Too much of a good thing · 2008-06-15
I have a happy confession to make. My opinions are still shifting. “Happy”? Well, everyone knows that only idiots don’t change their minds.* (*Sorry, this is yet another article about politics. I’m trying to kick the habit.)
The last time my views changed — really changed — was back in the 1990s. Bosnia and then Kosovo convinced me that individual rights trump collective ones: in other words, war is sometimes better than tyranny. I noticed that leftist types have trouble with this calculation, preferring to worry about empires and national self-determination. I began to identify as a liberal. But like many liberals, I was seduced by the language of democracy. In Kosovo, then Afghanistan, and then a certain other middle-eastern country, the imperative was to give people the right to choose their rulers. It’s a right we take for granted, and the 20th century proves that it is indeed possible to “export” democracy (difficult, but possible). Meanwhile, at home, the communications revolution of the 1990s went to my head. Camera phones and blogging and Wikipedia would, surely, make dictatorship impossible in the developed world. Humans are basically good; trust them and they’ll be responsible with power.
But events — in Iraq, Russia, even Britain — suggested my interpretation was perhaps off. And a couple of books — a fat tome on the French Revolution, and Fareed Zakaria’s Future of Freedom — have made me look at things in a new light. I now see that liberty and democracy are different, and that one is more important than the other.
In a sense the French Revolution was no more about freedom than the Russian one. It was about people power. Events a few hundred metres from where I’m sitting inspired the modern cult of liberty, but they were also a dry run for both communism and fascism. Robespierre’s personality cult foreshadowed Lenin’s; the fédéré marches on the Champ de Mars look awfully like Nuremberg. I hardly need to cite the Committee for Public Safety or the Vendée proto-genocide. Dissent, diversity and tolerance were victims of 1789. And the victors? Democracy and the people.
Up to a point, democracy and liberty are symbiotic: they are each other’s guarantor. But beyond that point, it’s decision time — because in essence democracy is a collective right and liberty an individual one. In practice democracy usually wins, turning illiberal and bringing the danger of authoritarian populism (Napoleon III, Chavez, Putin) — and of course fascism. As Fareed Zakaria says, you can have too much of a good thing.
But liberty is more precious than democracy. Freedom of thought, the separation of powers, the rule of law, basic human rights: these jewels emerged by quirks of history and geography. It is still not clear whether they are inevitable in the long term. They need constant protection.
Zakaria extends the point to its logical conclusion. The creeping extension of people power in the West must be rolled back. He cites California’s self-contradictory citizen initiatives; the all-consuming US electoral calendar; the transparency of Congress; even referendums in Europe. As James Madison worried, the result everywhere has been the same: more power for special interests, who have the time and the money to influence the political process. By chasing ever-deeper democracy, we have created counter-productive outcomes and undermined our democratic leaders, who are now reduced to a grovelling role of permanent electioneering. In this way we have diminished our own respect for our political system, and by association our respect for liberty.
Voting is important. But freedom is more so, and hands-on government is not always its best guarantee.
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