From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Tue Apr 15 2003 - 01:22:10 MDT
There is a new book that I hope some people on this list
read, or are reading, that sheds a tremendous amount of
light on the paradoxes of the current world political
situation. The book is "World on Fire", by Amy Chua.
The author, if anything, appears slightly more liberal
than conservative, but certainly is not following any
ideology. Probably not coincidentally, if I'm right
about this book: because new paradigms of course don't
fit prior preconceptions.
The book's subtitle is "How Exporting Free Market
Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability".
The author is a professor at Yale Law School, has
traveled extensively, and "lectures frequently on the
effects of globalization to government, business, and
academic groups around the world". She's also a native
(of Chinese descent) of the Philippines, and in my opinion
speaks much more freely about many topics than most of
us in the West permit ourselves to. From her accounts,
it's obvious that she's held innumerable discussions with
people living in all these different developing nations.
The first four chapters are fascinating alone for their
descriptions of the conditions and politics in many
countries around the world, from Southeast Asia to
Latin America and Africa. She definitely has the
touch of an anthropologist! I think that she does
an outstanding job getting inside both the undeveloped
countries, and the minds of their peoples around
the world.
The second four chapters concern "The Political
Consequences of Globalization", and include the
backlash and the counter-backlash to globalization's
effects; together the first eight chapters lay the
groundwork for the following introduction to the
last four chapters of the book:
The global spread of free market democracy has thus
been a principal, aggravating cause of ethnic
instability and violence throughout the non-Western
world. In country after country outside the
West---from Mandalay to Moscow, from Jakarta to
Nairobi---laissez-fair markets have magnified the
often astounding wealth and economic prominence of
an "outsider" minority, generating great reservoirs
of ethnic envy and resentment among the impoverished
"indigenous" majority. In absolute terms the
majority may actually be marginally better off as a
result of markets---this was true, for example, of
Indonesia and most of the Sounteast Asian countries
in the 1980s and 1990s---but these small
improvements are overwhelmed by the majority's
continuing poverty and the hated minority's
extraordinary economic success, invariably including
their control of the "crown jewels" of the economy.
Democracy, sadly, does not quell this resentment.
On the contrary, democratization, by increasing the
political voice and power of the "indigenous"
majority, has fostered the emergence of demagogues
---like Zimbabwe's Mugabe, Serbia's Milosevic,
Russia's Zyuganov, Bolivia's Great Condor, and
Rwanda's Hutu Power leaders---who opportunistically
whip up mass hatred against the resented minority,
demanding that the country's wealth be returned to
the "true owners of the nation." As a result, in
its raw, for-export form, the pursuit of free market
democracy outside the West has repeatedly led not to
widespread peace and prosperity, but to ethnic
confiscation, authoritarian backlash, and mass killing.
What does al this have to do with the West? Is the
non-Western world perhaps just hopeless---too
divided, backward, and violent to sustain free
market democracy? Perhaps the United States and the
other Western nations should simply wash their hands
of underdeveloped societies and their intractable,
horrendous problems. In the end, what do
market-dominant minorities and ethnonationalism have
to do with us?
Actually, they have everything to do with us. Or so
this final part of the book will argue.
The next four chapters will show that the explosive
confrontation between a market-dominant minority and
an aroused ethno-nationalist majority is by no means
limited to the non-Western world. On the contrary,
this confrontation lurks beneath some of the most
violent, abominable episodes of Western history.
Moreover, even today this explosive dynamic is not
confined to individual developing countries. It is
being played out at regional and global levels in
ways that directly affect the Western nations,
particularly the United States.
I very much want to see this viewpoint criticized; also,
even if she's exactly right, it's hardly clear what
consequently the best course of action would be. (I've
not gotten to what, if any recommendations she has yet.)
Lee
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue Apr 15 2003 - 01:29:19 MDT