Some fifteen years ago I said, from out of the blue, that I had an interest in democracy and was going to study it. At the time I didn't take my comment too seriously. Nevertheless that is what I am doing today, studying democracy.
This essay was inspired by an editorial I read In the Washington Post: "In Fear Of Chinese Democracy" by Harold Meyerson. A book by James Mann, “The China Fantasy”, in which Mann outlines the non-democratization occurring in China, inspired Meyerson’s article.
Mann attributes the non-democratization of China to an unsuspecting bunch, American corporations. That's ironic. One would think that American business leaders would want to encourage democracy in China, having grown up with it. Instead, American corporations are thwarting its development by preventing employs from organizing trade unions or gaining legal rights, which could challenge corporations' decision-making. However, this should be of no surprise because corporations have never been known as bastions of democracy.
America business has generally been ambivalent to democracy. Corporations see democracy as a hindrance, getting in the way of doing business and drives up the cost of doing it. Businessmen are generally short sighted about democracy, not realizing that in the long run it is essential for capitalism's continuance. They are also narrow minded, interests only in profit and growth. Milton Friedman famously said “…while economic freedom facilitates political freedom, political freedom, once established, has a tendency to destroy economic freedom.” That is a sentiment a lot of business people share, so it is no surprise they aren't encouraging the development of democracy in China. Coincidentally, I am reading a book called the "Age Of Betrayal: The Triumph Of Money In America, 1865 -1900" and it describes how America's earliest tycoons and corporations deterred democracy’s development. Today in China we see a similar attempt by big business to stifle democracy's growth.
In America it was really economic freedom that came first and then political freedom. This is the way I see it is occurring in China. However, the totalitarian state there is still very much in control and it will take many years to break that political grip. In contrast, when America first embarked on getting political freedom, Americans did not have such an entrenched state totalitarianism as the Chinese do. So it is not just American corporations that are stifling the establishment of democracy; the Chinese government is also party to it. However, I think capitalism is the foot-in-the-door that will eventually lead China towards broader democracy.
Interestingly, though, the Chinese have been practicing forms of democracy for years in that they have economic freedoms and choices, something they didn't have just a few decades ago. And ironically, it is American corporations that are helping to give them those economic choices through the all the consumer good they produce. The Chinese are now also free to travel. Another amazing democratic development involves the Chinese constitution. It was recently amended so that it acknowledges and upholds property rights. This is another huge step towards full-blown democracy. This change in the constitution came about because business leaders demanded protection of their assets from the state. Without this change investment in China may have dried up. This constitutional change is slowly trickling down to the masses. Because of this change the Chinese now have a measure of protection from their government. I recall something the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote on the subject: “Democracy is impossible without private ownership [as the Chinese are acquiring] because private property - resources beyond the arbitrary reach of the state - provides the only secure basis for political opposition and intellectual freedom.” Taking all this into account, the Chinese government, along with their American corporate partners. is inadvertently giving rise to democracy.
People wondered why China was awarded the Olympics in 2008 since it wasn’t a democracy. Well, democracy doesn’t seem to be a criterion for getting them because the Soviet Union, also a communist nation, got them in 1980. However, I think the Olympics is also a door through which the Chinese are gaining democracy. One thing that the Olympics have wrought that weighs heavily on the minds of its rulers is how the world will perceive China. The Chinese want to put their best face forward to the rest of the world. And this concern is having an incremental effect on its democratization. For instance, in wanting to improve China's appearance, the Chinese authorities are engaging individual Chinese to improve their manors, to act more civilized and help improve the environment. This type of engage draws on individual initiative, which in turn is a springboard for individuals to further eek out additional rights and freedoms from the state, in that their helping the state garnishes a measure of respect and recognition which are also hallmarks of democracy.
Full democracy will take some time to come to China. However, it is interesting and riveting to watch it develop. Never has the world had such a front row seat to such an economic and political unfolding. Something else that might be considered is that perhaps China is not yet ready or sophisticated enough to deal with full-blown democracy, hence its slow progression towards it. After all, it took western nations centuries to cultivate and understand it. And, China’s experience with democracy only started a couple of decades ago.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Monday, April 09, 2007
Libertarianism & Derrida
Wondering what to write about next I gave myself a challenge, to write an essay linking libertarianism and Derrida. I got the idea while reading a book review about the history of libertarianism and while thinking about deconstructionism and its author, Jacques Derrida. My thinking this way may have originated from my mental state, of perhaps being both a liberal and a deconstructionist.
My idea to link these two seemingly unrelated subjects also comes from my tendency of wanting to connect things. In the past I have written essays connecting such odd subjects as Hegel and thermodynamics, Hegel and Ayn Rand, Freddy Laker and Karl Marx, and democracy and capitalism. Each time I think I was successful in make the connections. But with libertarianism and Derrida I'm not so sure. So it will be interesting to see what I come up with.
One thing I understand about Jacques Derrida is that he introduced – no – invented the philosophy of deconstructionism. However, I don't understand much else about his philosophy although I have tried. I thought Hegel was hard to comprehend. At least Hegel had a worldview and his ideas immediately caught my imagination. Derrida has not captured my imagination unless my dwelling on him in order to understand him means he has captured me. I understand from others that the term deconstructionism has defied definition and Derrida himself avoided defining it. Nevertheless, as a verb the term is closely associated to the process of analytical philosophy, of undoing ideas –taking them apart, and putting them back together, to perhaps discover an alternative truth.
Libertarianism is most associated with the writings and philosophy of Ayn Rand. She championed libertarianism, as the means to combat the collectivism that she saw was gain grounding in America. America, she argued, was not founded on collectivism, but on libertarianism and the free spirit of individualism. She had as much contempt for collectivism as she did for communism. Her contempt for collectivism was also a reference to the growth of government and its insinuation on the American way of life. She saw collectivism not only threatening the liberty of individuals and their ability to be self-reliant and responsible but in so doing also smothering their potential to be great and innovative.
“Language, Derrida said, is inadequate to provide a clear and unambiguous view of reality. In other words, the fixed meaning of an essay, a book, a personal letter, a scientific treatise or a recipe dissolves when hidden ambiguities and contradictions are revealed. These contradictions, inevitable in every piece of writing, he said, reveal deep fissures in the foundation of the Western world's civilizations, cultures and creations.”
That passage makes it sound as though the world is constructed on and by language. But the world is constructed more on human behavior, actions and conduct. Language is used to convey our behavior, actions and conduct. The way I hear it, Derrida seems to say that if our language was different or interpreted differently our behavior, actions and conduct would be different; the world would be different. But I think that Derrida understood that language alone could not change our behavior, attitudes or the world for the better. Thus, I think Derrida's ultimate aim, like that of many philosophers before him, was to transform his philosophy of deconstructionism from the text into the real world of human actions in order to make it a conscious and working life force. Deconstruction in this context is the reexamination of our lives and behavior so as to improve it by being more open and accommodating. The world, like civilization and humankind, is always changing, deconstructing and reinventing itself. This is a natural process. Derrida, I believe, thought human behavior and attitude should mirror those changes and should be a constant re-construction of those changes.
Imagine my surprise when I read in a review of Derrida's life that he was view as a political libertarian. A libertarian, the dictionary defines, is a person who advocates liberty, esp. with regard to thought or conduct. Imagine, Derrida is also a libertarian like Rand is but with a difference. Derrida is a libertarian of the left while Rand is of the right. Rand thought more along the lines of economic liberty and Derrida along those of political liberty.
What is the difference between a libertarian of the right, a conservative, and a libertarian of the left, a socialist? (Sounds like the opening for a deconstructionist joke.) I can think of one, in economics. A libertarian of the left would think that personal liberty should include the entitlement of a job, the inherent right to employment. A libertarian of Rand's persuasion would think a job is not an entitlement but only if is capable and worthy of one. As a Frenchman T think Derrida was a socialist libertarian, thinking not only of the liberty aspect of it but also of fraternity and equality. I wonder, then, if that kind of French libertarian thinking was the basis for a clause in the European Constitution - a constitution that never passed - a clause that guaranteed the right to employment, for any one wanted a job.
In conclusion, I wasn't wrong to think of those two seemingly unrelated subjects. I discovered two forms of libertarianism. These two libertarianisms counterbalance and challenge each other in the development of the best possible social/political world. As the French would say, viva la differance.
My idea to link these two seemingly unrelated subjects also comes from my tendency of wanting to connect things. In the past I have written essays connecting such odd subjects as Hegel and thermodynamics, Hegel and Ayn Rand, Freddy Laker and Karl Marx, and democracy and capitalism. Each time I think I was successful in make the connections. But with libertarianism and Derrida I'm not so sure. So it will be interesting to see what I come up with.
One thing I understand about Jacques Derrida is that he introduced – no – invented the philosophy of deconstructionism. However, I don't understand much else about his philosophy although I have tried. I thought Hegel was hard to comprehend. At least Hegel had a worldview and his ideas immediately caught my imagination. Derrida has not captured my imagination unless my dwelling on him in order to understand him means he has captured me. I understand from others that the term deconstructionism has defied definition and Derrida himself avoided defining it. Nevertheless, as a verb the term is closely associated to the process of analytical philosophy, of undoing ideas –taking them apart, and putting them back together, to perhaps discover an alternative truth.
Libertarianism is most associated with the writings and philosophy of Ayn Rand. She championed libertarianism, as the means to combat the collectivism that she saw was gain grounding in America. America, she argued, was not founded on collectivism, but on libertarianism and the free spirit of individualism. She had as much contempt for collectivism as she did for communism. Her contempt for collectivism was also a reference to the growth of government and its insinuation on the American way of life. She saw collectivism not only threatening the liberty of individuals and their ability to be self-reliant and responsible but in so doing also smothering their potential to be great and innovative.
“Language, Derrida said, is inadequate to provide a clear and unambiguous view of reality. In other words, the fixed meaning of an essay, a book, a personal letter, a scientific treatise or a recipe dissolves when hidden ambiguities and contradictions are revealed. These contradictions, inevitable in every piece of writing, he said, reveal deep fissures in the foundation of the Western world's civilizations, cultures and creations.”
That passage makes it sound as though the world is constructed on and by language. But the world is constructed more on human behavior, actions and conduct. Language is used to convey our behavior, actions and conduct. The way I hear it, Derrida seems to say that if our language was different or interpreted differently our behavior, actions and conduct would be different; the world would be different. But I think that Derrida understood that language alone could not change our behavior, attitudes or the world for the better. Thus, I think Derrida's ultimate aim, like that of many philosophers before him, was to transform his philosophy of deconstructionism from the text into the real world of human actions in order to make it a conscious and working life force. Deconstruction in this context is the reexamination of our lives and behavior so as to improve it by being more open and accommodating. The world, like civilization and humankind, is always changing, deconstructing and reinventing itself. This is a natural process. Derrida, I believe, thought human behavior and attitude should mirror those changes and should be a constant re-construction of those changes.
Imagine my surprise when I read in a review of Derrida's life that he was view as a political libertarian. A libertarian, the dictionary defines, is a person who advocates liberty, esp. with regard to thought or conduct. Imagine, Derrida is also a libertarian like Rand is but with a difference. Derrida is a libertarian of the left while Rand is of the right. Rand thought more along the lines of economic liberty and Derrida along those of political liberty.
What is the difference between a libertarian of the right, a conservative, and a libertarian of the left, a socialist? (Sounds like the opening for a deconstructionist joke.) I can think of one, in economics. A libertarian of the left would think that personal liberty should include the entitlement of a job, the inherent right to employment. A libertarian of Rand's persuasion would think a job is not an entitlement but only if is capable and worthy of one. As a Frenchman T think Derrida was a socialist libertarian, thinking not only of the liberty aspect of it but also of fraternity and equality. I wonder, then, if that kind of French libertarian thinking was the basis for a clause in the European Constitution - a constitution that never passed - a clause that guaranteed the right to employment, for any one wanted a job.
In conclusion, I wasn't wrong to think of those two seemingly unrelated subjects. I discovered two forms of libertarianism. These two libertarianisms counterbalance and challenge each other in the development of the best possible social/political world. As the French would say, viva la differance.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)