1. mountain goat said...

3. mountain goat said...

Here it is:

The new age of authoritarianism
In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, democracy was on the march and we declared the End of History. Nearly two decades later, a neo-imperialist Russia is at war with Georgia, Communist China is proudly hosting the Olympics, and we find that, instead, we have entered the Age of Authoritarianism.

It is worth recalling how different we thought the future would be in the immediate, happy aftermath of the end of the cold war. Remember Francis Fukuyama’s ringing assertion: “The triumph of the west, of the western idea, is evident first of all in the total exhaustion of viable systematic alternatives to western liberalism.”

Even in the heady days of 1989, that declaration of universal – and possibly eternal – ideological victory seemed a little hubristic to Professor Fukuyama’s many critics. Yet his essay made such an impact because it captured the enormity, and the enormous benefits, of the change sweeping through the world. Not only was the stifling Soviet – which was really the Russian – suzerainty over central and eastern Europe and central Asia coming to an end but, even more importantly, the very idea of a one-party state, ruthlessly presiding over a centrally planned economy, seemed to be discredited, if not forever, then surely for our lifetimes.

That collapse brought freedom and prosperity to millions of people who had lived under Soviet rule. Moreover, the implosion of Soviet communism inspired hundreds of millions of others around the world to embrace freer markets and demand more responsive governments. The great global economic boom of the past 20 years, which has brought more people out of poverty more quickly than at any other time in human history, would not have been possible had the Soviet way of ordering the world not been discredited first.

Yet today, in much of the world, the spread of freedom is being checked by an authoritarian revanche. That shift has been most obvious in the petro-states, where oil is casting its usual curse. From Latin America to Africa to the Middle East, the black-gold bonanza has given authoritarian regimes the currency to buy off or to repress their subjects. In Russia, oil has fuelled an economic boom that prime minister Vladimir Putin, and some of his foreign admirers, mistakenly attribute to his careful demolition of the chaotic democracy of the 1990s.

For Russians, that argument is strengthened by the fact that the rising economic power of the moment – China – is unashamedly sticking to its faith in one-party rule. The end of the cold war made it tempting to believe that as countries opened up their markets, and became richer in the process, they would inevitably open up their societies, too. George W. Bush, US president, reiterated that hopeful thesis on his Asia tour last week, insisting: “Young people who grow up with the freedom to trade goods will ultimately demand the freedom to trade ideas.”

But the Chinese mandarins and the Russian siloviki are taking a different view – and acting on it. As China scholar David Shambaugh recounts in his new book, China’s Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation, the CCP studied the collapse of Soviet communism with great care. And rather than seeing it as proof of the inevitable, global triumph of western liberalism, the Chinese comrades treated the Russian example as a textbook case of what a ruling Communist party ought not to do.

In this version of history, sinologist Andrew Nathan tells me, 1989 is also a turning point, but not because that was when communism’s most notorious wall came down. Instead, the key event of that year was the bloody suppression of protesters in Tiananmen Square: “As a propaganda position they have put it out that we had a crackdown in 1989 and we saved the party and we saved the country,” he says. “We didn’t have a failure of will like the Russians. Without that, we wouldn’t have been a great, modern power.” That’s a point of view Mr Putin has embraced, too, describing the collapse of the Soviet Union as a tragedy and his own reconstruction of a neo-authoritarian state as the only way to restore Russian “greatness”.

The west has been remarkably sanguine about this resurgence of authoritarianism, and one reason is that, this time, the comrades have money. Even as the Kremlin repeatedly confiscates the assets not just of its own businesspeople, but of foreign ones, too, investment bankers, and plain old investors, are flocking to a Moscow flush with petro-roubles. The same is true of the Gulf states. China, on a path to become the world’s largest economy, is the most attractive of all.

But the Age of Authoritarianism is bad news for all of us, not just the human rights campaigners that businesspeople and practitioners of realpolitik love to dismiss. Like all overly rigid objects, authoritarian regimes conceal a tremendous fragility in their apparent strength – and their leaders know it. It is this realisation that has driven Mr Putin’s systematic destruction of all forms of civil society – an eminently pragmatic measure, although it has mystified some outside observers, who wonder why so popular a leader needs to be so heavy-handed. China’s chiefs have figured this out, too, hence their anxiety about everything from the Muslim Uighurs to the internet to the former Soviet Union’s “colour revolutions”.

Of course, another way to ensure popular support for your authoritarian regime is by playing up nationalist sentiment. We are more tolerant of our home-grown bullies if we think we need them to fight our enemies abroad – as even democratic America has demonstrated in recent years. Mr Putin has understood this all along, launching a brutal attack on Chechnya even before his coronation as president in 2000.

Russia’s expert taunting of the hotheads in Georgia, followed by immediate and massive retaliation the moment Tbilisi took the bait, is the latest evidence that, for the Kremlin, neo-imperialism is an essential bulwark of neo-authoritarianism. Bringing down the walls really did make the world safer. Now that so many leaders are building them back up again, figuring out how to contain the 21st century’s monied authoritarians is our most pressing foreign policy dilemma.

chrystia.freeland@ft.com

5. nooneo said...

So mountain goat what are you advocating?

Communism?

7. rotten tomato said...

There are so many inconsistencies to this article, it would be a laugh, if it was not a sad indictment of our own Western self delusions. Let me sink my teeth into this:

The title itself could be twisted around at the West and in particular the Western financial elites quite succesfully, because I increasingly believe that our democracies are just facade. An example? Look at the backers of both Obama and Mc Cain, they are the same people, and the same interest groups. One stands out in particular (George Soros), who with his Open Society and other such organizations literally bought, put in place and owns the whole Saakashvili government in Georgia (just try those two names together in a google search). It is no wonder that if Obama was to be elected, his foreign policy would be no different to Mc Cain's, so much for "Change". Hillary had to be kicked off the race because the oligarchs knew that she would not be so easily bent to their wishes.

Chrystia Freeland goes on to state: "That collapse brought freedom and prosperity to millions of people who had lived under Soviet rule", not quite. During the Yeltsin years things went indeed way backwards for the Russians and the East Europeans, to the point that a lot of their population today does not look back with excessive unhappiness to the USSR heydays. By the way Putin's actions in restoring order to the Yeltsin chaos have achieved exactly the economic prosperity and stability she denies. Her attitude is not surprising though, writing in the Financial Times, the mouthpiece of the Western financial oligarchy. To them, Russia was in its best state as it was under Yeltsin: weak, ineffective, a state good only to exploit for its raw materials ( as has been done to Africa since before WWII ). The fact that the West armed Georgia all these years, with Saakashvili's arms budget increasing 30-fold since he came to power, says a lot for Western elites' interests in actions which would lead to the dismemberment of Russia.
Her silly understatement of Putin's achievements is belied by the fact that he enjoys over 70% approval ratings in his country consistently. Can anyone point to a current Western political leader with such popularity in his own country? No? That's right I didn't think so.

China will eventually in time change it's mode of politics, but it will not be at our whim or insistence. Chinese have their time in doing things, not ours - they will change when they feel ready. And at the moment, every young Chinese I speak to (when doing business) tells me that their form of government is right at the moment - can you imgaine the chaos with the many different ethnicities China has, and its enormous mass of people, should they heed the Western concept of democracy? Are we ready to accept the resultant hundreds of millions of Chinese who will end up as emigrants on Western shores? No? Well then shut up and let the Chinese administer themselves as they see fit.
Or perhaps once again the second most prostituted word "Democracy" (the first one is "Peace"), is used as a trojan horse by our elite's media, in order to achieve exactly those same "results" in China, as were achieved in Russia during the Yeltsin years?

The authoritarian state is exactly what is required in both China and Russia right now, but the word should be rather "Patriotic" not "Authoritarian". There is a battle going on right now in the world, the battle is between two camps, that of the free traders, the globalists, and those who ascribe to the view of the nation state, with nation states which co-operate for their mutual benefit. Now Italian long time politician Giuliano Amato (also professor at some university, can't remember which) exemplifies the free trade, no nation approach. This is the approach which the West as a whole is undertaking at the moment. And this approach requires the elimination of the nation state - of course it is a utopia, but so was communism, and that killed millions of people before it was put to rest. Bear in mind that Giuliano Amato is one of the leading authors of the Lisbon Treaty. Interviewed by the Italian daily La Stampa on July 12, 2000, Amato lied about the intent of the European unification, but, when questioned, he explained his vision for the future:

"Frankly, I do not want a continental Europe only, without the immense patrimony of England, and of the Scandinavians linked to England. Nor would I like to lose Spain, which is skeptical of the vanguard.... To have England among us would not be bad: In many ways, London is already where we would like to be. It would not be bad if England [which is not part of the euro bloc], with its experience of economic reforms, were present in the council of States belonging to the euro.... Therefore I prefer to go slowly, to crumble little by little pieces of sovereignty, avoiding sudden shifts from national to federal powers.... I do not believe in a federal sovereign, because our globalized universe is post-Hobbesian."

For the rest of the very enlightening article: http://www.larouchepac.com/news/2008/02/20/leading-author-lisbon-treaty-lets-go-back-middle-ages.html

Amidst the collapsing ruins of globalizations, and our western economies (which are collapsing because we have looted all that was possible to loot, including our own productive capacity, see mergers-acquisitions-layoffs-and eventual closures of viable industries by our beloved hedge funds) Russia, China and India are emerging proud national states. They have a leadership which actually wants to see their population prosper, and they would like to have a constructive relationship with the West-if only we would let them. The obstacles to further looting for our oligarchies are indeed these last three great nation states, of which Russia is the most powerful. Hence we have the NATO encirclement of Russia in these last 10 years, and the Western funded NGO's which are just Western funded 5th columns. You have the Georgian "Beacon of Democracy", as Bush calls that little dictatorship under Saakashvili; you have most likely Western funded destabilization efforts in Xinjiang, and the Western pushed ousting of Musharraf in Pakistan. Then of course Tibet, a British 19th century colony, which was carved out of China (to whom it belonged for at least the previous 500 years) and in which separatist movements were fomented and funded, right up to the Nazi sympathizer Dalai Lama (once again just search google and read whatever link you like). Why all this? Well, in order to overthrow national sovereign states and create your dream utopia of places to loot for raw materials and sheer power hunger, you have to have maximum destabilization, from Georgia, to China.

So now who are the real authoritarians and dangerous nut cases in the world, Russia, or a West in the grips of panic because of its diminishing status, andgreed driven financial collapse?

9. icarus said...

The article is utter b*llocks. There is no communism, never was much really. It's all corporate-fascist. America is the leader in this. It has impoverished people from Latin America to Africa, Russia/Eastern Europe and Asia (during the orchestrated crashes of the late 90's, where Wall St - IMF - World Bank - US Treasury gorged on Asian assets and destoyed the middle class). All that was left to conquer then was the Middle East and China, so they made a start in Iraq. China's no better. Since the 1989 repression it has turned huge areas into export zones with cheap, terrorised labour making goods to export to the west in order to enrich its ruling class, the 'princelings', who are the bureacrats and their offspring.

11. rotten tomato said...

@ mountain goat

Of course I advocate freedom of speech. However false issues are often brought up by western journalists to justify their extreme anti-Russian/Chinese stance. And my phrase was in any case an answer to the question on the unintended consequences of giving freedom and dmocracy to the Chinese masses, it is just what they do not need right now. Maybe in 20 years' time, but not right away, and in any case they should decide for themselves - I am against any kind of foreign interference in the affairs of a nation, be it Iraq, or Georgia, Russia or China.

Now regarding the points you made:

1. agree 100%
2. ditto
3. of course I advocate the suppression of all views which are not mine! :-)

13. Urban Bear said...

The FT now seems to be a corporate collectivist rag.
Democracy seems a sham, it is too easily rendered neutered by joint party corruption (The Political Class and Common Purpose), and by low IQ, stupid and complacent voters, and by media corruption.