by George J. Bryjak
In a recent National Security Strategy paper, the White House proclaimed that "We will actively work to bring the hope of democracy, development, free markets, and free trade to every corner of the world ..."
This pronouncement is hardly new as economic liberals and conservatives have long held that the solution to global problems of poverty, disease, and violence is a healthy dose of laissez-faire capitalism and democracy. But open markets do not necessarily distribute increasing income and wealth equitably, and democracy is hardly a precursor of peace and political stability.
To the contrary: free-wheeling capitalism and the sudden imposition of democratic reforms are likely to turn some poor nations into war zones. This is the deadly scenario unfolding in societies characterized by what Yale law professor Amy Chua, in her book World on Fire, calls "market-dominant minorities" (MDMs) MDMs are racial or ethnic groups in a society that wield "outrageously disproportionate economic power" relative to their size and number. For example, Chua reports that although Chinese Filipinos comprise less than 2 percent of the Philippine population, they control all of the nation's supermarkets, fast-food restaurants, and large department stores. Other examples of MDMs include Chinese in Indonesia and much of Southeast Asia, Whites in South Africa and South America, Lebanese in West Africa, Indians in East Africa, and Tutsis in Rwanda.
While MDMs were well situated economically before the transformation to open markets, their wealth typically increases after the nation embraces laissez-faire capitalism. The expansion of capital in a now more democratic society results in demagoguery as politicians play into the fears, hostility, and frustration of the impoverished ethnic or racial majority. In short, democracy becomes a vehicle for unleashing long suppressed hatred directed at MDMs.
Chua presents numerous examples of politicians inflaming the passions of the racial/ethnic majority. Directing his remarks to the ethnic Hungarian MDM, a Romanian presidential candidate stated: "We will hang them directly by their Hungarian tongues." In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez speaks of "rotten" whites, "enemies of the people" who are little more that "squealing pigs" and "degenerates." In the killing field that was Rwanda in 1994, a Hutu councilwoman offered 30 cents for every severed Tutsi (the MDM) head, a practice known as "selling cabbages." An estimated 800,000 individuals (mostly Tutsis and moderate Hutus) were savagely killed over a three month period.
Chua is neither anti-capitalist, anti-democratic, nor anti-globalization. However, she argues convincingly that open-markets and democracy are economic and political philosophies that cannot be successfully implemented at a premature state of societal development. At no point in Western history, Chua observes, did any nation undergo laissez-faire capitalism and universal suffrage at the same time. "Yet this is the precise formula of free market democracy currently being pressed in the developing countries around the world."
We tend to look at open-markets and democratic institutions as readily transferable societal components that can be successfully implemented regardless of the prevailing socio-economic circumstances of the recipient nation. However, democracy is a complex form of government that requires an educated citizenry. Education cultivates an understanding for tolerance, restrains most people from adhering to extremist political views, and increases the likelihood that they will make rational electoral decisions.
While an educated public may be a prerequisite for democracy, democratic institutions are not necessary for economic prosperity. To the contrary, as Lee Kuan Yew, the former authoritarian Prime Minister of recently affluent Singapore stated: "I do not believe that democracy necessarily leads to development. I believe that what a country needs to develop is discipline more than democracy. The exuberance of democracy leads to indiscipline and disorderly conduct which are inimical to development." Robert Kaplan, who has traveled in, and written extensively about developing nations, contends that "Russia may be failing in part because it is a democracy and China may be succeeding in part because it is not."
Saudi Arabia's King Fahd believes that democracy is not well suited to the Middle-East, proclaiming that "Islam is our social and political law. It is a complete constitution of social and economic laws and a system of government and justice." This statement can be interpreted as either a rationalization for the House of Saud's enduring stranglehold on power in the one of the world's most authoritarian states, or an accurate appraisal of the political and social reality of the Islamic Middle-East. The King's hypothesis will be tested in part in a forthcoming "democratic" Iraq.
This leads us full circle to Chua's thesis that the sudden introduction of free-market capitalism and democracy in developing nations characterized by MDMs and an impoverished majority is more likely to produce death and destruction than peace and prosperity. If open-market, democratic societies are humanity's best hope for material well-being and political freedom, then these institutions may have to evolve - as they have in the Western world - within the historical context of individual nations.
Our one-size-fits-all antidote for remedying global poverty and political subjugation (however well intentioned) may be more a part of the problem than a cure. It would be tragic if the wretchedness of a Saddam Hussein controlled Iraq was surpassed by rampant lawlessness in a society ill prepared to make the transition to free-market capitalism and democracy.
George Bryjak is a professor of sociology at the University of San Diego currently on leave. He can be reached at: bryjak@sandiego.edu
