necessary for effective action. (But, perhaps, that too will change as a result of efforts by people like you to raise the American political conciousness about the dangers of ignoring that situation). My point here, though, is that almost any problem with American foreign or domestic policy can be expressed in terms of America's self-interests -- and that (rather than in terms of morality or right and wrong)is how it SHOULD be talked of.
Second, advocating the primacy of the pursuit of self-interest is not the same thing as saying that only the strong shall prevail. Nor does it render normative comcepts (morality, right and wrong, etc.) irrelevant. To take the last point first, a pretty strong argument can be made that America's long term best interests are furthered by pursuing a moral foreign policy. But the language of morality is so off-putting and perceptions of morality so different and controversial, that it is rarely productive to use such arguments in debate. On the power problem, the system is self-correcting. The industrial revolution was a period of relentless prusuit of self-interest by individuals, and for a time at least, it appeared that only the strong and powerful would thrive. Eventually, though, the self-interest of those outside of the elite asserted itself, leading to trust-bustng legislation, labor unions, economic regulation and eventually the New Deal. Some would say that this reform did not go far enough, just as others say it went too far. Thus, the debate on where we should end up continues -- as it should. But that should not be allowed to obscure the point that the competition of self-interest does result in a corrections. Indeed, that is precisly the beauty of allowing all people to pursue their own best interests: It brought us first the Industrial Revolution -- which it is hard to argue was a not good thing in the long run -- but when the pursuit of self-interest by one group became an overwhelming burden on the self-interests of the rest of us, things changed and a new balance was struck.
Finally, there is no gain without pain. The Industrial Revolution created massive dislocations and pain for many, many Americans. But can anyone really argue that we are not all now better off for having been through it? The same is true today with regard to globalization and the information revolution. It is producing enormous pain. But, does that mean it is not the right answer in the long run? And, could it be stopped in any event without turning us into something like North Korea? As a third example, take what is probably the most heinous crime America ever committed: the genocidal war we waged against Native Americans. The tactics of that war were inexcusable. But what of the strategy? That is, was in a mistake to create the United States on lands inhabitated for millenia by others? Certainly, we could have done it much more humanely, but the creation of the United States inevitably entailed the dispossession of the native inhabitants. Do you believe it was "worth it?" It seems to me that the question answers itself. Any change -- even one that is unquestionably for the better -- involves pain for some people. Does that mean we should never change anything? The trick is to decide (via the competition of self-interest)whether the benefits of the change outweigh the costs, and then, if they do, to try to find (again via the same competition) the most humane way to effect the change.
Enough -- or more than enough -- for now. Let's continue.
Jon --
I just noticed that I did not respond to the first paragraph of your comment, where you question whether my belief in the transformative power of capitalism wasn't naive. (I'm paraphrasing here, but I think that's your point). No, I do not think it is naive. However, neither do I think it works over night. I think Wright is correct to characterize capitlaism -- and it pre-eminent power to produce wealth (for the many as well as the few) -- is a "time-release poison for tyranny." But, it requires time to work.
Exposure to the advantages of economic freedom inevtably builds pressure for political freedom as well. Eventually, that pressure becomes irresistable. So why would a tyrant agree to implement economic reforms? Some do not -- North Korea is a prime example. And the end result is a nation so completely backwards and oppressed as to defy description. Few tryants are as sick and indifferent to the needs of his people as Kim Jong Il, though. And most eventually open up their economies in the hope of gaining economic benefits, for themseleves, of course, but also for their people. And, in so doing they invite in the "time release poison" that will utlimately spell the end of their political power as well. I can think of no better example of this than China.
The Chinesse leadership is still trying to keep economic freedom and political freedom spearate -- promoting one (to an extent) while resisting the other. But, I think that this effort is ultimately doomed to failure.
If this prescription is right, then the most effective long-term tool that the West has in fighting tyranny is to seek to persuade, cajole, bribe, flatter, whatever, tyrants into opening their societies to Western capitalism.
I suspect this view may not get much traction at ole UW, convinced as most of them are that capitalism is simply rapacious. But, look at what is going on around you and see if it doesn't tend to support the thesis. The fact that a particular strategy or tactic is consistent with the interests of capitalists does not necessarily mean it is inconsistent with the goals of a better, more humane world as well.
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