A Pragmatic Book for a Pragmatic Time
What I appreciate most about this book is that it takes the goal of democracy (or in Mike Lind's words, republican liberalism) and subjects it to the most searching, pragmatic critique, in the process providing a vision of how democracy best fits into a non-ideological, non-faith-based foreign policy programme. Particularly because democracy is such an intensely hopeful and optimistic political theory, it can elicit a kind of chaos when it comes to strategy. Freedom, it seems to me, is like that. Like pure oxygen, it can inspire and vivify but also make us dizzy. We've seen this from our politicians, whether Woodrow Wilson, Ronald Reagan, or George W. Bush, and we've also seen it from theorists of democracy -- whether Patrick Henry saying "Give me liberty or give me death" or Natan Sharansky saying that freedom should always be pursued, even if it might give violent extremists even more power than they already have.
One of the many changes that President-elect Barack Obama promises is a shift from an ideological or even faith-based reasoning behind our foreign policy to one grounded on the edits of pragmatism -- over and over again, Obama invokes "what will work" as the major criterion. This is a richer standard than you might at first think -- what "works" for a republican liberal, in Lind's terminology, will not "work" for a neoconservative or a paleoconservative. The traditional progressive will be examining whether results are helping the world become more progressive -- they might apply a more traditionally "pure" ethical standard to foreign policy. Lind applies a more hard-eyed, nationalistic analysis -- the American republican liberal will be looking at whether results on the ground square with an increase in liberty that redounds to America's security interests -- whether, in Lind's words, the strategy has resulted in the "defense of the American way of life."
Regardless of where you fall on the progressive-idealistic/republican liberal-instrumental spectrum, it's clear that we desperately need to shift to a much more intensely pragmatic way of reasoning about democracy as a function of our national security goals. In fact, we need a richer, more nuanced, and more powerful way of reasoning about pragmatism itself. The book is especially helpful there, inducting readers into the perhaps unfamiliar world of pure strategic reasoning -- many will emerge from this shadowy but necessary anteroom a little more hardened, a little more abashed, a little more wary. But this can be to the good -- pragmatism does not mean we lose our ideals. Indeed, pragmatism can marry up with idealism. As Robert F. Kennedy once wrote, "It is not realistic or hardheaded to solve problems and take action unguided by ultimate moral aims and values. It is thoughtless folly." Ideals and results are not mutually exclusive -- there is no zero-sum.
I am not actually so sure I agree with Mike's own description of his project, that he advances an old-fashioned doctrine of liberal internationalism. I find in this book as much of a push for a new temperament and worldview in foreign policy as a specific doctrine. That temperament concentrates on marrying self-interest, progressive ends, and a prudential approach. Because of the subtle interplay of these ends -- and the utter abandonment of ideological or faith-based reasoning -- Mike has basically provided us with a new paradigm for pursuing ends we might originally have thought were purely progressive, or even deontological.
This new paradigm of nuance and prudence isn't needed anywhere more than in our pursuit of democracy across the globe. The Bush neocon approach has been so rash, so reckless, and so full of bluster and blunders that it risks pushing many Americans, and the world, further into democracy fatigue. Not only did the neocons fuse democracy promotion with regime change -- they also incorporated a willful ignorance of local culture; a metaphysical faith in democracy; a naive and arrogant concept of destiny; and tragic refusal to simply adjust their approach to results on the ground.
But we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The book takes us through episodes in American history that, by turns, reveal when we've promoted democracy in accordance with Lind's idea about defending the American "way of life," and when we've taken on adventures that actually undermine the hospitability of the world to us. It provides a piercingly insightful take on just why Iraq and Vietnam were so disastrous -- one that speaks to the hard head, rather than the soft heard.
In this vein, I disagree with my friend David Shorr's assessment that the book is "too passive, heartless, and unambitious." Sure, intrinsically pragmatic assessments can always seem "heartless." And Mike Lind definitely errs on the side of a dispassionate, even dry style -- sometime the wit is so biting and the logic so forbidding it can read like a stern admonition rather than an inspiring invocation. But there is something like a dance of masques in the book. Despite his seemingly dispassionate style and analysis, I think there is actually a tremendously heartfelt commitment underlying Lind's book -- to the incredible promise of republican liberalism for human flourishing and for American greatness, and a real (if hidden) anguish about the horrible cost ideological misadventures can have on these ends.
In an Obama era, when our commander-in-chief is urging us, more and more, to look to what "will work," we urgently need subtle, inspired treatments like The American Way of Strategy of pragmatism in foreign policy -- and nowhere than in our own cause celebre of democracy.
I definitely agree that the pragmatic approach can be guided by morality but that's also very often an excuse. When the US acted immorally by deposing the elected government of Chile and then installing and backing a brutal dictator, those responsible for that travesty justified their actions as being both pragmatic and moral. They murdered Allende and tortured his supporters but told themselves it was all right because it had to be done to contain the Soviets and Soviet containment was both a practical and moral good.
Pragmatism is no good if there are bad morals behind it. I do trust Obama's morals. I think that for him "what works" is also "what's right." But the Bush Administration thought they had not only morals but the best minds on their side. Nobody ever thinks they're doing something entirely impractical for the right reasons. Everyone offers up a pragmatic justification.
December 2, 2008 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe the essence of pragmatism is simply not being counterproductive. The Bush Administration experiment in exporting democracy ended up costing our republic any moral capital we had in the world. Our government spied on our own citizens. Our government kidnapped and tortured other nations' citizens. Our government threw away the very basic elements of a liberal democracy - habeas corpus, right to trial. We committed ourselves to bringing "freedom" to the Middle East by shredding our Constitution at home.
There is a realization, slowly dawning, that much of Bush's expeditions were for the benefit of agendas and entities other than "freedom" and security for the United States. It would be pragmatic, in the future, to shine the light on this ugliness a little earlier.
December 2, 2008 7:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
The rhetoric of democracy promotion leaves me pretty cold these days. There is an elite liberal establishment deeply committed to a certain limited forms of democracy promotion, and they constantly enjoin others to fall in with their cause. But I just feel like they and I are on different wavelengths, and see different words.
Why? Consider a place like Lagos, Nigeria. When I contemplate a place like Lagos - which granted I have never visited other than in books - I call to mind large expanses of hideous sprawling slums. I picture wretched poverty, disease, grinding misery and despair, short life spans, and the absence of clean water, healthy food, and safe, comfortable and roomy living spaces. It is a vivid exemplar of the grotesque inequalities of condition in this world.
When the liberal democracy promoters look at these places they see an absence of “civil society”. To me, this is like seeing a skinny slave wallowing naked in a pile of maggot-infested shit and declaring that what the poor bugger needs is a better internet connection, a library card and a voting machine that lets him chose between two corrupt masters rather than just one. Now I agree that those things would be good to have, but I think the first thing the guy probably needs is a bath, some food and some antibiotic drugs. And then he needs a set of socio-economic arrangements that would offer some chance that he could actually use his internet connection, books and voting machine to exercise some real power over the direction of his society.
But that would require doing something about flattening the steeply pointed global economic pyramid. And this is something that the liberal democracy promoters seem to have no interest whatsoever in doing.
What is democracy? Well let’s think of government in its broadest sense, as all of those institutions by which people combine their power and set up rules and practices to organize their activities for the attainment of common ends. Democracy is self-government: An institution is democratic if the people who compose it and activate it are the same people who govern it, and they participate equally in the work of governance. In a democratic setup, there is no sharp hierarchical distinction between the “governors” and the “governed”, and there no stark inequalities in real power that would turn mere formal and official designations of people as “citizens” and equal participants in the work of governing into mockeries of the real thing.
The current crop of democracy promoters operate with what to my mind is a degenerated and elitist conception of democracy, which drains much of the real self-government and equal power from democracy, and substitutes in its place an economic aristocracy superintending a range of tolerant liberal institutions to fob off the masses with something decidedly less than equal power. They would give that guy in Lagos equal access to a book and a vote, but they are horrified by the idea that they might promote the sort of economic leveling that would give that guy anything like an equal say in his country’s future – or in our future.
The people the democracy promoters work for - the funders of the foundations, think tanks and NGO’s that form the global liberal democracy industry - don’t want real democracy. Real democracy would require demoting these philanthropists from the exalted stations they occupy in life, and bringing them down with some of the rest of us. What they want instead is an “enlightened” means of social control that consists in buying people off with liberal institutions: few restrictions on reading matter; few restrictions on discussion, few restrictions on sexual partners and sexual practices, but very, very, very serious restrictions on the opportunity to turn liberal access to ideas and experiences into the real power people would need to run their lives and direct the courses of their societies.
Many of the democracy promoters from the foreign policy establishment spend time promoting the interests of the very global masters who dominate the lives of the wretched, lowly masses they would seek to liberate. They work for strategic consultancies, and advise corporations on the best, most enlightened and most liberal means of growing their wealth, expanding their capital empires and extending their economic domination over the miserable. They display their warm liberal sympathies and advanced global perspectives by passing on PR tips, and telling corporate moneybags that when the latter work to acquire and hoard the wealth of pathetic and poor foreign peoples it is important to extend their business cards with both hands, use reverential expressions like “May the Lord lighten your steps!”, and never eat with the same hand with which you wipe yourself. When they are not helping companies rake in more bundles of dough, they work for the foundations, councils and think tanks that are the philanthropic toys of the elite – promoting “democracy” they say.
I work five days a week for a large corporation. I believe I have a fair appreciation for the value corporations produce. But I can assure you that they are among the least democratic institutions ever devised by man. Many people around the world spend the majority of their lives living and acting inside the confines of these hierarchical and undemocratic institutions, and democracy is something they only get to do in the gaps between long stretches of obedient work. And those who have not yet attained the advanced liberal blessings of working for one of these undemocratic behemoths still live in a modern liberal world that is thoroughly dominated by corporations, which rule governments rather than be ruled by them. Do the liberal democracy promoters show any interest in taking on and re-structuring this grossly inegalitarian economic system? Hardly. You can’t even get them to talk about it.
December 3, 2008 12:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
I see you points, Dan.
But how can the poor of Nigeria ever expect to receive the material help they need if the government isn't at least somewhat democratic in nature?
China is an interesting exception to this rule and perhaps Singapore.
But generally, totalitarian or undemocratic regimes or regimes that are simply corrupt and therefore undemocratic don't do a very good job of spreading the wealth.
December 3, 2008 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
"The people the democracy promoters work for - the funders of the foundations, think tanks and NGO’s that form the global liberal democracy industry - don’t want real democracy. Real democracy would require demoting these philanthropists from the exalted stations they occupy in life, and bringing them down with some of the rest of us. What they want instead is an “enlightened” means of social control that consists in buying people off with liberal institutions: few restrictions on reading matter; few restrictions on discussion, few restrictions on sexual partners and sexual practices, but very, very, very serious restrictions on the opportunity to turn liberal access to ideas and experiences into the real power people would need to run their lives and direct the courses of their societies."
Describes the US perfectly! I'm reassured about the competence of the Obama "brain trust" already...
December 3, 2008 11:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Democratic governments can be corrupt too. Sometimes they just highly inefficient systems of revolving nepotism and patronage. Several deep southern US states are quite democratic, but have economically and socially under-performed for decades. The deeper cultural, moral and intellectual habits of the people in the society are the determining factor. Are they industrious, honest, accountable, well-educated, progressive, prudent, disciplined, innovative, and peaceful? Or are indolent, deceitful, irresponsible, ignorant, reactionary, impulsive, short-sighted, free-wheeling, dull-witted, disorganized and violence-prone? I think this is a more important factor than whether there is one-party or two.
But I do think democracy helps. My theme is that you can't have real democracy without egalitarian forms of economic life. Wealth consists in the things people desire, and if a person controls inordinate amounts of wealth he inordinately controls the desires of other people, and thus has inordinate power over other people.
I think there would be more constructive engagement between the democracy promoters in the liberal elite and the lower orders of the progressive left if the former would give up some of their commitment to neoliberal capitalism, sever some of their ties to the corporate ruling class and the aggressive machinery of global capital and empire, and recognize that you can't promote democracy without promoting equality.
December 3, 2008 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
I admit that China really does seem to be an exception to this...
And indeed democratic governments can be corrupt, too.
But I don't see you arrive at economic equality without some political equality, too.
Otherwise, what is the motivation for the haves to give to the have nots? In China's case, the elite's desire to remain the elite seems to drive some of it. Billions of angry, out of work peasants on your doorstep really does concentrate the mind.
But elsewhere, I'm not sure I see it happening. And when a regime does buy off discontents by spreading some green around, it seems to be only a stop-gap measure, as the masses end up clamoring for more...and for a voice in how society is set up and run.
I'm pretty sure that some measure of economic equality inevitably leads to demands for political equality, something the elites are mostly unwilling to grant.
Perhaps the answer has to be both-together...
I do agree that democracy can't be imposed and am not sure how best to "encourage" its adoption and growth other than by example...
December 3, 2008 1:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
But I don't see you arrive at economic equality without some political equality, too.
Yes, I agree with that. And there have been times in the past when classical liberal impulses toward liberty, civil rights and civil society have been married to the egalitarian, leveling impulses of the left to form a left-liberalism that challenged the undemocratic tendencies of elite power and privilege across the board - whether economic power, cultural power, military power or political power. People have sometimes seen that promoting real democracy and promoting equality are in the end the same thing.
My complaint is that the liberal establishment these days has abandoned the drive for equality. They sometimes seem to have abandoned all discussion and critique of economic arrangements altogether. They are part of a networked corporatocratic aristocracy that possesses certain noble and enlightened sentiments about supposedly "free" presses; about multiparty systems; about equal gender access to the fruits of rootless secular consumerism; and about spreading the American Way, being an exemplary city on the hill, being a light unto the world, an apostle unto the nations, etc. They call this sort of managed, aristocratic and corporatocratic liberalism "democracy", and say we should all help spread it.
December 3, 2008 9:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, I'm not quite familiar with what you're talking about. Maybe I live under a rock. But I guess these folks have simply capitulated to the Republican approach to economics and tried to marry it to a political program.
I guess one of the problem is that, with private ownership of business, there are owners and there are workers. The owners, quite naturally, are the bosses and want "their way" to prevail. They own the place and they've put up the dough, or are at least on the hook for the dough, so they feel they have the right.
And, in a way, they do. But there are less, and more, enlightened ways to be the boss. There are corporations, perhaps not yours, where the owner understands that the way to get happy and productive and satisfied employers is to give them room for autonomy and ownership, functionally and economically, of their parts of the company.
Then, of course, there are companies that are owned by the workers. I don't know how many, but often otherwise failing enterprises in depressed areas have been bought by the workers in order to keep the company--and their livelihoods--alive. But worker-owned businesses could work anywhere, I imagine. You would still have some kind of hierarchy, no doubt, but at least everyone would have a stake. Whether it's an EQUAL stake would depend on the arrangement worked out.
So I'm not sure corporations HAVE to be rigid hierarchies as you suggest. At the end of the day, if you have a large organization of any type, it's very hard (I THINK) to have true equality across the board and still have the organization "move forward" and get things done. Rule by committee to the fifth power often results in watered down initiatives or gridlock in which everyone has the power to block anything they don't like or approve of.
Even if our democracy, Congress and the president are given wide latitude to act as THEY see fit, and then once every two, four or six years the voters get to say whether they agree or disagree. Of course, now with the blogosphere, we get to raise our voices every minute of every day, but don't really exercise any CONTROL over what our leaders do except at the ballot box.
December 5, 2008 9:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
The background and history of the American South is different from the rest of the country. Its experience with slavery lasted longer, and the entire region was and is informed by a legacy of war, defeat, starvation and condemnation. But to your larger point: Does the chicken or the egg come first? Is it nature or nurture? Is Jethro a lazy racist because his society in enfeebled, or is Jethro's society a backward shanty town because he's deficient? History has proven those identified - and condemned - as sub-par are soon to be graveyard paperwork. Even Marx had little use for peasants. 'Course, if the dogma is wrong - and the poor and uneducated are dulled by external forces (economic exploitation, ethnic/racial contempt) - I suppose we can always build a memorial to their inadvertent martyrdom.
December 3, 2008 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink