Dear Friends,
It seems to me that what the people of the Middle East need, far more than democracy, (if what they want is liberty), is a functional market system. Not only the Middle East but all over the World. People are better served to have a functional market system than to be given democracy. It is like giving someone with no experience… a loaded gun. If you grew up with a gun in your home then you are familiar with safe gun handling but if you have never held a gun it is pretty dangerous.
Democracy is the same way. Safe in hands that are used to it but dangerous in hands that are unskilled or simply negligent. Capitalism trains people to handle democracy safely. If you grew up in a capitalist society and have had access to historical information, you know that to vote for the communist party is absurd and patently not in your personal interests or the interests of society.
But if you grew up in tribal society and lived by subsistence farming with no knowledge of the historical precedents then a vote for the communist party seems to be a self interested vote. Not much different from scratching your back with a loaded gun… it may go off and blow out the back of your head, it may go of and blast a passerby or it may not go off at all, but the best thing that can happen, is you get an itch scratched…
When a person lives in a market based society he or she learns at an early age to weigh costs and benefits. This type of pragmatic philosophy is emblematic of a capitalist mindset. The cost of a given action are weighed against the potential benefits. People who never lived under such a system have a totally different means of weighing up actions. What is in the individual’s interests is the same as the tribal interests there is no distinction made.
To live in a democratic republic an enlightened citizen must be pragmatic. To vote for the lunatic fringe is to pull society towards lunacy. History shows us unequivocally how that turns out. Only free market capitalism has made people free. Free by also giving us all a measure of independence.
Independence! An anti capitalist might yell. You are dependent on the market for your goods, food, clothing, even water and waste removal. – But is not everyone at every time and every where in exactly the same circumstance? Even the subsistence farmer is dependent for his needles, dishes, clothes etc? No one can produce everything he or she consumes unless he or she is willing to retire to a stone age existence.
The worker in a capitalist society is independent because we earn the money we spend. We add our productive capacity to the aggregate and we are compensated with money. That money can be then used to purchase our needs and wants. The person who gets his or her needs met by someone else’s labor is dependent. Dependent, on that person or people, but what if the dependent’s supporters loose their ability to work for their masters. If that happens the dependent hopes to find another supporter else all is lost.
If that supporter is a tribe then the dependent supports the tribe even when it is not in his or the societies best interest to do so. The Hutu massacre of the Tutsis would not have been possible had not this been the case. People have their allegiances where they believe their interests lay. Today in Libya we have the international community getting into what is largely a tribal war. Attacking the only Middle East tyrant who gave up nuclear weapons. Interesting incentive there don’t you think?
Ataturk had the right idea, institute a market based liberal society, and freedom will follow. No matter that he was a tyrant. He considered the World as it was an astutely summed up the reason his people were backwards. He set himself to rectify the situation. It is unfortunate that his heirs, modern Turks, lack the wisdom he showed and are turning from free markets and liberty towards theocratic socialism and theocratic tyranny.
So I guess even if you grew up in a market based society it is no certainty that you will not willingly vote in tyranny. The sirens song of tyranny is lovely as it is self destructive. It is only those that are not negligent in their duty to vote and studious in their duty to vote well that protect the rights of those the are not. If too few do, tyranny is the wages, for us and our children.
