New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | February 6, 2006

Michael Young argues that the case for democracy can survive even victories by the likes of Hamas.

Comments

|2.6.06 @ 5:14PM|#

Even in Iran, a country where elections have kept conservatives in power for two decades, voting is bound to lead to the emergence of more liberal forces once the system has had time to find an equilibrium and judge the merits of the revolutionary generation embodied by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

I don't know that we can attribute Ahmadinejad's victory to Islamist attitudes in the general population. As I understand it, the liberals weren't allowed to run. And he ran on a populist platform of redistribution.

I asked an Iranian friend of mine if she thought the people would soon rise up and drive the Ayatollahs from power. She said that some people are afraid of what a revolution might bring. After all, look how well the last one worked out. I guess I can't blame them. They might wake up the morning after and discover that the dictators who called themselves Islamists were simply replaced by dictators who call themselves Nationalists or Communists or some other sort of -ists that nobody even thought of.

Depressing thought.

|2.6.06 @ 5:16PM|#

I see a new ad to my right that makes me quite intrigued. I guess the carpet humper won't be the only thing giving me a boner when I check out hit and run

|2.6.06 @ 5:21PM|#

Show proper respect, Holy Jared, for Reason's newest editor and writer. Nick made her pose that way to get the job. Tough interview process, let me tell you.

|2.6.06 @ 5:21PM|#

Hooray for the new Reason "Valentine" subscription ad!

It seems our long libertarian nightmare of sweaty shirtless guys is at last coming to an end. Or at least is being offset somewhat.

joshua corning|2.6.06 @ 5:26PM|#

I see a new ad to my right that makes me quite intrigued. I guess the carpet humper won't be the only thing giving me a boner when I check out hit and run

hey watch your mouth, that is nick's wife you are talking about.

|2.6.06 @ 5:44PM|#

Michael Young,

...voting is bound to lead to the emergence of more liberal forces...

I call bullshit on this brand of determinism.

But that's where societies, but also the international community, must show there is a high price to be paid for reinforcing intolerance.

Heh. Right. You seem to be under the bizarro delusion that "tolerance" is some sort of universal value, or a natural one for that matter.

Elections may indeed represent a final stepping stone for Islamists to take power, but a controlled, genuine democratic opening beforehand would allow alternative groups to gain strength.

This presumes that people of the region share the same values as Westerners (or at least share the most important ones when it comes to liberalism) which appears not to be the case.

Iraq's Shiites may vote Islamist, but they also have had the opportunity to be asked about their views three times in 2005.

That's not really true. Unless you are arguing that slavish group identity and filial and religious piety are somehow the Iraqi Shi'ite version of Western interest group politics. As far as I can tell, it was the leaders of various groups who were asked to make a decision and they made it and their followers went forward from there.

It would be very difficult for an autocratic leadership to deny them this prerogative in the future.

Actually, its quite simple so long as Iraqi Shi'ites share the same values as they do today.

Finally, there is the march of history.

No such thing exists. Of course its hard for you Hegelians, Marxists and Fukuyama types to swallow this.

|2.6.06 @ 5:47PM|#

Holy AdBlock, Batman! New at Reason: NSFW ads.

|2.6.06 @ 5:47PM|#

The ad reminds me of a scene in the series The Lone Gunmen.

|2.6.06 @ 6:06PM|#

I had to disable Adblock to check that out. Not bad.

|2.6.06 @ 6:12PM|#

Michael Young,

More to the point, human history is not moving in any particular direction, there is no plan for us based either on a God, on our biology or some Rand-like notion of a naturalistic will to consciousness. Until middle eastern types adopt roughly similar values to those in the West they will not be like us and our solutions for their problems will fall like seed on barren ground. Some of course might view these as highly ethnocentric claims (which they are), but the fact remains that values like freedom are foreign to most non-Western cultures and have been throughout the history of these cultures. Admittedly what one views as important to value is a rather subjective matter, but your perscriptions will be fruitless until these people are more like this, and its unlikely that mere elections will lead to that. Indeed, if mere elections were what did the trick then Latin American societies wouldn't have cycled through the troubles they have since the first successful independence movements in the first quarter of the 19th century.

joshua corning|2.6.06 @ 6:26PM|#

hey look at those nice muslim ladies holding that american flag. What are they doing with it...hey they got siccors...

Oh god no!

;)

|2.6.06 @ 6:46PM|#

None of the mechanisms cited by Mr. Young will work until candidates can run without being shot or their children kidnapped unless they toe the local dogma line.

|2.6.06 @ 6:50PM|#

About democracy in general, how come no parties have won elections in South America that have called for an out and out legalization of the drug trade (Evo Morales is the closest thing, but he hasn't taken the full legalization step). It would solve a lot of crime problems and give citizens a lot of honest income. Would the drug lords who benefit from the illicitness of the drug trade kill off such candidates?

|2.6.06 @ 7:38PM|#

Am I the only one who finds that young woman goes from hot to irresitable by holding the Reason pillow? Yeah, some of my copies of Reason have odd personal stains in them, so what if I'm really turned on by free markets and free minds?

|2.6.06 @ 7:39PM|#

While I'm sympathetic to Mr. Young's views, I see "democracy" in Iran, for example, as the false democracy of Weimar Germany. Hitler rose to power by eliminating the competition.

Anyway, democracy is totalitarianism of the masses. Only a republic based upon a liberal and strongly supported constitution can protect individual liberty. I suppose a benevolent dictatorship might do as well; as if that'll ever happen (unless I'm Der Diktator).

|2.6.06 @ 7:45PM|#

"Democratization cannot come with illusions: for certain groups it will be an instrument of leverage into positions of leadership, followed by subsequent efforts to empty democracy of its meaning. But that's where societies, but also the international community, must show there is a high price to be paid for reinforcing intolerance."

Indeed, Mr. Young, but what if they don't?

"Why insist on democracy? First, because the stalemate imposed by autocratic Arab regimes, particularly secular regimes, will give at some stage, and may lead to Islamists' seizing authority anyway, without a pluralistic system in place to create social power centers offsetting them."

Did we lose the War on Terror before it even began?

I won't support the foreign policy of any administration that concedes the resources of a nation to terrorists. ...not on the basis that terrorist domination is inevitable anyway, that is.

|2.6.06 @ 9:14PM|#

There seems to be alot of distraction on this thread.

|2.6.06 @ 10:40PM|#

I don't know that we can attribute Ahmadinejad's victory to Islamist attitudes in the general population. As I understand it, the liberals weren't allowed to run. And he ran on a populist platform of redistribution.

Kind of. There weren't any Western-style liberals allowed, but there were people notably less extreme in their views on foreign policy and social and political freedoms. Even in the final runoff, the opponent, while no liberal, did try to make outreaches to social and foreign policy moderates. But a majority of voters cared more about his wealth and corruption, and Ahmedinejad's Koran-laced Robin Hood schtick.

I asked an Iranian friend of mine if she thought the people would soon rise up and drive the Ayatollahs from power. She said that some people are afraid of what a revolution might bring. After all, look how well the last one worked out.

I used to think that the mullahs' days were highly numbered, but now my gut feeling is that no more than 20% of the populace is serious about wanting a revolution sometime soon. There seems to be a silent majority of Iranians who have their complaints about the government, and would generally like to be on good terms with the West, but at the same time are religious and nationalistic, and care more about economic issues than anything else. As long as the mullahs can use their oil wealth to pay for social welfare programs, and as long as these people have figures like Khatami and Ahmedinejad to channel some of their discontent with the corrupt old guard, they're unlikely to revolt.

We can talk about the relative merits of free market and government solutions to oil dependency all day, but it's undeniable to me that it's oil money that keeps the Iranian mullahs in power, that keeps Saudi Arabia mired in the Dark Ages, and that allows the governments of both countries to directly and indirectly stir up all kinds of trouble beyond their borders. Cut their oil profits by a half or 2/3, and keep them at those levels, and the situation will change dramatically.

|2.6.06 @ 10:55PM|#

Eric-

Makes sense. I know that some people here will conclude that the Iranian people are all illiberal, enemies of the West, Islamofascist, foes of fine Danish pastry, blah blah, but I don't know that we can conclude much about an electorate when their choices were between a crazy guy posing as Robin Hood and a somewhat less crazy guy who's known to be corrupt.

About oil wealth, yeah, you're right, we can talk forever about what to do here in the West, but there's no denying that the oil money is what keeps the bad guys in power. Now, I'd like to think that things will improve if they no longer have oil revenue to depend on. And I'm fairly confident of such a prediction over the long term. But I wonder if the result of oilgarchs losing their grip might not be something even scarier.

Which is not to say that I'm proposing a foreign policy that supports illiberal regimes to keep even worse guys out. The pro-Western thugs seem to be good at keeping the liberals down. This makes it easy for the Islamists and other thugs to fill the opposition vacuum, and they have an attentive audience among those who are desperate for, well, anything other than the thug in power.

I have no clue what to do about it, but I fear that things will be pretty nasty when the oilgarchs fall.

Fuck.

|2.6.06 @ 11:14PM|#

Thoreau,

What will happen ...

There will be a long war. Hundreds of thousands in the US, Europe, Russia and India will die, millions of Muslims will die. Then there will be a peace of exhaustion.

If nuclear weapons are involved, change the figures above to millions and hundreds of millions.

Nostrildamus has spoken.

|2.6.06 @ 11:25PM|#

But I wonder if the result of oilgarchs losing their grip might not be something even scarier.

In Saudi Arabia, that could easily be the case. In Iran, though, I think the situation could wind up being like the Soviet Union, where those fed up with economic conditions joined forces with those clamoring for a more liberal government to bring down the system. We saw a hint of that with Khatami (and it should be noted that oil prices were a lot lower during most of his heyday), but for multiple reasons, it didn't pan out. Next time around, the mullahs might not be so lucky, particularly if a more effective leader exists, and the US and EU handle their diplomacy better.

And even if the collapse of the oligarchs as a result of decimated oil profits meant that even less savory elements came to power in one or both countries, they'd still have much less money to cause problems with for the rest of the world than the current governments of Iran and Saudi Arabia have right now.

|2.6.06 @ 11:38PM|#

Eric II, thoreau, etc.,

Your knee-jerk Marxist analysis is something I thought we had disposed of a long time ago. Societies do not simply stay together due to mere economic considerations after all. I know its quite difficult for those of us in the West to admit, but the simple fact is that the socio-cultural values of these societies are quite different from ours and that the governments which they have are in many, many ways a reflection of those values. Oil riches alone do not keep the House of Saud in power; much like the role played by English and French kings during the medieval period and into the Renaissance, it is the willingness of the royal family to live up to and enforce the cultural values of the people of Saudi Arabia that is a paramount factor in them staying in power.

|2.6.06 @ 11:48PM|#

Eric II,

As evidence for my statements witness what happened in 1979 when that socio-cultural role was challenged, when the House of Saud's role as moral center of the kingdom was challenged.

|2.7.06 @ 12:11AM|#

Your knee-jerk Marxist analysis is something I thought we had disposed of a long time ago.

And your knee-jerk tendency to read only the lines that you want to read appears eternal. Where did I write that Iran and Saudi Arabia would adopt Western-style democracies overnight if it wasn't for their oil money?

What I did write is that the mullahs remain in power in large part because of their oil money, and the House of Saud feels no need to reform because of theirs. Partly because people get less distraught over limited social and political freedoms when their stomachs are full, and partly because closed economies in which much of the GDP is accounted for by government entities (something that can only be maintained in these countries because of the oil money) serve to augment the government's power and restrain the public's desire for said freedoms.

I also noted (and it appears thoreau would agree) that if the Saudi government was to fall as a result of discontent spawned by collapsing oil profits, the resulting government could be even uglier than the current one. Maybe it would go down like Czarist Russia, with an initial period of liberal reform followed by a highly illiberal revolution. In Iran, by contrast, I think a post-revolutionary order would have a good chance of resembling post-Soviet Russia, in the sense that it would be far from ideal in some respects, but nonetheless a meaningful improvement over its predecessor.

|2.7.06 @ 12:38AM|#

Eric II,

Where did I write that Iran and Saudi Arabia would adopt Western-style democracies overnight if it wasn't for their oil money?

Nowhere, and that certainly has nothing to do with my statement.

Yours is a strict and classic Marxian analysis of the nature of society - economics dominating all other factors in society in other words. Its something I wholly reject. Of course, it may be that due to your ignorance you don't realize the nature of what you are saying. Indeed, that seems to be likely the case in light of the off the point statement I quoted above.

What I did write is that the mullahs remain in power in large part because of their oil money...

And in that you are wholly wrong. They remain in power because they live up to their expected socio-cultural role - a role shared by numerous monarchies over the centuries. Now if you had read what I wrote you'd realize the nature of my critique and wouldn't have thrown an accusation at me regarding a claim that I didn't make.

|2.7.06 @ 12:41AM|#

Eric II, thoreau, etc.,

Anyway, suffice it to say that yours remains a knee-jerk Marxian analysis, something which most sociogolists and historians have come to reject as being overly deterministic and as well as lacking in verity.

|2.7.06 @ 12:47AM|#

Eric II, thoreau, etc.

More to the point, and something which sociologists and historians have been pointing out for decades, if economics were the basis of societal turmoil as you claim, was the basis for societal cohesion, then the poverty around the planet (and throughout human history) would set people in such a dire condition into near continous revolt. But that is in fact not what happens. No, the Saudi regime, if it maintains its socio-cultural status as a moral center of the kingdom, could indeed lose much of its economic power and its ability to create wealth and still remain in power. Indeed this is evidenced by the dramatic decrease in economic fortunes in the 1980s when the nations' per capita GDP dropped dramatically.

|2.7.06 @ 12:55AM|#

I think one could assert (without being an asshole about it) something to the effect that oil money is a necessary but not sufficient element of the mullahs' hold on power. That would serve as a more effective argument. Or do you not see it as even necessary?

|2.7.06 @ 1:15AM|#

It seems strange to suggest that Americans would be willing to make the kinds of standard of living sacrifices so many of the let's-not-buy-their-oil crowd seem to be calling for, especially considering our own history--see the '70s.

...but I think Hakluyt's right regarding how an oil shock would effect or, rather, not effect the politics of places like Iran. I would only add that there are plenty of places in the world where people would be happy to buy Iranian oil regardless--I'd place the same countries that assisted the Iranians with their nuclear technology at the top of that list.

I'm also, quite frankly, a little mystified by some of the comments I've read (on this board and elsewhere) suggesting that 1) recent events show that we really are engaged in a struggle to the death with the Muslim world and 2) that by engaging in some level of economic breath holding, we can do something about the culture behind recent events.

"Mystified" is the right word too--please note that by "recent events", I'm talking about protests regarding Danish cartoons. ...I don't know what's stranger, the Muslim world's reaction to Danish cartoons or the reaction of some Americans to the Muslim world's ridiculous displays.

P.S. I've been commenting on the culture angle in the Fire in Beirut thread and in the Further Foggy Bottom Bamboozlement thread.

|2.7.06 @ 1:35AM|#

...continuing with the strangeness, there are many here who've understood and argued much regarding culture, etc. in Iraq; many here have, indeed, used these arguments, or variations of them, against the War in Iraq for years now. Now that something happens that shows, to my eye, how wrongheaded the Bush Administration has been in their approach, so many former opponents of the Iraq War seem so ready to throw in the towel!

As I wrote in one of the other threads I mentioned above:

"I think it's wrong to coerce other peoples to adopt our culture--even if the culture we're imposing contains the very foundations of liberty. We have a term for imposing culture on other peoples; it's called "cultural imperialism", and it's a fool's errand. That way lies destruction."

I think we're looking at the collapse of Reverse Domino Theory in action. We should be pointing this out to people--not conceding the field! We should abandon our President's failed policies and focus on securing our liberties here at home. People don't always want what we want them to want. We can prove it--just look! ...Look!

|2.7.06 @ 1:40AM|#

Where the heck is joe?

|2.7.06 @ 6:35AM|#

Larry Edelstein,

The notion of the homo economicus simply doesn't bear itself out when confronted with the evidence. Economic hardtimes cannot by themselves be expected to bring about societal change; again, if that were the case then the constant revolt scenario I described above would have been underway throughout most of human history.

|2.7.06 @ 8:54AM|#

I think the one thing that's missing from your analysis, Hak, is the current reality in the West. While we once may have valued freedom as a culture, that time has long since passed. Now we mouth the words "freedom" and "liberty" as nearly meaningless phrases that mean what we want them to. And our politicians reflect this, when they quote founders to support their anti-liberty positions.

We (the West) are not moving towards more freedom, we're moving towards less, and that is a reflection of our current culture. I can guarantee that if we had a Constitutional Convention today, the result would be a document that looked more like the EU's or Iraq's.

Interestingly, the one culture/state that seems to be moving in the proper direction (albeit starting from a very large hole) is China. While they may falter before even reaching our current legal situation, the cultural values there seem to be much more freedom friendly than here, currently.

In that vein, perhaps the greatest danger to real freedom in the world are the neo-cons who shamelessly pimp that China is a threat to our security and seek to turn them into our enemy. If they succeed, it could have very anti-freedom effects not only our culture, but on Chinese culture as well.

|2.7.06 @ 8:58AM|#

quasibill,

First of all, the values themselves have always had contested meanings. Second, in whole areas of our lives we have more freedom today than we did in the 19th century. This is especially true in Europe. Now some may argue that we have more regulation of our economic lives, but that too is a myth, as any perusal of local government regulation in the 19th century demonstrates. There was no grand, libertarian period in the past.

|2.7.06 @ 10:31AM|#

"Second, in whole areas of our lives we have more freedom today than we did in the 19th century."

And in whole others, less.

Imagine what a tax rate of 30% would have been viewed as in the 18th Century?

Realize that police officers, as they exist today, were an invention of the 19th Century.

Realize that in the early 20th, our population realized that a Constitutional amendment was necessary for the Feds to prohibit the sale of a natural product, while since 1971 it has merely taken the act of Congress, and sometimes less than that.

Realize that the value of a dollar that you saved in 1915 lost 95% of its value due to the monetization of the country's debt.

For someone who rightly claims that there is no determinism in history, you sure have a hard time accepting the fact that our culture has taken many wrong turns in the last 100 years. Have we also taken some right ones? Yes. But on balance, are we more free today than then? I'd say no, and we are getting less so by the day, as our military budget explodes, intergenerational wealth transfers are fraudulently funded but sacrosanct, and the President claims to have the authority to ignore the 4th Amendment at his leisure, and doesn't get immediately laughed out of office for it all being just the major indicators that pop into my head.

Keynesianism was a wrong turn in intellectual development. Unfortunately, probably 90% of the Western world follows its tenets currently, with predictable results that are playing out as we speak.

I certainly agree that there was no grand libertarian period in the past. However, it is easy to see that the cultural values that led to the drafting of our Constitution are no longer widely held in the Western world. It seems you are confusing the state (which certainly has NEVER been libertarian) with culture (or more specifically, widely held cultural values, which despite certain glaring flaws, were at one time more libertarian than they currently are).

|2.7.06 @ 10:50AM|#

And to bring it back to the topic at hand, not just Keynesianism, but the concept of "Democracy as ensuring (classical) liberalism".

Very few people in the West (outside of perhaps France) over 100 years ago believed that a democratic state, in and of itself, was superior to an aristocratic state. Today, many, many people, especially the young, really believe "we the people" = the state. And you have many people like Mr. Young who seem to believe that the democracy fairy will sprinkle peace, progress, and free trade wherever she happens to alight.

|2.7.06 @ 12:14PM|#

We once tolerated slavery, quasibill. We tolerated Jim Crow. Those things are no longer.

In some ways we're more free, in some ways less. I don't think they'd throw Eugene Debs in prison for sedition today.

I don't see how any of this relates to a discussion about economics and toppling the mullahs, but there it is.

|2.7.06 @ 1:22PM|#

Yours is a strict and classic Marxian analysis of the nature of society - economics dominating all other factors in society in other words.

Keep saying that if you'd like to. I couldn't care less.

They remain in power because they live up to their expected socio-cultural role - a role shared by numerous monarchies over the centuries.

For the House of Saud, which is arguably more liberal than the populace it rules over, this is true to a large degree. For the Iranian mullahs, it's not that simple. They came to power through a popular, anti-monarchial revolution whose fervor has, to a large degree, died out. They can hold onto power only to the extent that they have something of a popular mandate.

Right now, the mullahs' mandate comes in part from a fanatical minority who fully believe in the revolution's ideology, and from a majority of religious, nationlistic Iranians who are neither deeply supportive of nor deeply hostile to clerical rule, and are unlikely to revolt as long as the economic status quo persists.

As I alluded to previously, I think no more than 20% of the Iranian public (and perhaps less) is at this point willing to overthrow the mullahs due to their support for Western liberal values, regardless of what the Iranian economy is like. I think this percentage will gradually rise, but it'll be a long time before it nears 50%. So don't throw that strawman at me. If the regime goes down within the next decade, it'll be because the religious, nationalistic majority withdraws its popular mandate on account of the regime's economic failings.

And if you don't think that economic conditions have some bearing on the mullahs' popular mandate, I'd suggest taking a closer look at the last three Presidential elections. In the eyes of the aforementioned majority, Khatami and Ahmedinejad aren't all that different. One pandered to the country's liberal minority, and the other panders to its extremist minority, but they're each seen by the majority as populist challengers to the wealthy, corrupt, old guard that dominates the economy. The mullahs are well aware of this, but they allowed them to run anyway because they realize that they risk losing their mandate if they don't give the public a means of venting their misgivings. Even at a time when the regime is swimming in oil profits.

if economics were the basis of societal turmoil as you claim, was the basis for societal cohesion, then the poverty around the planet (and throughout human history) would set people in such a dire condition into near continous revolt.

Another strawman. First, there's a difference between a situation where a country has long been mired in poverty, and one where it goes from a state of relative prosperity to poverty. The latter is usually more volatile. Second, you seem intent on ignoring my point about the unique impact that a closed economy dominated by state-controlled entities can have on the political and cultural environment of a country. Such an economy is bound to augment the state's control over political life in a way that an economy dominated by the private sector wouldn't. And it can serve to prohibit the cultural liberalization that invariably occurs when an economy is opened up for a prolonged period of time (see China, India, and even Dubai for examples).

Weaken the dominance of the public sector in an economy, force a politically authoritarian, culturally totalitarian government to open up the economy to even partially maintain a country's standard of living, and combine this all with a popular mandate being challenged by economic discontent, and the government could be in dire straits. I figured that a libertarian wouldn't have trouble picking up on this.

No, the Saudi regime, if it maintains its socio-cultural status as a moral center of the kingdom, could indeed lose much of its economic power and its ability to create wealth and still remain in power. Indeed this is evidenced by the dramatic decrease in economic fortunes in the 1980s when the nations' per capita GDP dropped dramatically.

And as I've said before, if the Saudi regime was to fall, it would likely fall at the hands of those who deemed it insufficiently Islamic. And being a monarchy rather than the product of an anti-monarchial revolution, it doesn't have to deal with a popular mandate issue the way that the Iranian regime does, so the odds of revolt are indeed lower.

That said, the situation in Saudi Arabia today is a little different than the 1980s. Back then, the country had only seen a surge in oil profits for about a decade. This was still uncharted territory for them. Now, they've been swimming in oil wealth for more than three decades - an entire generation has grown up taking it for granted. And Saudi Arabia's population today is much larger than it was back then. So if this revenue stream was to be threatened, they could feel some genuine pressure to liberalize to maintain their standard of living. Which, given the staunchly Islamist attitudes of the majority of its people, could put the regime between a rock and a hard place.

|2.7.06 @ 1:24PM|#

I'm also, quite frankly, a little mystified by some of the comments I've read (on this board and elsewhere) suggesting that 1) recent events show that we really are engaged in a struggle to the death with the Muslim world and 2) that by engaging in some level of economic breath holding, we can do something about the culture behind recent events.

Can you point to me who's simultaneously made both arguments? I'm really perplexed here.

|2.7.06 @ 1:49PM|#

"We once tolerated slavery, quasibill. We tolerated Jim Crow. Those things are no longer."

Which was my point in noting that there were some major flaws back then. However, slavery (amazingly, not so much Jim Crow, but that's a long story that involves the evil inherent in "Reconstruction") was not a widely held cultural value here. It is at least safe to say that the number of people opposed to it in 1800 equaled those who favored it. It was a point of conflict. And probably a majority for whom it was not a major issue, but opposed it on principle.

What I'm talking about are widely held cultural values that most of the founding generation held. For example, I doubt you would have found many who would have signed on for W's Wilsonian mission to spread democracy. Nor would many have joined in with the Keynesian economics that are essentially unchallenged in large segments of the Western population.

These two factors are huge dead ends that we've been hurtling towards for the last 100 years. We are not improving on these counts. Quite to the contrary, we're acting like an addict who needs to hit bottom before he can straighten himself out. And since the neo-con regime wholeheartedly advocates both dead-ends in a way few before have (Reagan didn't wholeheartedly buy Keynes, and Bush Sr. and Clinton didn't wholeheartedly buy the divinity of democracy, so perhaps the 2nd place award in this category could go to Carter!), it appears that we are nearing that bottom - although 'near' in this respect could mean anything between 5-30 years.

|2.7.06 @ 5:17PM|#

Eric II,

As usual, you continue to miss the point. Unfortunately I cannot force the knowledge into your head, you've got to drop those blinders and accept it on your own.

|2.7.06 @ 5:31PM|#

quasibill,

However, it is easy to see that the cultural values that led to the drafting of our Constitution are no longer widely held in the Western world.

I'd say a centralized government which helped to manage the economy were well in tune with 18th century values regarding the nature of freedom. That is clearly apparent in Madison's notes on the Convention.

However, slavery (amazingly, not so much Jim Crow, but that's a long story that involves the evil inherent in "Reconstruction") was not a widely held cultural value here.

Yes, it was. In the 1780s 1/4 of all Americans were slaves, while by 1861 2/5ths of all persons in the Confederacy were slaves. The Constitution itself is deeply stained with language about and protection of slavery put into the text so as to mollify the concerns of states that threatened to walk away from the Convention if they were not included. You are denying a basic facet of American society. The United States was a slave society (as that term is understood by sociologists and historians) up to the Civil War and slavery was an important aspect of American culture, economics, etc. up to that point.

It is at least safe to say that the number of people opposed to it in 1800 equaled those who favored it.

Not true either. By 1800 the abolitionist movement of the 1780s was dead and the issue of slavery was on the back burner. It was only again in the administration of Monroe that anti-slavery sentiment arose again, and this was not largely due to any sympathy for the slaves but out of a desire to keep slaves out of states so as to stop free labor competition with slave labor (there were also concerns as well about the anti-democratic, aristocratic nature of the slave states and how this might be transplanted to new states).

|2.7.06 @ 5:51PM|#

As usual, you continue to miss the point. Unfortunately I cannot force the knowledge into your head, you've got to drop those blinders and accept it on your own.

Enjoy projecting much?

|2.7.06 @ 5:58PM|#

quasibill,

First of all, I suspect that I am far more versed in the nature of 19th century American society than you ever will be. That is especially so when it comes to the topic of slavery, something I've spent a large portion of my life studying.

Imagine what a tax rate of 30% would have been viewed as in the 18th Century?

Let's bust this myth. Apparently you are completely unfamiliar with the "American System" of Henry Clay (which had many American intellectual precusors in the 18th century). As I recall, something like two months of the wages of your average worker went to paying the tarriffs associated with this program - which was nothing more than what we would call "corporate welfare" today. This of course doesn't even speak to the various types of state taxes levied against individuals.

Realize that police officers, as they exist today, were an invention of the 19th Century.

Duh, no kidding. Localities had their own enforcers of mores, etc. which reached far into the lives of individuals - from the clothes they wore to the statements they made. To be blunt, what the federal government has done during much of the 20th century was actually start enforcing economic, etc. regulation of the lives of individuals once taken on by localities or the states.

Realize that in the early 20th, our population realized that a Constitutional amendment was necessary for the Feds to prohibit the sale of a natural product, while since 1971 it has merely taken the act of Congress, and sometimes less than that.

Actually, prior to the amendment you speak of numerous federal and state laws were in place which sought to limit the use of various "natural products," especially things like patent medicines (see the first Pure Food and Drug Act (1906). Also note that the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act (1914) (which banned cocaine) preceded the 18th Amendment by six years.

For someone who rightly claims that there is no determinism in history, you sure have a hard time accepting the fact that our culture has taken many wrong turns in the last 100 years.

You misread my statements. I'm not arguing from some Fukuyama POV about the progress of man, I am simply telling you that your claim about some unspoiled past is quite erroneous and that the same currents in society you see today about centralized government existed amongst many of the individuals involved in the creation of the Constitution.

I'd say no, and we are getting less so by the day, as our military budget explodes, intergenerational wealth transfers are fraudulently funded but sacrosanct, and the President claims to have the authority to ignore the 4th Amendment at his leisure, and doesn't get immediately laughed out of office for it all being just the major indicators that pop into my head.

Most of this could be equally said about the first Adams, the Lincoln, and the Wilson adminstrations.

...it is easy to see that the cultural values that led to the drafting of our Constitution are no longer widely held in the Western world.

Nope, I'd say that the same number of differing interpretations, etc. of freedom exist today as they did then. What you might get away with saying is that different currents dominate more today than they did in 1787, but in light of the Hamiltonian vision and how influential it was that is suspect as well.

|2.7.06 @ 6:03PM|#

Eric II,

No, I really don't enjoy people like yourself who act the dunce.

quasibill,

As further example note that laws which regulated speech, dress, the nature of how one engaged in economic exchange, etc. were much favored by the likes John Adams and many like him. This is why Justice Thomas' recent statement regarding medical marijuana is so bizarre; of course many of the founders would have had no problem with the regulation and outlaw of marijuana if they viewed it as a danger to the social order.

|2.7.06 @ 6:11PM|#

And I'm not fond of preening, sanctimonious twits who can't accept any digression from the frameworks, belief systems, and prejudices concocted in their ivory tower-addled minds without responding with a litany of mischaracterizations, strawmen, and infantile labels. But we make do with what we have.

|2.7.06 @ 6:44PM|#

Eric II,

Yes, you have properly described yourself I'd say. You can't digress from the sort of Marxian analysis which has proven to be such a failure when stacked against the empirical evidence of how societies actually work.

|2.7.06 @ 6:48PM|#

Eric II,

Indeed, the more you insist on pontificating your Marxian analysis the more I get to laugh at you. That you continue to fail to grasp my critique of your statement, by first claiming that I argued something which I did not argue, and then following it up with a long digression based on Marxist analysis bodes ill for your future ability to break out of such an analysis. But hey, you keep on explaining all societal change as being based on economics and I'll continue to laugh at you.

|2.7.06 @ 7:54PM|#

Yes, you have properly described yourself I'd say.

The projection never ends, does it?

But hey, you keep on explaining all societal change as being based on economics

Now I'm actually starting to pity you.

|2.7.06 @ 7:59PM|#

Eric II,

Let's test your hypothesis that I am "projecting." Let's see, you have continued to ignore my argument about the true nature of societal change, you created out of whole clothe an argument which I didn't make, and you have been from the start unwilling to accept what the body of social science and historical research has concluded about societal change. Yes, you are right, I am projecting.

|2.7.06 @ 8:13PM|#

Eric II,

If the regime goes down within the next decade, it'll be because the religious, nationalistic majority withdraws its popular mandate on account of the regime's economic failings.

Marx couldn't have written it better himself (indeed, your statement reminds me a lot of what he said about what he foretold as the reason for a British collapse in India - though the collapse did not occur for the economic reasons that he discussed).

...but they're each seen by the majority as populist challengers to the wealthy, corrupt, old guard that dominates the economy.

Which really says nothing about the economic situation but does speak to the values associated with proper governance and what happens when such values - in Islamic societies being charitable is one value of prime importance - are flouted.

First, there's a difference between a situation where a country has long been mired in poverty, and one where it goes from a state of relative prosperity to poverty.

Since Saudi Arabia has sunk from prosperity to poverty since the early 1980s your point appears to be unproven. Indeed, as sociological studies have shown its actually the reverse where revolt becomes more likely - where high expectations regarding cultural values are flouted then one has a tendency towards revolt. As to Iran, it has indeed been long mired in poverty.

|2.7.06 @ 8:25PM|#

Eric II,

Finally, regarding the issue of the state dominating and steering the economy, those are cultural traits long engrained in these societies, so it is the case that we should expect the same in the future even if foreign investment continues to flow in as it is in Iran or China. Indeed, its pretty obvious to anyone who knows much about Chinese history that they Chinese are following a pretty traditional pattern of "opening up" seen in many past dynasties, which is why despite all of the hullabaloo about China it remains such an illiberal society. India is quite different because it has far less of a tradition of centralization, indeed such had to be imposed on India by the British.