The Future of Freedom - a book review

In The Future of Freedom, Fareed Zakaria studied the tension between liberty and democracy and call for restoration of balance between the two.

He argued favorably with facts why constitutional liberalism and up to a point, the capitalist system provides more condusive and stable conditions for democracy rather than the other way around. Constitutional liberalism is a reliable restraint to the democratic majority.

Zakaria's book is very penetrating in that he highlighted the problem faced with democracy in its various forms whether illiberal or unregulated.

In Chapter 2, Fareed called it the twisted path of democracy when the democracy without constitutional liberalism went awry. Nazist German was the classic example.

In Chapter 3, he cited Russia and Venezuela among many other in Balkan, Central Asia and other parts as example of illiberal democracy. India, with its increasingly Hindu fundamentalism advocated by BJP is in danger of heading to the same direction.

Fareed's observation that without constitutional liberalism, the introduction of democracy in divided societies has frequently formented nationalism, ethnic conflict and war. Suharto's Indonesia or the former Yugoslavia maybe autocratic, yet the order and stability they provided were much preferred to the state of ethnic cleansing and war following their demise.

In Chapter 4, the Islamic Exception, he noted that the Arab world is trapped between an autoritarian state and an illiberal society. As the state becomes more repressive, the opposition within the society grows more pernicious, goading the stateinto further repression. It is a vicious circle.

Only with political liberalism allowing the Arab intellectual and the peoples the freedom and the economic reform to allow for improvement to peoples lives, will religious extremism and violence be arrested. The road to democracy in the Middle East is not distinctively different.

One particular point that Zakaria made regarding Islam is worth noting. Contrary to the popularly held view that Islam is about devotion to authority as suggested by Islam as meaning submission in Arab, Islam has actually an anti-authoritarian streak. It orginates from some hadiths - that says, obediance to the ruler is incumbent upon the rulers observing the God's law (simialat to Mencious' right to rebel against a ruler who lost the heavenly mandate). With Sunni Islam without a religious establishment, the decision to oppose the stae on the ground that it is unislamis and insufficiently islamis belongs to anyone who wishes to exercise it.

In Chapter 5, Fareed calls it too much of a good things when he pointed out the problem of having too much democracy. With the politicians are frequently in the state of permanent campaign and the increased practice of referendim and initiatives, a lot of power is now highjacked by an ever growing class of professional consultants, lobbyist, pollster and activist.

In Chapter 6, the Death of Authority, Zakaria studied the decline of varios institutional authority in America. The best example given was the decline of the mainsteam churches - Episcopalian, Methodist and the rise of Evangelical Christianity.

The rise of Evangelical is attributed to its taking the more populist and democratic stance. The tactis employed is to mimic the mainstream culture and values and preaching what the peoples wants, which is a less religiously demanding and more warm and service oriented Christiantity.

In this chapter, one senses Zakaria's elitism. He lamented the suicide of American elite as part of the death of authority. He suggested that the increasing democratization has done away with the ruling elite class and released them from a string of responsibilities that comes with their privileges.

On this, Zakaria gave the story of the real Titanic history where one of the richest American on board, after fighting to put his wife on the rescue boat, refused to take a seat observing the convention of "women and children first". It is honorable that the elites observe an unwritten code even though it meant certain death, it is another to suggest non-elites are not as capable. Zakaria gave the statistic that 70% of the men in first class perished, 90% in the second class. He didn't go into giving the survival rate of men in the other lower classes.

Suffice it says that there were still 30% of men in the first class survived, 20% more than the second class. Who knows whether those perished in the first two classes are more altruistic than the third fourth and others.

This is not a good example and I find this segtion most disagreeable.

In the final chapter, Zakaria's precsription to America is less democracy as the way out. He argued that delegated democracy subject to democratic control is the right dose for good governance with legitimacy. Invoking Federal Reserve and the Supreme Court, that are both well functining and well regarded in opinion poll, as successful example for delegating specialised areas to specialists, Zakaria advocate further use of delegation.

In developing countries, he was highly positive of the successful liberal authoritarian regimes - Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Chile, Indonesia and even China (to my mind, China at best qualified as economically liberal authoritarian country). He seems to suggest that to make democratic system works, the pre-condition is the economic development and followed by a healthy dose of constitutionalism and delegation.

The problem in this final chapter is that Zakaria didn't disntinguish the difference between political and economic liberty in the developing countries, like in China

Also problematic is that Zakaria recognise only that liberty thrives with constitutionalism, least he knows is that constitutionalism can survive without liberty. Singapore comes to mind.

Overall, this is a deligthful book to read and I am looking to reading his next book - the Post-American World.