Democracies decline

Just one decade ago, the world was undergoing unprecedented economic growth. It seemed that globalization was leading us to a new golden age. 

Economists and geopolitical experts were predicting that the global flows of money and goods would continue to expand at a record pace. Wealth and spending would increase. More poor nations would enter the ranks of middle income countries and the number of rich nations would increase dramatically. 

More people around the world would escape poverty; and, more important the income gap between the top 1 percent and the rest would become much smaller. The rise of a much larger middle class would pressure dictatorships to loosen censorship and increase democracies around the world. The feeling was that rising wealth would lead to more political freedom and democracy which would in turn lead to greater global prosperity. 

Today, the world is facing a new reality. Global economic growth has slowed down. The emerging nations that supplied raw materials to China were particularly hit hard. According to global strategist Ruchir Sharma: “The big blow to global prosperity and political calm came around 2010, as the economic slowdown spread from the United States and Europe to the emerging world.”  After 2010 social upheaval increased “... fuelled in many cases by growing middle class anger at rising inequality and at ageing regimes that had grown corrupt and complacent.” 

The dream that global prosperity would beget freedom and democracy has now faded. According to Freedom House, since 2006, the number of countries registering a decline in political rights has outnumbered the number of countries registering an increase in human rights. In all, 110 countries, more than half of the world’s total have suffered some loss of freedom during the past ten years. While the number of democracies has not dramatically changed, repression of basic freedoms, like freedom of the press and assembly, has definitely been on the rise. 

There was a time when it was felt that prosperity would lead to greater freedoms in China. The exact opposite has happened as Xi Jinping seeks to consolidate more personal power. Sharma says: “Few observers argue anymore that prosperity in China will lead to democracy. They point instead to the rise of a new and increasingly assertive form of authoritarianism, led by regimes that reject democracy as a universal value while defending softer forms of political repression as expressions of unique national cultures.”

The Arab Spring started in Tunisia and rapidly spread throughout the Arab world. It stirred hope that new democracies would take root in the Middle East. Instead, the results were civil wars from Libya to Syria to Yemen which has caused deaths of hundreds of thousands; and, the displacement of millions of refugees. These countries have become failed states.

Instead of expanding the number of democracies, the Arab Spring has had the opposite effect.  Egypt has returned to military rule and  Turkey,  once the showcase of democracy in the Islamic world, now has given  rise to “strong man” rule in the presidency of Endrogan. 

A decade ago, it seems that no one predicted that globalization would lead to such a degree of income inequality that would result in 60 or so individuals having more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of the world’s population. No one predicted the rise of populism and that the  world’s middle class would rebel  against the vast accumulation of wealth and power of the elites while their own incomes stagnated. No one predicted the election of a Donald Trump.

World of impermanence

Today we are living in a disrupted world. At the beginning of the 21st century, a variety of global forces – easy money pouring out of Western banks, spiking prices of commodities due to double digit growth of China, and soaring global trade – doubled the growth of emerging economies. It was an unprecedented global boom. By 2007 the number of countries expanding faster than 5 percent reached around 100 nation. Global forecasters thought this was a turning point towards a golden age. It was said that the average incomes of many emerging nations – tiger economies – including the Philippines, would catch up with those of rich nations. It turned out that this global boom was a “freak” event in the world’s history. But this is not the first time that forecasters have been wrong. Sharma cites other examples:

“ In the 1960s Manila won the right to host the headquarters of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) based in part on the argument that fast growth in the Philippines made it the future of Asia. By the next decade, under the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, growth was stalling but the ADB headquarters was in Manila for good.  In the 1970s, similar exercises [forecasts] in [economic extrapolation] led some to American scholars and intelligence analysts to predict that the Soviet economy was destined to become the largest in the world. Instead it collapsed at the end of the 1980s. By then forecasters had handed the next century to Japan, but it became the next economic star to falter.”

Against democracy

Professor Jason Brennan said that voter ignorance is one of the major pitfalls of modern democracies. Using examples from fantasy movies – Lord of the Rings and Star Trek — he classified voters into three categories: “Hobbits do not bother to learn about politics and, therefore, vote in full ignorance. Hooligans follow their party with the devotion of sports fans...irrespective of both past performance and future plans. Finally, Vulcans are a significant minority of people who behave rationally, gather data and vote with full information. 

For as long as Hobbits and Hooligans continue to dominate elections, democracies will continue to decline.”

Creative writing classes for kids & teens

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