The Future of Freedom-Zakaria on Democracy

30/7/2012

Watch the video, read the following and in a 250 word MINIMUM blog post written as a COMMENT to this post, tackle one, some or all of the questions posited.

In this lecture Fareed Zakaria starts by asserting that the world we would like to live in looks an awful lot like the world we actually live in. He describes 4 trends in our world today that he considers responsible for the current global well-being (if you will).

"Global Peace"
Broad global middle class bolstered by the constraining of inflation
The "Anglo American consensus"
Technology that empowers human beings and not regimes

He argues that we are undergoing a major power shift in the 21st century.
16th century global power shift: RISE OF EUROPE
19th century global power shift: RISE OF THE UNITED STATES
21st century global power shift: "RISE OF THE REST"

Question to consider: Do you think the "Rise of the Rest" threaten this world we have?
Zakaria argues that he finds the "Rise of the Rest" less threatening to democracy and Western values than the rise of ILLIBERALISM in the West. He worries more about the core than the periphery. He describes the following as particularly threatening to democracy:

"Demo-sclerosis" & rising power of special interests
"Tyranny of the present over the future"
Rise of Illiberalism in the west as seen with the increasing acceptance of nationalist parties, religious fundamentalism, anti-immigrant ideas, etc.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER: Can you think of examples of these trends in Brazil, the US, Europe? Do these trends worry you? How so? Do you think these trends are dangerous to democracy? In which ways? Which one is the most dangerous?

15 Comments

Daniel Pinho

26/8/2012 02:29:49 am

The points approached by Zakaria are completely realistic and consistent in a quantitative standard. But he fails analyzing it qualitatively and assumes a too general idea of “the world we want to live in” as something positive.

The rate in which global peace, social stability, global market, technologies and democracy are growing really excites me. However if we go deeply into these points, it is possible to see that everything turns around money. If there’s no money there’s no idealism, there’s no getting better neither attempts to get better. And that worries me.

1) Let’s take in consideration why powerful countries are not in war. Can we see today a powerful country with a different economic or political standard that menaces capitalism? The last country that could do that was old Soviet Union and now they are almost serfs of the same powers they used to go against in the Cold War. With that being said, it is obvious that if a powerful country does not adhere to the standards of what’s politically and economically acceptable, they will have a bad time with the boss Uncle Sam.
Zakaria talks in numbers. His way of imagining what’s ideal is too cold and superficial. He accepts the fact that the powerful ones are not in war between each other, but forgets that recently a powerful country was killing people in little country Iraq because the big country’s government just assumed there were nuclear weapons. If that’s acceptable, what’s not? Maybe demur and be straightway dangerous; and because of that, you must be handled with… machine guns, bazookas, missiles. Poor Iraqis!

2) Then he talks about social stability and how people are finally being able to leave a world of desperation due to inflation, and now have hope to aspire to better welfare. That was so deep that even drowned me. There’s no such thing as social stability in capitalism. It’s like trying to dry ice. To survive, capitalism needs a system similar to a food chain: the big ones feeds on the smaller ones’ work, that are fed on the tiny one’s work, etc. “Stabilize” as he suggests will just set the bar higher, but no one inside this ideology will have the same amount of earnings or welfare. It’s like saying: “today basketball is played even by Nigeria, even though Nigeria will never come to play as the United States; the game will be the same, but the skills are incomparable.”
This stability he talks about makes me think: if the “good thing” is being socially stable and completely out of poverty, why isn’t that every nation becomes socialist or communist? Theoretically, these are the systems that guarantee this stability and equality. Work on these systems and we would be clean as a whistle, weren’t we?

3) The idea of “global market” is so capitalist that I think it’s not even worth arguing. Have countries even more dependable on other countries just makes me think of this New World Order. What in theory is a beautiful scenario of countries living commonly and wisely as a unity is just a disguise for the big powers to exploit undeveloped countries.

4) Yes, there is a lot of new technology going on that helps people get together and even overcome oppressive governments. Point to Zakaria. But these technologies are provided by people that are connected to governments and businesses; which make me think that certainly information and technologies will come to us, users, flawed so that we do what they want in the end. Just like reverse psychology. The technology might not empower regimes, but empowers companies. And, believe me, for money they can do everything.

5) Last but not least, the Anglo-American consensus of democracy. Not saying democracy is bad. It actually is the fairest way of managing a governmental system. But what worries me is that – by putting this so called Anglo-American consensus as ideal – other ways of governing that could be even more effective are put aside because that’s not the “correct” way. These ways of thinking are why men enter in wars: they reduce their field of view by making what they believe as absolute and ignore new views that are somewhat opposing to what they think. So, to preserve their principles, they kill and oppress what’s “wrong” not even noticing that it’s just different. And again, put money to this mix and see what people are able to do when money is in the game. Wouldn’t this Anglo-American consensus be quite suggestive?

Nevertheless, I like Zakaria’s optimism. Different from many people he tries to show a bright side of what’s going on and that’s really impressive. These points he made are not bad. They are wonderful! But what make me worry and see them with questioning eyes are the motives that bring them to come true: money.

Welfare, stability

Gabriella Goldenstein

26/8/2012 03:00:13 am

Illiberal democracy

This term got me thinking for a while: how can democracy be the exact contrary of liberal? Is it against its main ideas: liberty and equality? This doesn`t really connect to democracy the way I think of it. For me, democracy was founded on the basis of liberty, equality, free and fair elections, human rights and constitutionalism. This made me dig deeper and research on illiberal democracy in order to find out what it really means.
Wikipedia suggests “An illiberal democracy, also called a pseudo democracy, partial democracy, low intensity democracy, empty democracy, hybrid regime or delegative democracy, is a governing system in which, although elections take place, citizens are cut off from knowledge about the activities of those who exercise real power because of the lack of civil liberties.” It is funny how the synonyms for illiberal democracy are words which suggest that it is not a democracy at all (pseudo, low intensity, empty).
The example Zakaria gives us of illiberal democracies in the west are the rise of nationalist parties in Europe, rise degree of intolerance of immigrants. One specific example is Russia, it is democratic but because of Putin’s super presidency, illiberal. Brazil`s traits of illiberal democracy lies on its corruption. Politicians tend to be machiavellian, where they are willing to do anything to stay in power. This means, they will steal money from the government do illegal negotiations and keep it a secret from the people. Another thing that is missing in Brazil`s democracy is freedom of speech. The population thinks there is freedom of speech and they can oppose the government. However there have been cases in cities, which people have been murdered for knowing of politician`s illegal activities and threatening to expose them.

Andrea

26/8/2012 07:18:35 am

Demo-sclerosis-
One of the major reasons for the declining of democracy is the control of the government and politicians by the world financial groups. One big sector over control by those groups are the mass media, being it TV, Internet, magazines or social networks. Media as CNN or in Brazil Rede Globo, controlled by specific financial groups, have an excessive and unilateral influence in the citizens. This trend of organized mass media companies controlling public opinion runs parallel to the large silence of the citizens since the beginning of the century, mainly in the USA and Europe. Not only communication means are controlled by economical groups, but now even political parties are losing their essence. There is no difference any more between the democrats or the republicans, given that all of the different parties lost their ideologies. All of this leads to a change of power, instead of democracy being in the hands of the citizens, it is currently in the power of multinationals and capital groups.

Tyranny of present over future-
It is frightening to see how the days where humanity dreamed of a different tomorrow is gone. Indeed, most of what is seen today is a hope for the return to a status quo. Humanity's behavior has become so insignificant that it is seen as a mere action for survival. Citizens seem to have lost the consciousness of the economic, social and environmental impact each and everyone has upon the world. Nothing that is being put in action is for the greater good, or for the future. Each individual looks for its own selfish economic growth, and even knowing that what is being done will have future consequences, they don't care. Why is it worth fighting for? Humanity is trapped in a world where working to save its own butt is what is important. No one cares whether the CO2 emission are to high, or if oil is going to end in about 50 years. The people who are in power now are limited to a single frame of reference.

Rise of illiberalism
For the rise of illiberalism I only have one thing to say: liberalism brings illiberalism, its a vicious cycle given that such system cant support itself.

Julia Souza

26/8/2012 11:22:25 am

Zakaria argues that as nations modernize their economies on market principles, they have a tendency of widening their sphere of personal freedom and liberty, the greatest example of that being the country of China. Accordingly, there are also fewer chances for a democratic reversal to happen once a country has reached a certain amount of GDP per capita. Zakaria later states that we are a living in a world with an Anglo-American consensus, so most nations agree on how they should deal with their politics, education and economy. Due to these two phenomena, the “rise of the rest” (countries in Asia, mostly) isn’t a threat to democracy. If not, they are strengthening the current world politics because they are modernizing and building their structures under a consensus of the model to follow. The road for reaching democracy has already been paved in a way that rising nations won’t do any harm.

The real problem appears when already established well democratic nations that are admired by the peripheral countries are becoming hollow at home. The idea of demo-sclerosis, as the inability of doing something can be associated to the oh-so-famous bureaucratic aspects of nations, Brazil being an example. There are so many small steps required for something to happen, that it takes a long time for it to occur. Then there is the tendency that Zakaria described as the “tyranny of the present over the future”. For the success of any nation there should be long-term goals with short steps required for it to occur. A better future should always be the goal even if it means that some harsh measures at the present are needed. When nations start acting thinking only about the best at the moment and not looking at it in the big picture, is the biggest danger of democracy. This is the moment when futures become uncertain and when chaos sets place. An example for that is Brazil as the World Cup host. There are many structures being built and money being invested for the event that will take place in two years, but it’s harming to think only at a short future and not how Brazil will be able to sustain everything for 10 or 20 years. Brazil is acting on what is needed for the present, but not on how it will affect the future.

Alê Silveira

26/8/2012 11:53:13 am

Rise of the Rest

In the video, Zarkaria lays out the basic international power shifts in terms of development and even the assumed correlation between increase in GDP and democratization. In the 16th century there was the rise of Europe, in the 19th century it became the United States turn to dominate the global spectrum and as Zakaria puts it, the 21st century power shift belongs to the “rest”. This “rest” is composed of underdeveloped nations, usually characterized by slow economic development and remaining social injustices following colonialism. The question is then put at: Is the “Rise of the Rest” a threat to the world we have today? The answer to that is no. Zakaria argues that its less threatening than the illiberalism-taking place in Western Europe, which truly defies the universal values, brought by Western ideals of equality and liberty. These include, but are not limited to, the increased acceptance of nationalist parties, religious fundamentalism and xenophobia. Specifically, this is exemplified by nationalist parties in Europe, xenophobia in Rome and the controversy of building a mosque near ground zero. Zakaria also argues that what is more concerning is that that there is a loss in the universal values, which provokes a loss of a distinctive element within a liberal democracy in Western Europe. The true concern indeed is that in the rise of the rest, as it is only fair that they would be getting a bit of the spotlight after being completely inept to do so for several different reasons.

Liz Costa

27/8/2012 04:35:05 am

I believe the answer to that question is absolutely not. Fareed Zakaria talks about the current power shift we are currently undergoing, in 16th century the rise of Europe occurred, 19th century the rise of the United States happened and finally in the 21st century the rise of the rest of the countries is occurring. The content and rapid development of considered third world countries counter acts the ability of one single country controlling the entire international political economic and military spectrum like the American Hegemony for example. Unlike the Cold War the world is no longer polarized into two different ideals or you side with the Soviet Union or you side with he United States, we currently live in a world of long lasting international “peace”, if we stop to think major conflicts now occur inside the countries borders like the Syrian Crisis. Having the rest of the world rise to power, is not the real threat. The threat consists of the rise of illiberalism and the power of groups that are religious fundamentalist, nationalist and anti-immigrants triggering misunderstanding, stagnation and future conflicts. If parties as those previously mentioned happen to gain power it would be a major threat to the stability and well being of the majority, instead of advancing towards a equalitarian world with absences of poles and international conflict we would be fueling regression. I am not saying the western democratic view is the correct one, in my opinion every country has the autonomy to decide upon their system of government or am I saying that the rise of the rest will later n convert all of those governments into democracy, I believe in balance and tolerance and the rise of the others will definitely bring to the world a economic, political and military balance.

Nilo

27/8/2012 06:10:46 am

Zakaria laid out three basic periods of growth. The rise of Europe, the rise of the USA, and the "rise of the rest". Personally I agree with him that there is a rise between all of these nations, but I wonder what does "rise" mean? He uses it as if for a nation to rise it would be economically and politically growing. He does not quite explain this rise. I believe that Latin America has much more of a "rise" than Asian countries. Asia is being held down by tradition, while Latin America is having both an economic and political uplifting. We can see that the majority of South American countries are now Center-left governments. Social democracies are blossoming in South America. Zakaria fails to show the history behind these changes. Many of these countries have become Socialist or social democracies as a response to the historical American sphere of influence thart keeps a grip on all these nations. Brazil for example does not quite fear the USA. The United States cannot force the Brazilian government to accept a damaging agreement such as the FTAA. That is something that has been appearing much more rapidly than in Asia, nations that will challenge more powerful nations. I won't say that this is not happening in Asia, I just find it more visible in Latin America.

I also agree that economic development leads to democracy. Look at Cuba. It is still under a nearly fifty year old economic embargo, but it is still socialist. The USA's biggest mistake was to attempt coercing Cuba out of socialism. That simply made Cuba fight against capitalism.If Cuba had been allowed to freely trade with other nations, it would eventually become a capitalist state. Communism would not have been able to accompany all of the changes.

Nevo

27/8/2012 07:41:51 am

Fareed Zakaria talks about four distinct phenomenon’s which are the Great Power Peace or “Global Peace”, Creation of a mass middle class, “Anglo American Consensus” and Technology empowering human beings. The two most important for me were the Great Power Peace and mass of middle class; both of them are the solution of capitalism and democracy to work. For example because of the peace between 7-8 great economic powers, the war is in a really low rate, making few or even no affect on the economy. The Second and most important and distinct phenomenon that Zakaria said was the creation of a mass of middle class, since there is an extraordinary low inflation. Meaning that because of the low inflation no one is losing what they could have or what they already had, making an extraordinary change in the amount of middle class “members.” A great example of the low inflation is the 450 million people in India and China which were raised out of poverty in the last 25 years, which are more people than the raise in the last 150 years. Fareed Zakaria shows how democracy grew and expanded worldwide causing extreme and extraordinary phenomenons after the World War II.

Tiago Fonseca

27/8/2012 08:06:46 am

Regarding the 2nd question, yes I do see a trend in Brazil in regard to one of the particular threats, and it would be the “tyranny of the present over the future”. Brazil is a country that thinks too much on the now, rather than what will it do in the long run. For example, in Brazil there are many programs to help the poor with their financial situation, gives them benefits and pensions. Unfortunately that makes them dependent on these programs, and if they do not elect the person that helped them, that gave them the benefits, to power, they might lose these benefits and therefore they get stuck in a scheme that makes them dependent on a system that is actually hurting them. The do not understand that they should not be accepting this system, but rather request one that helps them get back on their feet. This mentality of the now over the later hurt countries socially and economically. Take countries from Europe as an example, France, Italy, Greece, Spain, and others, have all social programs that do the same thing. In the end they cannot afford to pay back the cost that these benefits generate. This caused them to get in this economic crisis. They should have focused on what to do on the long run rather than make a quick decision and ignore the repercussions. Sweden was on the same boat, but as soon as they saw that it was not going to work they changed, by cutting down enough programs to balance their economy. If countries so not focus on the long term solutions, and keep going in this direction, there will be an inevitable bankruptcy of nations.

Gaëlle

27/8/2012 08:22:53 am

Fareed Zakaria has an utterly precise notion of matters dealing with democracy. He is able to make sense of the present situations and predict what is likely to happen, by stating what worries him the most about this illiberal democracy we live in. He starts out by suggesting that we (the people) almost live in the world we idealize, and that is we are currently living an extraordinary moment in history that is marked by four distinct phenomenons very rare in history:

1. "Global Peace"-
This peace among great powers is striking because even the seven or eight richest powers are not in significant geo-political or geo-military competition with one another.

2. Broad global middle class bolstered by the constraining of inflation-
This category falls in the description of Zakaria’s creation of global market economy which has eventually led to the rise of living standards of average people over the last three or four decades. A mass middle class was created and the idea that there could be significant wealth among middle class people is unprecedented in history. After WWII, change is noticeable regarding the sudden rise of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China and India. 25 percent of the poor have been raised out of their poor conditions and health situations. The extraordinarily low inflation nowadays has lead to such a market and economic growth. Hyperinflation, on the other hand, destroys the present and not the future; it destroys the assets and consequently destroys the middle class. It is astonishing social unsteadiness that devastate middle class. It is true that the rise of the information revolution has had the effect of turning information into a problematic phenomenon. “Everyone is connected but no one is in control”.

3. The "Anglo American consensus"
Fareed Zakaria argues that we have been living through a period of time in which ideas about the ways in which you should organize government, politics, economics, and society have verged toward Anglo-American ideas that exult freedom, individualism, and liberty. We are following the pattern of the world that was set by Anglo-Americans. A power shift, as he names “the rise of the rest” is now at the scale of the rise of Europe and U.S and is occurring primarily in Asia, in which these countries are now able to participate in the world global system effectively.

4. Technology that empowers human beings and not regimes
Lastly, “Everyone is connected but no one is in control”. This is the key to the new revolution in which the people have access to information quickly and can empower others.

Leonardo

27/8/2012 08:35:53 am

Fared Zakaria mentions that we are experiencing a unique moment in history when an Information Revolution takes place. Over time, information no longer became restrict to the leaders, such as during the Middle Ages in Europe, when religion contained all the knowledge of a nation and was also the government. With that, society agreed with norms and rules since they did not even have the opportunity to think differently. Religion and faith made people less critical in relation to government and all they were subjected to. With time, Renaissance provided an educational reform to those who could afford, and with that, the world was able to question the place they lived more and more.
Nowadays, globalization made individuals from all nations to be aware of what is happening on the other side of the globe. This effect was encouraged by the development of Internet and formal education, which broadened the access to that information, attending a much greater public. With that, people were exposed to different ideals, which were not necessarily those of their nations. The principles of democracy seem extremely tempting to those in a non-democratic nation, given that it involves liberty, equality and individualism, which of course, is humanly pleasing to everyone. All that public support was added to economic need, as more and more nations develop towards democracy. The world is now is more globalized than ever, and a more open market is a question of economic necessity to many nations. China for example, even though it is not a democracy, has applied opened its market to the world over the past years, which resulted on the formation of a great power. Zakira mentions that no consolidated democracy has ever had a regression. Once in democracy, it is extremely difficult to step back, considering the global demands and that the people would hardly give up their support.

Thais Oliveira

27/8/2012 11:33:18 am

Re-establishment of Equality
Through history the world has been marked by several power shifts: such as during the 16th century when there was the rise of Europe.
During the 19th century with the rise of the United States. Finally now in the
21st century the global power has shifted once more in order for the “rise of the rest” to take place. I believe that the “rise of the rest” is not a threat; it is actually a positive change, for now the world is leveling and the once huge divide between a nation that is slowly decreasing with globalization. The “rise of the rest” means that finally there will be some change, for if no one likes dictators why would they like countries that have been in power so long that reality starts to deform and mess with the power balance. Hence there is no reason to feel threatened by the new powerful rise in order for the world to progress, but the only danger is that the ones who had risen long ago develop prejudice against the ones that are rising now.

Alana Cavalcanti

27/8/2012 01:43:58 pm

The lecture of Fareed Zakaria presents the extremely positive effects of the society we currently live in. The four tends he presents, "Global Peace”, broad global middle class bolstered by the constraining of inflation, "Anglo American consensus" and the technology that empowers human beings and not regimes, are in my perspective somewhat questionable. There is no world peace achieved yet, if there was there would not be so may long lasting and uprinsing issues to be debated in the United Nations. There must not be a war that involved the extreme majority of the world in which civilians are being killed every second, but there is more tense situations in between nations and also inside the border of a single nation than before. The middle class is with out a doubt increasing, but also the distance from billionaires and people that live under poverty conditions remain. The wealth was able to rise in nations like China, Japan, India and Taiwan (which have similar culture and principles), but not in African nation and Latin America. However, I can’t disagree with the technology empowerment of the population. Social media connects the rise of information, since now a great part of the populations to others but in most cases there is no one in actual control of the situation. The possibility of having information and spreading the word was the base of the Arab-Spring, which used social medias to communicate and plan protests against the oppressive regimes around the Middle Eastern area, creating the power shift of the twenty first century, Rise of the Rest, which can also be referred as the Rise of the people.

Victor

22/9/2012 09:44:47 am

All the points that Fareed Zakaria came up with are important. The fact that global peace, the incensement of economy, the technological/informational “revolution” and the expansion of the American way of life have contributed for the rise of the “others” are all relevant and important factors. I believe that all those factors “threat” the current society that we live in, but in a “peaceful” way. The paradox of a peaceful threat that I came up with is because I believe that since all countries are rising, there will be no space for one hegemonic power such as United States, Great Britain in the past, Rome, Egypt and many other civilizations that ruled the world. A worldwide government will be an issue to be considered in the future. With the convergence of many different cultures, religions, ethnicities if this central power is not built the shock will be so great that could seriously threat our world. The fact that illiberal democracies are coming up is because the democratic models must change, it’s getting to a point where it will stop working in a few years. Such as feudalism in the middle Ages, the current economic and political system will have to change in order to keep up with the evolvement of the world. The globalization is the protagonist of this change, because of this, the world is getting smaller, people can know about everything in any time. That’s why I believe that an “International government” will be required in a few years. Is not like I want it and I defend this idea with my heart, but it is what I believe that will be needed in a few years

João Soares

4/10/2012 01:47:46 am

THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

Zakaria’s take in the current state of the world is thoroughly interesting. It puts current issues in perspective and offers alternatives to the view that the world is at the brink of an impeding collapse. However, not all of his ideas are flawless. The “Anglo-American consensus” and the “Global Peace” are in threat of being severely curtailed by the results of the current revolutionary movements and oppressive regimes in the Middle Eastern region.
The idea that most countries have agreed upon a set of shared values and human rights is fascinating. However, that cannot be said when there are still countries where women are thrown stones at instead of going through a fair and just process of law. I see the “Anglo American consensus” as a confirmation bias: because there are clear examples of it and Zakaria wants to believe it, he in fact assumes that all countries will converge to that position sooner or later.
The “Global Peace” is a concept even more sought for than the “Anglo American consensus”, and Zakaria goes through even more bias to confirm it. He disregards conflicts that are not “global” in nature, even if they are often the starting point of a widespread dispute. Furthermore, the world has gone through periods of relative peace in the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, before the outbreak of WWI. Ethnic and national conflicts in Sudan, Syria, Lybia, and even Latin American countries such as Colombia with its drug cartel problems indicate that times of peace may be coming to an end.
We are on the high-end of the tide of progress. The question we should keep in mind is until how far it will go. The world we live in may be experiencing a “calm before the storm”, and we should be prepared for whatever is to come.

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