2005

F. Zakaria, The Future of Freedom. Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad, W.W. Norton & Company, New York and London 2003, pp. 286

Fareed Zakaria is a young journalist with Arab Indian origins, naturalized citizen of the United States (which he always emphatically calls «America»), presently working as editor for the «Newsweek International». In his book The Future of Freedom. Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad, which is as modest as conceited, F. Z. exposes his neo-conservative theory. The basic idea of the book, which has been already largely elaborated, discussed and explored by other great thinkers like Alexis de Tocqueville, Bertrand de Jouvenel, Karl Popper etc., is that an order of democratic procedures alone can't guarantee a solid and genuine democracy but needs to be accompanied by constitutional guarantees in order to limit the power of the majority. A «historical excursus» opening the book is followed by the main theme, along with some personal opinions of the author regarding the future of freedom and democracy. These could be summarized as follows:

• the best way to support democracy and facilitate the expansion is through the market and the trading capital;
• democracy needs to be exported into the world starting with the Islam. During this process the Unites States must continue to be the principal impulse of the expansion addicted to their motto «our task is to make democracy safe for the world»;
• democracy has to be directed by able and intelligent leaders;
• democracy and liberty both are function of written constitutions and bills of right.

I am going to analyse these last four points escorted by the analysis of the myths of democracy by Benjamin Barber. All I can say about the historical part of The Future of Freedom is that the data are no more than conventional ones, used to support the view that capitalism and market as well as constitutions and bills of rights are of major weight than democracy itself.

Democracy and market. By supporting his argument making use of the conservative libertarian views, F. Z. explains that capitalism is the best way to make democracy work. Capitalism needs contracts and, as a consequence, the law gets a major weight, too. We can object that from the spiritual values to the material goods, from the economic development to the social rights, from the welfare to the recognition of the individual dignity, all these aspects are certainly not a consequence of the market. F. Z. overlooks that a trade market offers a private rather than a public model of life-style and that it has the purpose to let clients consume and not to let people communicate and debate. F. Z. does not consider that the market tries to satisfy individual needs instead of social and common aims. His capitalism doesn't produce anything for the public welfare, neither for the public instruction, nor for the environment or even for the culture. Following the history, F.Z.'s thesis should be inverted: it is not capitalism that leads to democracy, it is democracy that induces to capitalism. A trade market needs democracy to survive but it is not able to generate democracy by its own, nor to maintain it. In fact, frequently capitalism produces circumstances that may undermine democracy.

The export of democracy. The second main point is about the possibility to export democracy. F. Z. maintains that the Islamic world could be enormously helped by the United States («America») to become a fully democratic, liberal and secular society by introducing capitalism into the economic system. Particularly in Iraq, the author hopes for a big involvement undertaken by the USA («America») in a serious, long-term project of nation building; but instead of introduce at once multi-parties elections, he proposes a five-years period of transition, political reform, and institutional development before. F. Z. fails to see that democracy is not like a delivered confection box, a set of fixed doctrines that can be given out to people like provision boxes from a plane. He is not of the idea that the best thing for the people is to find their own way, their own institutions and identity. Building up democracy is a long process that goes through generations, it is an ongoing experiment, not a pre-frozen ideology to be taken from the fridge ready to warm-up and consume.

The rule of leaders. To the opinion of the author, clever and capable leaders should take in hand the development of a democracy. But isn't there a basic error according to the definition of the word democracy, which means «power of the people» and not power of some people, leaders, saints or heroes? Moreover, his thesis becomes more and more questionable where F.Z. gives examples of «democratic» leaders picking up persons like Lee Kuan Yew, the patriarch ex-dictator of Singapore, who «brought happiness to his citizens, despite their limited political choice», or Augusto Pinochet, who «did lead his country to a liberal democracy» (sic, p. 95).

The author's last point and in fact the most important one is where he explains that constitutional liberalism, from a historical-descriptive point of view, precedes democracy and even must precede it from an ideological-normative point of view. F.Z. claims that what society needs today is not more democracy but less. He realizes though that he is not supported at all by other democratic philosophers in this analysis. The latters, he explaines, having no sense of reality, ask for broader political participation, join street protests against world government, and don't agree with the real benefactors of humanity such as the WTO (World Trade Organisation) and the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade).

As mentioned above, F.Z. inverts the priorities by stating that constitutions create democracy and bills of rights generate civil rights. The contrary is correct. From a historical and ideological point of view it is democracy which leads to constitutions and the bills are an effect of the rights people have fought for. The bills of rights are nothing but sheets of paper if rights are not respected. People should watch and protect the rights and constitutions from authoritarian turns that damage democracy.

In conclusion, contrary to what F.Z. is claiming, his work cannot be regarded as a scientific or academic one. Instead it is a journalistic pamphlet praising neo-conservative theories. The quotations in Latin are erroneous, and the story of Ulysses and the Sirens, stolen from Jon Elster to make his own work sexier, is quoted from a book of fairy tales rather than from the Odyssey, whereas the authors quoted are surely not Elster and colleagues.

Francesca Rigotti