Anti-Climacus

LINK: Bashing Naomi Klein, and not without good reason:

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Democracy was, says Klein, the theme of the Porto Alegre social forum in Brazil. So, apparently, was admiration for Fidel Castro and his not exactly democratic Cuba. She seems to have no more idea how constitutional democracies balance the rights of individuals against those of collectives than she does how a sophisticated economy works. She gives no account of how democracy could work at all the levels she lists, nor how far economic life would-or should-be subordinated to political decisions.

What she is sure of, instead, is that democracy is in a bad way. Yet, as the latest Human Development Report pointed out, between 1985 and 2000, the number of regimes considered democratic jumped from 44 to 82, while the number of authoritarian regimes fell from 67 to 26. This huge progress is invisible to Klein and her friends. They sat in Porto Alegre and asked what happened to democracy-in a country recently emerged from military rule.

This is hard to tolerate. So is the remark that "democracy isn't the work of the market's invisible hand; it's the work of real hands." It is both. In undeveloped economies with mass illiteracy, democracy tends towards demagogy, clientelism and corruption. In advanced economies, with entrenched property rights, high levels of education and a sophisticated electorate, democracy has proved both stable and successful. South Korea and Taiwan are recent examples. No serious person imagines China as a working democracy without rapid development founded upon a dynamic market economy.

Klein's concept of democracy is as immature as her view of the economy. For her, democracy is about rallies and marches, popular participation and direct action. Of the Quebec protests in 2001, she says, "whatever else the protesters were seeking, all were certainly looking for a taste of direct political participation. The result of these hundreds of miniature protests converging was chaotic, sometimes awful, but frequently inspiring." "