The Future of Freedom

At the local Chapters today, I passed by Fareed Zakaria's (Newsweek International editor) shelf.  There are dozens of copies of "Post American World" and not a single copy of "The Future of Freedom."  If you wanted the "Future of Freedom," you would have to order it and wait two weeks for the warehouse to dig it up and ship it to the store.

This is not cool.  "Post American World" is one of the dumbest books out there (though not as bad as "God's Debris" which you should only read if you hate your brain), while "Future of Freedom" is one of the awesomest, under appreciated gems of political philosophy out there.

The book is about liberal and illiberal democracies, and the thesis of the book, which deserves wider dissemination and acceptance, is that democracy is a product of liberal, responsive, and accountable societies, and not the other way around.  Thus, forcing an illiberal, poverty and famine stricken society to adopt democracy will not only fail to improve conditions (economic, political, and human rights), it will also stifle development and create severe governance disincentives that prevent natural growth and lead to an unending cycle of corruption, waste and electoral fraud.

Thus, progress will not be achieved through hegemonic force-feeding of our values, but though progressive and sustainable market and cultural integration.  And progress should not be measured through voter turnout, but rather on economic growth, institutional strengthening, and grassroots demands for accountability.

On a side note, I just picked up Dambisa Moyo's "Dead Aid," which harps on some overlapping themes, and hopefully will be an interesting read.

The Growing Wealth Gap

I came upon this series of charts on reader today about the growing wealth gap in the United States.  Some of the figures are shocking: the richest 1% control 33% of America's wealth and 50% of its capital markets.

My first gut reaction was that this is unfair, inequitable and all around terrible; what kind of society are we turning into?  But I struggled to find a unemotional rationale to this reaction.  Do we instinctively want to even things out?  How is that equality?  And is a wealth gap really a problem if no one is suffering?  Maybe we are just uncomfortable with skewed distributions.

Let's imagine a state where everyone is provided for, with a job, a home, ample food, security, good education, and all the rest, but the richest 1% control 90% of the wealth.  Why is so wrong on the face of it?

At the risk of sounding Randian: maybe so long as everyone has sustenance, basic rights and opportunity, the way wealth distributes itself isn't an issue we should be worried about (ignoring socialist  ideologic arguments).

Maybe the state's role should be to simply first, provide for these basic rights and sustenance, and second, to be a guardian for opportunity and oppression.  So long as the rich are not able to oppress, exploit, or unfairly compete with the rest using that wealth, what economic rationale is there to create taxation transfers?  Everyone benefits if that wealth is pumped into creating jobs, opening opportunities, funding research. Why should we fight against aggregations of wealth?

Of course, this is assuming everyone is provided for on a basic level.