The future of freedom

What Hacker News says

1. marcoperazaJul 2017
   Believe what you want, but the Pax Americana is real and is empirically the most peaceful time in world history. It is partly due to nuclear deterrents and partly due to the US maintaining a massive military presence in hot spots (Korea, South China Sea, Taiwan, Persian/Arab Gulf, Eastern Europe).

   Yes, it is often coercive and we have certainly supported unsavory regimes. It is worth considering what the alternatives to those regimes are. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, the House of Saud is actually a moderating force keeping the Wahhabist mullahs from taking over completely. Liberal democracy will not work everywhere today, as our horribly misguided experiment in Iraq has demonstrated. I recommend Fareed Zakaria's The Future of Freedom for a discussion of the problem, but a very short summary is that you cannot have a functioning democracy without substantial economic development (natural resource money does NOT count for many reasons) and a middle class that feels highly invested in stability, growth, and trade.

   The US government never supported Hitler. America is a free country so of course there were many private individuals and companies who did. No different than how Western academia was extremely fond of the Soviets until the 1950s. The US actually provided massive aid to the allies before entering the war, through the lend lease program among others. The fact is that it wasn't clear at the time that it was in the United State's interests to oppose Hitler. It was a far away problem, there was a strong isolationist mood in the US, and even the Brits were trying their hand at coexisting with him.

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2. marcoperazaJul 2016
   I'd rather live under a liberal, pro-Western, secular military junta, than an illiberal democracy ruled by Islamists who are destroying liberties, hollowing out civil society, and turning the country into a Sunni version of Iran under the Ayatollahs.

   Fareed Zakaria has a great book, The Future of Freedom, where he discusses, among other things, the perils of illiberal democracy. The bit that really stuck in my head is his argument that the impartial judge is a more important institution than the ballot box.

   Man has lived under undemocratic regimes for almost all of recorded history. It is the human condition. It is more important to defend civilization and order against barbarism and chaos, than it is to ensure that the majority rules. Liberal values and constitutional government preceded true democracy by hundreds of years in the West. Why do we expect otherwise anywhere else?

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3. klbarryNov 2010
   "What is somewhat puzzling, as Rodriguez and Samman also note, is that these countries have not made nearly as much progress in democratization."

   You can read more on this phenomena in Fareed Zakaria's excellent book, "The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad"

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4. rayinerAug 2022
   It’s not an assumption, but a conclusion based on the evidence. I’m not aware of any Asian, African, or middle eastern country where freedom and democracy led to prosperity. There’s lots of democracies in these places that haven’t been able to translate that into prosperity. On the flip side, China, Japan, Korea, and Singapore are all examples where authoritarian rule has led to prosperity. I’d include Bangladesh these days as an example of that also.

   If the country you’re using as an example is in Eastern Europe, I think you may be overlooking key differences. Fareed Zakaria addresses this in his book “the Future of Freedom.” https://www.amazon.com/Future-Freedom-Illiberal-Democracy-Re.... He explains that many of the foundations of liberal democracy were put in place during autocratic regimes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_of_Freedom. Eastern Europe had many building blocks of democracy in place hundreds of years ago. For example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cossacks.

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5. aaron-leboFeb 2018
   Yeah, I agree with you. It's very Eternal Septemberish. Many of the political discussions about the flaws of democracy are probably relevant here, too.

   Zakaria has some similar arguments:

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_of_Freedom

   This is then applied to America to argue that the increased democratization of American society and culture is what has caused the perceived failures of the government and governing elites.

   We have a tendency to see size and democracy as obvious goods, but there are certainly some limits there. It's funny how around the time Digg got going, all the talk was about the "wisdom of the crowds". Not sure anyone wants to make that argument today after 15 years of social media.

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6. DennisPAug 2016
   A while back I read that states which get their funding from natural resources instead of taxes very seldom turn into liberal democracies. I think it was in Zakaria's Future of Freedom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_of_Freedom

   So maybe oil hasn't been a net benefit for these countries. In any case, if we stop needing their oil, their capacity for causing trouble will be drastically diminished.

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