From: randy (cryofan@mylinuxisp.com)
Date: Tue Apr 15 2003 - 04:27:23 MDT
On Tue, 15 Apr 2003 00:22:10 -0700, you wrote:
>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.
i.e., not suffering from "white guilt." Yes, the folks at vdare.com
are very interested in her book:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=site:www%2Evdare%2Ecom+chua4
It appears you are in good company, Lee!
> 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
Political anthropologist....
>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.
Shades of Nazi Germany! We saw it first here in the West....
> 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.
Envy, that old, greenback-eyed monster...
> 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."
a la Hitler...
> 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
Yep, the lamb never really did lie down with the lion....
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