Shownotes
My thoughts on democracy.
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Transcripts
Well, hello there, dear listener.
Speaker:This is the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast, episode 321.
Speaker:Normally, we're a panel discussion where we talk about...
Speaker:News and politics and sex and religion and the events that have taken place
Speaker:in the previous weeks and we head down various rabbit holes but I decided
Speaker:a while ago that I needed to mix it up a bit and every second week do a
Speaker:little monologue where I talk about a topic of interest and it's proven to
Speaker:be harder than I thought it would be.
Speaker:It's not easy just to sit on your own and just rant about
Speaker:things and keep it interesting.
Speaker:And anyway, I'm going to give it a crack on this occasion.
Speaker:See how we go.
Speaker:This is actually take two because I did one and then for some reason the power
Speaker:went out in this house and tripped and I kept most of my recording but it, it
Speaker:totally threw me off and I thought, oh.
Speaker:Wasn't happy with it.
Speaker:So I'm starting again anyway.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:We're going to talk about democracy and power and some ideas relating
Speaker:to that and well, the reason why is because Number one, I saw an article
Speaker:in the Rationalist magazine called The Rationale, I think it's called.
Speaker:It was by Carrick Ryan in defense of democracy And he wrote a few things
Speaker:which I just sort of have problems with.
Speaker:And also just recently the USA has conducted a Summit for Democracy, which I
Speaker:think is the height of hypocrisy myself.
Speaker:And I think what annoyed me in Carrick's article was to do with terminology
Speaker:and And the idea that we get confused between democracy and capitalism and
Speaker:market economies and the benefits that flow from one, assuming that they...
Speaker:are not necessarily tied in with the other.
Speaker:So, so what I'll do, in my first one I really gave a blow by blow
Speaker:description of Carrick's essay and I'm not going to do that this time.
Speaker:I'm just going to tell you what the general ideas were and just deal with
Speaker:them, try and make it more interesting.
Speaker:So here we go.
Speaker:So in his essay he says, he said, basically, democracy leads to countries
Speaker:that are better places to live in.
Speaker:This is because they have growing economies, which grow
Speaker:because of creative destruction.
Speaker:In democracies, innovation forces power structure, adaption.
Speaker:But in non democratic countries, the powerful are able to suppress,
Speaker:sort of, newcomers, challenges.
Speaker:Just look at history.
Speaker:The more democratic a state, the more successful it is.
Speaker:And democracies give us individual freedom, which other systems don't allow.
Speaker:And our democracies are not perfect, but rather than abandon democracy as an
Speaker:ideology, we should fight to improve it.
Speaker:I think that's a fair summary of, of what the article said.
Speaker:Now, what I want to say in, in my response and talking about democracy
Speaker:is that democracy is a relatively small factor in determining the
Speaker:success or failure of many countries.
Speaker:You've got to remember, most countries are relatively small and when a big player, a
Speaker:big bully, wants to bully them, they can.
Speaker:And it's not really going to matter whether they're a democracy or not.
Speaker:We live in the age of the American empire, and in my view, if you get in the road of
Speaker:American self interest, you're stuffed.
Speaker:No matter how democratic you are.
Speaker:On the other hand, if you can aid American self interest, you'll thrive
Speaker:no matter how authoritarian you are.
Speaker:So, to me, for a lot of players in the world, their success of particularly
Speaker:smaller countries isn't so much whether they are democratic or authoritarian,
Speaker:it's whether they're on the good or bad side of the American empire.
Speaker:Now, when I refer to American self interest, I mean the American military
Speaker:industrial complex, you know, the oligarchy that's running the place.
Speaker:So I think it's misleading to connect democracy with capitalism,
Speaker:prosperity, innovation, market economies, personal freedom, health
Speaker:and happiness, as if these things are all linked by some rule of nature.
Speaker:They all come hand in hand.
Speaker:So, it sort of annoyed me that the Rationalists published this essay.
Speaker:I mean, it not annoyed me.
Speaker:I mean, it's good that essays are published, and I
Speaker:guess this is my response.
Speaker:And, and I know that there's a certain view around the world
Speaker:that, you know, a guy like Steven Pinker, that everything's okay.
Speaker:Western and
Speaker:will continue to do so, provided we keep them in good shape.
Speaker:And...
Speaker:I really think rational Australians and others need to just sort of
Speaker:carefully look at that story and see if it's really true or not.
Speaker:So, how power truly operates in the world, I don't think is how it
Speaker:was painted in Carrick's article.
Speaker:So, as I said, the truth is that traditionally powerful countries,
Speaker:for me, they have exploited either other smaller countries, or their
Speaker:own resources, or their own working class, or the world financial system.
Speaker:And the opportunities for further exploitation have run out,
Speaker:and a reckoning is imminent.
Speaker:Capitalism requires growth, and those sorts of fake growth options have run out.
Speaker:So, I agree with Carrick that democracy is in trouble.
Speaker:I agree.
Speaker:I think to rescue it, we need to understand why it's in decline.
Speaker:And a book by Wendy Brown, and the title of the book is...
Speaker:In the ruins of neoliberalism, the rise of anti democratic politics in the West.
Speaker:And, according to Wendy, we can blame neoliberalism, so she says that
Speaker:neoliberalism was a political and moral project that put individual
Speaker:liberty above all else and it demonised democracy because it demonised Any
Speaker:idea of the state having the authority to interfere in individuals lives.
Speaker:So, neoliberalism pooh poohed the state, the commons, the social good, elevated
Speaker:the individual as the primary concern.
Speaker:And really, from a neoliberal point of view, democracy is a bit dangerous.
Speaker:It can allow the majority to limit the freedom of an individual.
Speaker:If enough people vote for it, and from a neo liberal point of view,
Speaker:they would rather personal freedom and would, and would put up with an
Speaker:authoritarian, undemocratic government if it were leaving individuals
Speaker:alone to do whatever they wanted to.
Speaker:That would be the sort of neo liberal approach, and that has permeated
Speaker:our culture, and that erosion of the common good in society.
Speaker:The elevation of the individual has sowed the seeds of doubt for democracy.
Speaker:That's her analysis, and I tend to agree with it.
Speaker:So, if we want to fix the decline in democracy, We're going to need
Speaker:to restore the social, the commons, the idea of society, alright.
Speaker:So, just a few introductory ideas on democracy and its
Speaker:place in the scheme of things.
Speaker:What is democracy?
Speaker:Essentially, power to the people, where everybody's treated equally.
Speaker:They get a vote and a say in how the society operates, and it's
Speaker:not dictated to them by a small clique of unaccountable people.
Speaker:So, a small clique of people running a place is an oligarchy.
Speaker:If they've got lots of money, which is normally the case, it's a plutocracy.
Speaker:You could have an aristocracy, where it's, you know, kings and queens, where
Speaker:it occurs via hereditary sort of means.
Speaker:And the other options would be sort of tyrannies and dictatorships,
Speaker:and interesting, Plato, the Greek philosopher, uh, ranked sort of oligarch
Speaker:and plutocracies and, and aristocracies as preferable to democracies, and
Speaker:only just above, and ranked democracy only just above sort of a tyranny.
Speaker:So, that was his view of the best ways of operating a society.
Speaker:So, the other idea we need to get across is that, you know, authoritarian states
Speaker:can, can conduct liberal societies, where they don't care what you do, get
Speaker:divorced, gay people can marry, have abortions, you know, do whatever you like.
Speaker:It's possible for an unelected government.
Speaker:authoritarian ruling group or person to, to have a fairly liberal
Speaker:interpretation of individual preferences and just that you can't vote them out.
Speaker:You know, it, it doesn't have to go hand in hand.
Speaker:It often does, but it doesn't have to.
Speaker:The other thing is just thinking about capitalism and market economies, you know,
Speaker:they're different things and authoritarian regimes can operate not only market
Speaker:economies, but also capitalist economies.
Speaker:I mean, if you look at modern day China, there's a lot of people getting very rich.
Speaker:Running capitalist enterprises.
Speaker:And capitalism, you have to understand, is quite different to a market economy.
Speaker:So, people, people tend to think, Oh, you can't have socialism or telling
Speaker:people what to do in terms of a command economy and how many loaves of bread
Speaker:to bake and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker:You know, that's different.
Speaker:A command economy where the central government body tells people what
Speaker:to do and how often to do it.
Speaker:It's a sort of a command economy versus a market economy where
Speaker:the market through the forces of supply and demand works things out.
Speaker:So you can have an authoritarian regime that runs a market economy.
Speaker:Capitalism is really a recent invention.
Speaker:It's only occurred in the last, you know, 400 years or so with the,
Speaker:you know, industrial revolution.
Speaker:So, we're, we're basically individuals were able to accumulate such wealth
Speaker:that they could live off the proceeds.
Speaker:So, most people who consider themselves capitalists are not capitalists.
Speaker:Even if you own a small business, if you're working in it every day
Speaker:because you have to, you're just another wage slave like the rest of us.
Speaker:It's just that you've got more pressure and accounting
Speaker:problems than the rest of us.
Speaker:You're not a capitalist.
Speaker:You're a believer in a market economy, but you're not actually
Speaker:a practicing capitalist.
Speaker:Unless you've accumulated such wealth, you don't have to work at all.
Speaker:All right, so enough of the sort of definition sort of things.
Speaker:What does Carrick say in the article?
Speaker:He says, well, democracy leads to countries that are
Speaker:better places to live in.
Speaker:And in support of that argument, he said, what did he say?
Speaker:He said, look at the, there's an index he came across, which was,
Speaker:let me just get it straight here.
Speaker:The Human Development Index is a score given to nations based on a number
Speaker:of variables such as life expectancy, education and per capita income.
Speaker:And Carrick says that in the top 30, all but one, Hong Kong, is a democracy.
Speaker:And he says, is it just pure coincidence, or not?
Speaker:And essentially he goes on to say that, well, democracies...
Speaker:allow for innovation.
Speaker:And it's because of that innovation that their economies grow
Speaker:and that they are successful.
Speaker:So it's no coincidence that the top third democracies, it's because
Speaker:democracies lead to innovation, which leads to growth of economies.
Speaker:Just want to make the point that really a lot of countries in the top
Speaker:30 would be doing very well because of circumstances beyond just their,
Speaker:the fact that they're a democracy.
Speaker:I mean, if you're a former colonial power and you've accumulated massive
Speaker:wealth over hundreds of years from, from extracting wealth from the
Speaker:colonies, And you've then reinvested that into modern day enterprises.
Speaker:You know, that, that can have a much more to do with why you're in the top 30 than
Speaker:the fact that you're running a democracy.
Speaker:That sort of build up of wealth through colonisation that you
Speaker:continue to live off is a huge factor.
Speaker:It might also be that the country...
Speaker:It just has itself vast resources per head of population, e.
Speaker:g.
Speaker:Australia or e.
Speaker:g.
Speaker:the Arab oil states.
Speaker:And there are other factors at play.
Speaker:If you look at that same index and you say, well, who were the big
Speaker:improvers in the last five years?
Speaker:You can actually...
Speaker:Play around with the figures and put in a spreadsheet and run them around, and
Speaker:which ones have moved up a lot of places.
Speaker:And in the last five years, guess what?
Speaker:The biggest improver, by a significant margin, is China, moved up 12 places.
Speaker:And it's not a democracy, apparently.
Speaker:So what does that say then?
Speaker:If your argument is, look at the Human Development Index, and
Speaker:the top 30 are all democracies, but the biggest improver is...
Speaker:Is not a democracy?
Speaker:What does that say about how the world is operating now?
Speaker:Also, if you're looking at the, at the top 10 improvers, China, Dominican
Speaker:Republic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Thailand, Maldives, Bangladesh,
Speaker:Ireland, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Georgia.
Speaker:And I'll just tell you whether they are democracies or not.
Speaker:And in that same order, China, authoritarian.
Speaker:Dominican Republic, Flawed Democracy, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hybrid,
Speaker:Thailand, Flawed Democracy, Maldives, I couldn't see what the information
Speaker:was, Bangladesh, Hybrid, Ireland, Full Democracy, Hong Kong, Hybrid, Kazakhstan,
Speaker:Authoritarian, Georgia, Hybrid.
Speaker:So in the top 10 improvers, the only one that was a full democracy was
Speaker:Ireland for the last five years.
Speaker:So, What does that say about whether you need to be a
Speaker:democracy, a successful country.
Speaker:Maybe other things are at play here.
Speaker:So my argument would be that for a lot of countries who are doing well,
Speaker:It's because of historical factors that they are continuing to benefit
Speaker:from, and if you look at countries that are doing poorly, it may not be
Speaker:because they're a democracy or not.
Speaker:It could be other factors involved that means life's not
Speaker:so great in those countries.
Speaker:And I looked at who's doing worse, who's the worst performers in this
Speaker:democracy, in this sort of development.
Speaker:When I came out with the figures, the worst performer was the Marshall
Speaker:Islands, but that was because it didn't have figures previously, so it
Speaker:was like a not applicable type thing.
Speaker:The worst performer by far, dropped 44 places in five years, was Venezuela.
Speaker:And then the second worst was Yemen, and then East Timor.
Speaker:Denmark, Brunei, Barbados, Lebanon, Dominica, and Palestine.
Speaker:When you look at those, do you think, yeah, maybe there
Speaker:might be other factors beyond?
Speaker:Democracy at play here.
Speaker:And Venezuela is an interesting classic example.
Speaker:The worst performer of the lot.
Speaker:And, and really, if you look at Venezuela and where it appears on democracy
Speaker:indexes, you'll often see it appears as a terrible authoritarian state.
Speaker:But when you read other material, you would say to yourself,
Speaker:well, it's actually a democracy.
Speaker:So we've mentioned it before in the podcast, but Jimmy Carter, former
Speaker:president of the United States, created the Carter Foundation.
Speaker:They go around the world looking at elections in places like Venezuela
Speaker:and send independent people to the voting booths, looking around,
Speaker:checking, reporting back on whether the systems in place are truly
Speaker:democratic or whether the fix is on.
Speaker:So, when Hugo Chavez was elected as the president of Venezuela, he of course was
Speaker:a socialist, the Jimmy Carter said, of the 92 elections that we've monitored,
Speaker:I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.
Speaker:By way of contrast, the US election system, with its emphasis on
Speaker:campaign money, is one of the worst.
Speaker:Just recently, Venezuela had Some midterm elections.
Speaker:So it wasn't the President, but it was other office bearers and the Carder
Speaker:Centre has not yet reported on that.
Speaker:But I'm keeping my eye out to see what they say.
Speaker:But there was another group called the National Lawyers Guild.
Speaker:Who seem to do a similar thing to what the Carter Foundation is doing.
Speaker:And they sent a delegation of lawyers, of guild members, to Venezuela to monitor
Speaker:the regional elections in November 2021.
Speaker:And in their report, they say they observed a balanced and
Speaker:transparent voting process, which voters expressed confidence in.
Speaker:And it goes on about how many sites they visited.
Speaker:And the communications that they had, and basically a conclusion that
Speaker:they were very satisfied with the conduct of the election in Venezuela.
Speaker:And a conclusion that said, so here, overall we observed a climate
Speaker:of political energy grounded in an understanding that the voting day
Speaker:process, regardless of one's individual political ideology, functions fairly
Speaker:and is received as legitimate.
Speaker:And they then went on to criticise the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:for its sanctions that it's operating.
Speaker:So when it comes back to, well, Carrick's argument, if you look at
Speaker:the, uh, development index, the top 30 are democracies, that seems to
Speaker:be more than a coincidence, it's democracies that allow innovation,
Speaker:innovation allows growing economies, well, you've got a dog democracy in
Speaker:Venezuela that's dropped 44 places.
Speaker:The reason is, even if you think it's an authoritarian state, the
Speaker:reason is because of the sanctions.
Speaker:The reason Yemen is the next country is because of a civil war that's
Speaker:been going on in that country with weapons supplied by the US and the
Speaker:UK, other democracies, to the Saudis.
Speaker:So, you know, it's, it's certainly the case that throughout history in
Speaker:Latin America, if we look at Chile.
Speaker:With the Allende government that the US overthrew, even though it was
Speaker:democratically elected, they just didn't like it because it was socialist.
Speaker:Henry Kissinger admitted that, and they were going to do whatever they could
Speaker:to get rid of him, so they installed an authoritarian dictator, General Pinochet.
Speaker:They did similar things in Guatemala, similar things in
Speaker:other Latin American countries.
Speaker:Same thing in Iran, where Mossadegh was duly elected, and Kermit Roosevelt.
Speaker:CIA agent engineered the overthrow of his government.
Speaker:I mean, these are all things that are beyond, these are not disputed.
Speaker:These are admitted by the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:in their own documents.
Speaker:This is not fanciful stuff.
Speaker:I mean, is the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:a democracy if it runs around the world overthrowing democracies?
Speaker:And installing dictators?
Speaker:What, how does that affect their ranking in the Democracy Index, I wonder?
Speaker:So the other thing that, so of course the sanctions are incredibly difficult
Speaker:on places like Venezuela and Cuba, that these people can't access products that
Speaker:other countries can access, just because the US decides to impose sanctions.
Speaker:The same with Iran.
Speaker:I mean, there was a deal done by Obama in relation to nuclear inspections.
Speaker:It was Trump killed that deal and sanctions reimposed, you know, a lot of
Speaker:the welfare and benefit in a country, if you are cut off from the world economy
Speaker:by the US, you are necessarily going to plummet down the development index,
Speaker:whether you're a democracy or not.
Speaker:And you know, on a, on a sort of a more macro scale, what
Speaker:happened in the seventies and eighties with the International
Speaker:Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Speaker:Both controlled by, by, was that if countries got into trouble with
Speaker:their loans, loans that they probably shouldn't have been given in the
Speaker:first place, but once they got into trouble it opened up, uh, Pandora's
Speaker:box for these poor countries.
Speaker:Essentially the IMF and the World Bank would agree to certain loans on
Speaker:the condition that these countries implement neoliberal policies, which
Speaker:was they had to allow global companies, multinational companies, to come
Speaker:in and have full access to their economies, buy whatever they wanted to.
Speaker:They had to sell their infrastructure, publicly owned,
Speaker:to help pay off their debts.
Speaker:They had to deregulate so that when those companies were in there, they
Speaker:could do the hell, whatever they like.
Speaker:And they had to also, you know, lower tax as well.
Speaker:So they got stuck.
Speaker:And in particular, they were not allowed to impose their own regime of tariffs.
Speaker:Uh, to protect any industries and what that means is that these countries
Speaker:are perpetually locked into poor, low value agricultural production.
Speaker:And it's very difficult for them to develop a manufacturing
Speaker:base because manufacturing needs protection in the early days.
Speaker:If you decide you're going to create a car manufacturing
Speaker:industry or something of that like.
Speaker:You'll never get it off the ground while other countries are allowed to bring in
Speaker:their vehicles because the local company necessarily needs time to get up to speed.
Speaker:So typically what you would do, if you could, is put barriers and tariffs and
Speaker:protections in place to give your own companies some assistance and a leg up.
Speaker:And they just weren't allowed to do that under these rules
Speaker:by the IMF and the World Bank.
Speaker:So they're stuck in this position and can't develop those industries.
Speaker:Meanwhile, places like America and other countries America in particular, when
Speaker:it first kicked off, instituted those sorts of tariffs and protected its
Speaker:industries so that they could be created.
Speaker:And once they were, then they were happy to be opened up.
Speaker:But it's, it's terribly unfair on these countries that they're locked into.
Speaker:Oh, well you provide the agriculture for the world, we provide the high
Speaker:tech and the services in the West.
Speaker:Just a shame that the high tech and the services are the big paying ones.
Speaker:And Germany and Europe will provide some manufacturing as well.
Speaker:I mean, it's, it's very difficult for them.
Speaker:So, they're locked into things.
Speaker:and systems that are operating sort of a power imbalance that is operating
Speaker:irrespective of whether they are a democracy or an authoritarian regime.
Speaker:The most important thing is, are they being bullied by larger forces?
Speaker:And that's what's often occurring to keep these countries down out of the
Speaker:top 30 in terms of development index.
Speaker:So what else did Carrick say in, oh, innovation?
Speaker:Actually, let me go right back to the beginning.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:He says that in democracies, innovation forces power structure adaption.
Speaker:So, where there's innovation in democracies, existing
Speaker:players have to adapt.
Speaker:But he says in non democratic countries, the powerful are
Speaker:able to suppress the challenges.
Speaker:And, and there was a little bit there about, also, the propensity of
Speaker:democracies to produce innovation.
Speaker:Now, when it comes to producing innovation out of different systems.
Speaker:There's no reason why authoritarian regimes can't produce innovation.
Speaker:And there's a bit of a myth that a lot of innovation comes from
Speaker:the private capitalist sector.
Speaker:And just to sort of expose that myth, if you like, there is an
Speaker:economist, Mariana Mazzucato.
Speaker:She made a list of 12 key technologies that make smartphones work.
Speaker:So you've got on the hardware side, you've got tiny microprocessors, memory
Speaker:chips, solid state hard drives, liquid crystal displays, lithium based batteries.
Speaker:That's hardware.
Speaker:Then you've got networks and software.
Speaker:So you've got the Fast Fourier Transform Algorithms.
Speaker:You've got the internet.
Speaker:You've got HTTP and HTML.
Speaker:You've got cellular networks.
Speaker:Global Positioning Systems, or GPS.
Speaker:You've got the touchscreen, and you've got Siri.
Speaker:So that's 12 pieces of key technologies that are part of the smartphone,
Speaker:and most people would think, wasn't it amazing that Apple was able
Speaker:to invent all of those things?
Speaker:And when Mariana Mazzucato assembled this list of technologies and reviewed their
Speaker:history, she found something striking.
Speaker:The, uh, foundational figure in the development of the iPhone wasn't
Speaker:Steve Jobs, it was Uncle Sam.
Speaker:Every single one of these 12 technologies was supported in
Speaker:significant ways by governments, often the American government.
Speaker:So, she goes on to lit where the origins are of these various technologies.
Speaker:Often they came out of the military, often they came out of, sort of,
Speaker:government funded universities.
Speaker:Good on Apple and Jobs for putting it all together and, you
Speaker:know, packaging it attractively.
Speaker:But, you know, this did not come from the private sector, those 12 inventions.
Speaker:It came out of the public sector.
Speaker:And so one could argue when it comes to innovation based on that example, that
Speaker:perhaps an authoritarian regime is more likely to have a A larger, non private
Speaker:sector, and potentially, potentially, more likely to produce innovation.
Speaker:I mean, modern companies today don't have the money for innovation spends.
Speaker:They just like to steal and copy off each other, basically.
Speaker:Anyway, so that was innovation, and also, one of the other
Speaker:things that happens is, I mean...
Speaker:Just thinking of wartime, for example.
Speaker:I mean, were the Russian and German scientists at the cutting edge?
Speaker:Even though they were part of authoritarian regimes?
Speaker:Um, I think we could say yes.
Speaker:Did the Soviets put a man into orbit first?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I mean, this came out of authoritarian regimes.
Speaker:The other thing that happens...
Speaker:If you've got an innovation in business today, in a western liberal capitalist
Speaker:democracy, what you'll find is that big players put up barriers to entry to
Speaker:stop smaller players coming in, even if they've got a slightly better product.
Speaker:If that doesn't work, they'll buy up the smaller new player and Either
Speaker:discard the innovation and thereby preserving their existing product.
Speaker:They'll utilise it, but they'll charge monopoly prices, wiping out the economic
Speaker:benefit for you and me, and keeping the economic benefit for themselves.
Speaker:So, you've only got to look at inequality graphs to see that even if innovation
Speaker:Actually transfers through to product.
Speaker:It's not, it's not so much the country's experience, the economic
Speaker:growth as the private enterprises are.
Speaker:It's probably shifting the profits offshore as a result anyway.
Speaker:So it's, it's not the case that innovation is so readily accepted in,
Speaker:in democratic capitalist societies.
Speaker:They have enormous, you know, power comes in different forms.
Speaker:It's not just democratic voting power, it's size.
Speaker:And, and, and there's a huge advantage for big existing players in any industry.
Speaker:It's very difficult for small ones to, to crack through.
Speaker:Alright, what else is going on is, what else did he say in his article
Speaker:before I just move on from that?
Speaker:I think that was the main part that I wanted to get through from that.
Speaker:So, just in terms of the US just recently convened, this happened
Speaker:on December 9th and 10th, 2021.
Speaker:The US convened a virtual Summit for Democracy, the first of its
Speaker:kind in what the State Department hopes to make an annual event.
Speaker:A summit focused on challenges and opportunities facing democracies.
Speaker:Provided a platform for leaders to announce both individual and collective
Speaker:commitments, reforms, uh, reforms and initiatives to defend democracy
Speaker:and human rights at home and abroad.
Speaker:And representatives from 110 governments were invited by the USA.
Speaker:They didn't invite Russia.
Speaker:Russia and China weren't happy about that.
Speaker:Um, spanning the globe, many other countries invited can hardly
Speaker:be classified as democratic.
Speaker:From Apartheid Israel to Brazil, also invited.
Speaker:Was the Venezuelan opposition activist, Juan Guaido, who was declared by the
Speaker:United States to be the interim president of Venezuela, at a democracy summit.
Speaker:Nearly three years later, Guaido is still considered the interim
Speaker:leader of the country by the US and its allies in the region, despite
Speaker:a failed attempt at a military coup, his coalition falling apart.
Speaker:And having never participated in a presidential election.
Speaker:That's who the US invited to its Democracy Summit.
Speaker:So, beyond the list of attendees that were invited, you could ask the US itself.
Speaker:Is it a bit of a people in glass houses shouldn't be throwing
Speaker:stones type of situation?
Speaker:So, maybe the US should have used the time and effort to look at its own system.
Speaker:So, this, I'll link to an article, is a peer reviewed Princeton
Speaker:University study from 2014.
Speaker:Entitled, Testing Theories of American Politics, Elites, Interest
Speaker:Groups, and Average Citizens.
Speaker:And what happened was, in Layman's term, they looked at policies and
Speaker:whether they came to fruition as actual law, and they looked at whether those
Speaker:policies were favoured by rich people or poor people, or by interest groups.
Speaker:In layman's terms, the policy preferences of average citizens have almost no
Speaker:bearing on the likelihood of a policy being adopted by the government.
Speaker:By contrast, the preferences of economic elites is highly correlated with the
Speaker:likelihood of a policy being adopted.
Speaker:And the study stated, The central point that emerges from our research is that
Speaker:economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have
Speaker:substantial independent impacts on U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:government policy.
Speaker:While mass based interest groups and average citizens have little
Speaker:or no independent influence.
Speaker:So, that looks like an oligarchy, and you have to question whether the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:is actually a democracy if its citizens get little or no say in government policy.
Speaker:And just the other metric was only 66 percent of, uh, Americans actually vote.
Speaker:And also at the Democracy Summit, the very first event at the Summit for Democracy
Speaker:was Media freedom and sustainability.
Speaker:The bitter irony of the United States hosting a panel on media
Speaker:freedom is not lost on many in the international community.
Speaker:Who have expressed alarm over the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:prosecution of Julian Assange for the crime of journalism that exposed the
Speaker:war crimes of the American Empire.
Speaker:So, the first event at the Democracy Summit was about media freedom
Speaker:and sustainability at almost the exact same time where Julian
Speaker:Assange had lost recent appeal.
Speaker:A bit more on this thing.
Speaker:Talks about US interference.
Speaker:I won't talk about that anymore.
Speaker:There's a couple of articles in the John Menehue blog, and from the first article,
Speaker:the US president has urged the free world to guard against authoritarian threats to
Speaker:democracy, ignoring America's own history.
Speaker:As he promised in the election, US President Joe Biden held a
Speaker:virtual summit for democracy.
Speaker:America is back, he told the world.
Speaker:Again, mentions Russia and China weren't invited.
Speaker:Not invited of course were Russia, China and North Korea.
Speaker:Invited were South Korea and Taiwan, a democracy which is not a separate country.
Speaker:Um, not included were Donald Trump's friends in the House of Saud, nor
Speaker:Afghanistan, Iran, Libya, Syria, or Yemen.
Speaker:Latin American countries whose democracies produce results
Speaker:the US doesn't like were out.
Speaker:So they didn't make the cut.
Speaker:That was Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua.
Speaker:And of course, Venezuela, and so were several Middle Eastern states,
Speaker:Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Jordan.
Speaker:Turkey, Hungary and Belarus were out, Poland was in, and there
Speaker:was a confusing list from Africa.
Speaker:For Biden, the simple choice was between democracy and authoritarianism, and
Speaker:he could write his own guess, but when he sought to justify it further, the
Speaker:rationale behind his choices got murky.
Speaker:Authoritarian leaders, he announced, are reaching across
Speaker:borders to undermine democracies.
Speaker:From targeting journalists and human rights defenders,
Speaker:to meddling in elections.
Speaker:He refused to allow people he thought as targeting journalists,
Speaker:or who are meddling in elections.
Speaker:No self awareness of what his own government is up to.
Speaker:Ah, dear.
Speaker:Another article from the John Menendee blog.
Speaker:It's not enough to preach Western values.
Speaker:Australia should instead try to understand those who don't agree with us.
Speaker:Western approaches to the world are based on certain premises, which
Speaker:are not shared by everyone else, but which we believe should be.
Speaker:And one of these is democracy.
Speaker:The writer, Kevin Hogue, says, Democracy is one, is the one
Speaker:true universal political system.
Speaker:This is a moral judgment, and one which some claim is the end of evolution.
Speaker:It is preached with the kind of missionary zeal that earlier generations showed in
Speaker:converting the heathen to Christianity.
Speaker:We do not wish to accept that democracy is just as much a matter of faith as
Speaker:belief in Christianity, Islam, Communism or any other religion or ideology.
Speaker:However, there is no scientific proof that it is any different.
Speaker:Both democracies and autocracies have been successful and have been failures.
Speaker:He says some claim that democracy promotes economic development.
Speaker:Or even that it is necessary, but there is no evidence to support this view.
Speaker:Two of the most dramatic economic miracles are the Magi Japan and China under Deng.
Speaker:We also tend to practice it more than preach it.
Speaker:So, that was that article, and...
Speaker:Speeches on Australian foreign policy tend to be bombastic and often demand
Speaker:the right to run our country as we see fit, while denying the right of others
Speaker:to run their country as they see fit.
Speaker:We assume that there is something wrong with a country that chooses not
Speaker:to be democratic as we practice it.
Speaker:Even if a majority of its people prefer it that way.
Speaker:Look, I know the plural of anecdote is not data, and, uh, but I certainly,
Speaker:we've had some Chinese homestay boys stay with us over the years, and they had
Speaker:lived in Australia for two, three, four years, and had seen what we were up to.
Speaker:And in my discussions with them, when I said, well, you know, do
Speaker:you wish that you had a similar democratic electoral system in China?
Speaker:And they said, no, I'm quite happy with what they had.
Speaker:Want to join the Communist Party?
Speaker:You could.
Speaker:I mean, there's a deal cut.
Speaker:The deal with the Chinese and their leaders is, if the
Speaker:economy's going okay, then...
Speaker:You can do what you're doing, uh, is essentially it.
Speaker:I mean, they're happy enough, I think, with what is going on,
Speaker:and that is as much a sort of a cultural difference as anything.
Speaker:And, and, you know, do we do anything that different here?
Speaker:I mean, if the economy's booming and everybody's happy in that
Speaker:manner, governments just get re elected anyway, don't they?
Speaker:Before we swap over.
Speaker:So, there is a bit of a imposition of, of a value on other people where, I mean, I
Speaker:obviously want the democracy in Australia.
Speaker:I think it's the best system for us and that's what we're used to and what
Speaker:we want and I think for most people in most countries it would be, but...
Speaker:Different cultures have different priorities and thoughts and are in a
Speaker:different position to what we're in, so you can't always say that, uh, one
Speaker:system is always the best for everybody.
Speaker:We have to at least recognise that and think about it and not treat
Speaker:it as sort of almost a religious tenet that must be applied.
Speaker:So anyway, what's the sort of last comment to make is really on this book by, In the
Speaker:Ruins of Neoliberalism by Wendy Brown.
Speaker:I agree with.
Speaker:Carrick, that our democracy, uh, is in trouble around the world, and certainly
Speaker:Wendy Brown would agree with that, but her sort of thesis in this book is that,
Speaker:that the architects of neoliberalism, Hayek, Friedman, et cetera, it wasn't
Speaker:just about the deregulation of economies They, they reckon, like Hayek, reckon, uh,
Speaker:identified strong tensions, I'm reading from page 72 here, Hayek identifies strong
Speaker:tensions between liberalism and democracy.
Speaker:Liberalism, he says, is concerned with limiting the coercive
Speaker:powers of all government.
Speaker:While democracy limits government, only according to majority opinion.
Speaker:Liberalism is committed to a particular form of government, while
Speaker:democracy is committed to the people.
Speaker:So, above all, Hayek argues democracy and liberalism have
Speaker:radically different opposites.
Speaker:Democracy's opposite is authoritarianism.
Speaker:Concentrated, but not necessarily unlimited political power.
Speaker:Liberals, uh, liberalism's opposite is totalitarianism.
Speaker:Complete control of every aspect of life.
Speaker:This makes authoritarianism potentially compatible with a liberal society.
Speaker:So, it becomes reasonable for Hayek to join his fellow neoliberals in accepting
Speaker:authoritarians, authoritarians legitimacy.
Speaker:In the transition to liberalism, and that's how they can justify the sort of
Speaker:thing that happened with General Pinochet.
Speaker:So, from the neoliberal point of view, to posing a democratically elected
Speaker:leftist socialist president in Chile.
Speaker:Was the right thing to do, even though it led knowingly
Speaker:to an authoritarian dictator.
Speaker:I mean, they knew what they were getting there, a military
Speaker:dictator in Latin America, come on.
Speaker:But that was acceptable, because for a start the, the company
Speaker:that owned the copper mine would continue to own it, they thought.
Speaker:And, and other sort of individual sort of freedom of business
Speaker:and all the rest of it.
Speaker:would be allowed under the Pinochet government.
Speaker:So, so, so, so, for Wendy Brown, the, the neoliberal experiment, well, it's
Speaker:not an experiment, it's a practice that's going on and is adopted,
Speaker:has elevated the, the paramount importance of individual freedom.
Speaker:And, and really what happened was, There was this amazing alliance has been created
Speaker:with Libertarians, Plutocrats, right wing anarchists, zealous pro lifers,
Speaker:homeschoolers, I mean anti vaxxers, you could add to that as well now.
Speaker:They all want freedom from society's regulations and constraints, and we
Speaker:are continually bombarded with the paramount supremacy of individual
Speaker:freedom, and a downplaying of the role of society, and, and if you're doing
Speaker:that hard enough and often enough, people then come to the view, well, I
Speaker:don't want a democracy if it's going to impinge on my personal freedom.
Speaker:I'll have some other right wing authoritarian regime, unelected,
Speaker:if that's what I need in order to have my personal freedom.
Speaker:And that's her thesis of how we've got there.
Speaker:So, so I thought that was an interesting theory.
Speaker:I think it's probably right.
Speaker:And that's probably me, done and dusted on my thoughts on democracy at this stage.
Speaker:Hope that was an entertaining rant for you, and I'll be
Speaker:back next week with the panel.
Speaker:Bye for now.
