Putting Liberty First: The Case Against Democracy

The U.S. State Department has a Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor whose purpose is to "promote democracy as a means to achieve security, stability, and prosperity for the entire world" and "identify and denounce regimes that deny their citizens the right to choose their leaders in elections that are free, fair, and transparent." The Bush administration has already promised to bring democracy to Iraq after Saddam Hussein is ousted. And Americans regularly condemn China for being undemocratic and praise Russia for its democratic advances. Democracy is the way Americans distinguish the good guys from the bad, those regimes worth supporting from those not, and it is the first remedy prescribed for any country whose practices are disliked. But Fareed Zakaria, editor and columnist at Newsweek International, argues in The Future of Freedom that many developing societies initially fare best under what he calls "liberal authoritarian regimes," and that "what we need in [American] politics today is not more democracy but less."

Zakaria's provocative and wide-ranging book is eminently worth reading. If not entirely persuasive when dealing with contemporary American politics, he is correct that Americans' obsession with electoral democracy has clouded their understanding of countries such as Russia, China, and South Korea and led at times to disastrous policy choices. This case has been made before, but never as simply and clearly. His book displays a kind of argumentation, grounded in history and political philosophy, of which there is precious little these days, particularly among opinion columnists.

CHAD, NOT CHADS

Zakaria's argument pivots on a distinction between constitutional liberty and democracy. He defines the former as the protection of individual rights of speech, property, and religion through a system of law not subject to arbitrary government manipulation. This phenomenon developed gradually over time, he argues. Imperial Rome had a system of law, but not constitutional liberty. England gained rudimentary constitutional liberties after the Magna Carta in 1215, and the United States was founded as a system of constitutional liberty in 1788.

Zakaria defines democracy, in contrast, as a political system based on "open, free, and fair elections." In 1830, the United Kingdom had constitutional liberty but was not a democracy: only two percent of the population was eligible to vote. The United States became a full-fledged liberal democracy after women won the vote in 1920 and blacks were guaranteed access to the polls in 1965, and now most of Europe consists of liberal democracies also. Singapore today has liberty, but not democracy. Russia, on the other hand, has elections, but under Vladimir Putin it is tossing out some of the constitutional liberties it acquired after the fall of communism.

Zakaria argues that the best way to turn developing countries into liberal democracies is by fostering constitutional liberty rather than democracy. If electoral democracy is established in a society before it has achieved constitutional liberty, it is likely to either end up as an "illiberal democracy" (like Russia) or degenerate into fascism or populist authoritarianism (as Germany and Italy did between the world wars). He speculates that if elections were held now in many Middle Eastern or North African countries, they would be won by fundamentalist parties that would proceed to destroy whatever modicum of liberty exists and probably eliminate future elections as well.

Zakaria's role models are countries that first created a strong constitutional liberal infrastructure, often under a liberal authoritarian regime. They include South Korea, Taiwan, Chile, and Singapore. Before South Korea and Taiwan instituted elections, many American liberals denounced them for their lack of democracy, and Singapore's government is still in disfavor.

His object lessons of what happens when democracy is forced on a country prematurely are Russia and Indonesia, where the United States and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) made elections a condition of economic assistance during the late 1990s. In the great Russia-China debate over which should come first, political reform or economic reform, Zakaria sides most definitely with the Chinese.

What makes constitutional liberty possible? Zakaria is most persuasive in arguing that it is the development of autonomous institutions within society that are not beholden to state power -- and most important, those institutions of property that are created by the development of capitalism. He writes, "If the struggles between church and state, lords and kings, and Catholics and Protestants cracked open the door for individual liberty, capitalism blew the walls down." Market capitalism, not wealth per se, creates an independent bourgeoisie that upholds the universal rule of law as a protection against feudal state power.

Centuries ago, capitalism and constitutional liberty failed to take root in poverty-ridden subsistence economies, but today, Zakaria argues, the most inhospitable circumstances are found in countries that have significant access to unearned wealth -- be it from oil revenues in Saudi Arabia or from canal revenues in Egypt. He calls these "trust fund" societies. The ruling class lives off the rents it collects, which it also uses to buy off the citizenry. These societies lack an independent, entrepreneurial middle class, which could provide the basis for constitutional liberty. Their problem, Zakaria concludes, "is wealth, not poverty."