Marketplace: A messy world

Is it possible that liberal democratic values taken to extremes have become self-subverting?

By SHLOMO MAITAL
Protest against the government of President Juan Manuel (photo credit: JOSE MIGUEL GOMEZ / REUTERS)
Protest against the government of President Juan Manuel
(photo credit: JOSE MIGUEL GOMEZ / REUTERS)
My office at home is a mess. Every planned column, article or book gets its own pile of notes; and the piles multiply like bacteria, with the excess quickly spilling over onto the dining-room table. At that point, my wife rightly stamps her foot, and I clean up.
It occurs to me that today, our messy world is like my office; but there is one major difference. The chaos in the world is growing and no one seems able or willing to organize a cleanup. In the past few months, we have had unpredictable weather due to climate change, an Egyptian coup, a US government shutdown, Syrian use of nerve gas, an ongoing euro crisis, the Iranian nuclear threat, a Chinese economic slowdown, migrants drowning in the Mediterranean, and that’s just the start.
In an effort to understand why the world is so chaotic, I spoke with a friend, Bilahari Kausikan, until recently permanent foreign secretary of Singapore – a true friend of Israel and an astute and wise observer of global politics and economics. His civil service career at the Singapore Foreign Ministry spans nearly 33 years. Kausikan regularly brought teams of his young Foreign Ministry experts to Israel to learn about the country the right way, through the soles of their feet. They trekked through the Golan, through the Negev, met with key players, and some knew Hebrew. He did the same in many other countries.
Together with my notes of our conversation and some of his unpublished speeches and articles, I pieced together his analysis.
The picture he paints is worrisome, but at least comprehensible.
In 1914, there were only 56 countries in the world. When empires broke apart, new countries were formed, among them Israel.
We now have more than 230 nation states.
When Britain, America and Europe decolonized, they simply drew random lines on the map to suit their convenience, rather than ethnic and political logic. Those lines became countries in which ethnic and religious groups warred. This is especially true of Africa and the Middle East, where borders are conflictual. Middle East expert Robin Wright recently argued in The New York Times that Libya, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Saudi Arabia could all eventually split apart along religious and ethnic lines. So, are things coming apart? I asked Kausikan.
“The world is undergoing a profound transition of power and ideas. Since the end of World War II, [the world] has been very largely an American shaped world… That era is now drawing to a close. What will replace it cannot as yet be determined.”
One of the paradoxes the world faces is that more and more countries are becoming democratic, but democracy itself is breaking down. Why?
“Democracy is government of the people, by the people, for the people. Today, you can live happily in a world of your own social creation and only listen to the people you know and like. Social media liberates people and promotes freedom. But that freedom is freedom to choose your own particular brand of politics. This causes dysfunctionality.
What’s wrong with the US economy, still the world’s largest, is not its economy but its political system. The most dynamic and creative parts of the US economy are in spite of the government, not because of it.
“Nearly every country in the world today legitimates itself by 18th century political philosophy – ‘sovereignty resides with the people.’ This philosophy collides with 21st century communications and social media.
Those who formulated 18th century democracy never foresaw this kind of technology, which undermines the basic pillars of democracy.
”Can you be more specific? Why precisely is democracy breaking down? “
In the 21st century, ‘normal’ politics is all too often dysfunctional. This is a global phenomenon manifest in all polities legitimated by some variant of the notion of the sovereignty of the people. The experience of countries around the world has shown that the validation of politics by this 18th century political philosophy sooner or later sets up a dynamic that makes governance more difficult.
“If the people believe they are sovereign, then they will sooner or later come to believe that their opinion is as good as anyone else’s opinion. The inconvenient fact that not all opinions are created equal becomes politically incorrect. Individuals, who would never dream of questioning their doctor, their lawyer, or even their astrologist, do not hesitate to forcefully advance views on complicated public policy issues about which they are in fact ignorant.
Any modification of an opinion, however impractical, generates resentment and, eventually, distrust in government. This dynamic is accentuated by the ever more ubiquitous social media, which conflates the ‘public’ with the views of individuals or small groups and confuses opinion with information or expertise.
“What needs to be seriously contemplated is the possibility that liberal democratic values taken to extremes have become self-subverting. We should not dismiss the possibility that the liberal democratic system itself is thus now in some danger that it will metastasize into something less than entirely benign.”
What must happen in order for the world to become more orderly and less messy?
“To reach a new global architecture, three sets of more or less tandem, interrelated adjustments will be necessary: global, regional, and domestic in key countries, especially in the US and China. All are complicated and the interregnum between one type of international system and whatever may come after will be prolonged, measured in decades. Along the way, there will be stresses to be managed and recurring political, financial and economic crises to be navigated.
It will be a more than usually messy and unpredictable environment for quite a long time to come.
“US world leadership is still irreplaceable. But many Americans now question the burdens and sacrifices of global leadership. America will look increasingly inward for some time. We should thus anticipate a global leadership deficit.”
Some studies show China’s economy will be the world’s largest, replacing the US, as early as 2015, when measured by true exchange rates. China is increasingly asserting itself globally. China holds about $3.5 trillion in dollar assets. A recent statement by the official Chinese news agency, Xinhua, following the US government shutdown, was especially strident. “A de-Americanized world is needed; the destinies of people should not be left in the hands of a hypocritical nation with a dysfunctional government.” How will US-China relations evolve?
“China’s reemergence is the most significant geopolitical fact of the 20th century. It will shape the 21st century. As China grows, it will inevitably become more assertive.
Some degree of competition between China and the US is inevitable. Unlike in US-Soviet relations during the Cold War, there is no bitter, fundamentally irreconcilable, ideological divide between the US and a China that has now enthusiastically embraced the market.
“Both countries want essentially the same things: stability in their relations and a stable international system, so as to pursue a better life for their peoples. China will pursue its own interests. Now that China has, as Mao Zedong said, ‘stood up,’ China will not meekly allow its interests to be defined by any other party, all the more so since China’s experiences with the Western defined international system over the last 100 years have not all been happy ones.
“The US and China will eventually grope and stumble their way towards a new modus vivendi. The questions that cannot now be answered are what the contours of the future US-China relationship will look like; what trade-offs they will make between themselves; how long it will take to reach a new equilibrium; and what excitements will have to be endured along the way.
“Whether it wants to or not, China’s thirst for the resources of the Middle East, Africa and Latin America will eventually entangle China in the geopolitics of these regions.
Beijing is only slowly and reluctantly coming to terms with this reality. Nothing in China’s long history has prepared it for a global role. Historically, China has paid only sporadic attention to regions not on its borders.”China lends enormous sums to the US, just so the US can buy Chinese products. This has created a mountain of US debt. The world has never known an ecosystem in which the poor (in Asia) save so much, and lend so much to the rich (in the West).This unbalanced system can’t go on, can it? “
It is far easier to talk about rebalancing than to do it. Rebalancing requires complex adjustments to political as well as economic structures, and wrenching psychological changes. This will be very difficult for both the US and China and will take a very long time.”
When I used to lecture on global macroeconomics, I would begin by asking, what is going on in the world? There has been a tiny change in the question’s syntax. I now ask, what in the world is going on? Today, global geopolitics are like the tectonic plates the world rests on; they constantly shift and frequently cause political earthquakes that are hard to predict.
What does the messy world mean for those who run businesses, countries, or just their own checkbooks? Set aside some savings for a rainy day. Be agile enough to react fast to political upheavals, clever enough to see opportunities where others see only risk, and resilient enough to recover from setbacks. The world is telling us, in a variety of ways, “I never promised you, the people, a rose garden.” Lately, there are a lot more thorns than roses. Expect this to continue.
What does the messy world mean for Israel? When geopolitics become extremely chaotic, it is vital to have a wise, eloquent foreign minister in place, good at making friends, explaining difficult positions and putting out fires. At present, Israel’s acting foreign minister is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while the intended minister, Avigdor Lieberman, is on trial for alleged fraud. Netanyahu’s recent foray to the United Nations was impressive. But, otherwise, he is far too busy running the country to invest time in foreign policy.
This is unacceptable.
I am old enough to remember Abba Eban, Israel’s silver-tongued foreign minister during the critical period 1966-1974.
He pleaded Israel’s case with powerful words. If politics indeed drives economics, an empty foreign ministry chair is not only bad diplomacy, it is very bad economics.
My office at the moment is rather neat.
But inevitably, entropy is knocking on the door. Until a new world order is in place, a process that will take decades, the world will continue to be very, very messy. And so, alas, will my office.
The writer is senior research fellow at the S. Neaman Institute, Technion