Bharat Jhunjhunwala
The Western countries are haranguing China for espousing dictatorship rather than democracy. Might it be, though, that China’s path may be true and that of the West false?
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The espousal of democracy by the West appears to be predicated on exploitation of others. The first known democracy in the Western World was that of Greece. The same Greek city states regularly organised military campaigns for looting their neighbours. The luxury of participating in long “democratic” debates was made possible only by the wealth that came in through these looting campaigns. Greek democracy collapsed when the neighbours also acquired the iron weapons and could no longer be looted at will. The Roman Empire likewise looted the people outside the borders. The loot brought by the Roman armies from other lands made it possible to distribute goodies to the citizens. The Roman democracy collapsed as new areas to loot were not accessible.
The second wave of democracy came in the Middle Ages led by England. The English government was able to ‘buy’ the loyalty of its subjects by providing them with many benefits. Legislations like the Factories Act provided for a limited number of work hours and other relief to British workers. This led to higher cost of production. That, however, did not hurt the English economy because colonial loot was pouring in from across the globe. A year before Karl Marx’s death in 1883, his close colleague Friedrich Engels wrote to Russian politician Karl Kautsky: “The workers gaily share the feast of England’s monopoly of the world markets and the colonies.” The monopoly of the world markets and loot of the colonies provided England with the money to “buy out” the loyalty of its subjects. The inefficiency of democracy was covered by this loot.
Democracy in the US till the 19th Century was based on the newly-discovered bounty of gold and oil of the mid-West; on the wanton killing of the native Indians; and on the exploitation of black slaves brought from Africa. In the 20th Century, that country launched many wars for extracting the resources of the poor countries including those in Iraq and Bosnia. It has regularly deposed popular leaders of developing countries like Salvador Allende of Chile and installed leaders favourable to the US. The introduction of patents protection in WTO has made it possible for American MNCs—which were leading in technological advances at that time—to protect their economic interests in foreign lands.
The US has derived huge incomes from wars such as those on Iraq by exporting arms at a high price and importing oil at cheaper rates. US MNCs are roaming around the globe selling their patented goods at high prices. Democracy appears to have succeeded only when there existed an external source of income. The wealth of Western democracies and the poverty of the third world are but two sides of the same coin. If that is the case, then democracy cannot succeed in developing countries. One cannot ‘buy’ the loyalty of its people when the countries’ wealth is being transferred to the developed countries by patents and unfair trade. No wonder, Bhishma says in Shanti Parva: “Democracies destroy themselves due to infighting. Democracy can succeed only when the head person quietly takes others into confidence. The authorities should repress those who deviate from the consensus.” In other words, democracy can succeed only when there exists an exceptional leader who can secure the willing cooperation of the people without having to buy them out. But such exceptional leaders are far and few.
Normally, the elected heads have to provide financial benefits to the people to secure their support. The Union Government can buy the support of Mamata Banerjee only if it can provide a hefty financial package for West Bengal. Now, if the money is obtained from taxing other states, then people of the other states would revolt. But if the money is obtained from, say, colonisation of Timbuktu, then there is no problem. The people of Timbuktu will be impoverished and democracy will flower in India. History might say the short duration in which democracy was the norm was built on inter-national injustice, and the Chinese path of dictatorship was the one that was durable. That is not to venerate authoritarianism. It can be hugely oppressive as was in Stalin’s Soviet Russia and Mao Zedong’s China, for example. But democracy can also be equally oppressive as was the case with Hitler. In the end, neither democracy nor authoritarian rule guarantees good governance. The UNDP said in its Human Development Report of 2010: “Why is there less optimism about democracy than in the euphoric period just after the Cold War? Democracy has not produced dividends in the lives of ordinary people in too many countries. Income inequality and poverty have risen sharply in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, sometimes at unprecedented rates. Poverty has continued to increase in more democratic Sub-Saharan Africa. Many newly democratic regimes in Latin America seem no better equipped to tackle the region’s high poverty and inequality than their authoritarian predecessors.”
The end result seems to be as follows. Authoritarian regimes are ‘extremist’. They can produce good results as present-day China or bad results as Mao Zedong’s China. Democratic regimes, on the other hand, generally produce only mediocre results unless they are predicated on the loot of others.
Why should industrial countries then promote democracy in developing countries so vehemently? The answer lies in that democratic leaders are more amenable to being purchased. They need money to contest elections. It is beneficial for them to accept corruption money in foreign countries. This is not to argue that we must give up democracy and embrace an authoritarian regime. But let us realise democracy is no automatic solution to good governance. It can just as well be its opposite. But good governance in a democracy is more difficult than in a dictatorship. Fundamentally, democracy is an inefficient form of government. But this inefficiency can be covered up if huge resources are flowing in from other countries. We should apply our minds to securing good governance within democracy but without exploiting others. That is the challenge before us.
The writer is a former professor at IIM Bangalore.
