Ethnic violence breaks out in Myanmar

Regrettably, this is not unprecedented. Riots are breaking out in Myanmar after its military rulers loosened their grip on power. 

The story is common: An autocratic, totalitarian regime relinquishes power and society tumbles into chaos. Long standing tensions that had been repressed under the previous regime are then free to flourish. What had been a peaceful repressed society becomes a violent free society.

Helps us understand why some populations favor dictatorial rule. This helps explain the framers' concerns over the "excesses of democracy." 

Something to Ponder: What exactly of "free" about a free market?

I'll try to formulate a question around this theme at some point, probably for 2301 in terms of ideology. Freedom - and liberty in general - is an ongoing value in the American mindset, but its a slippery term and can mean different things to different people. This can impact how the term is used in elections.

The internal debate among Republican candidates about whether Romney's activities with Bain Capital is a case in point. Are his actions then beyond reproach now because what he did is work within the free market (or free enterprise) or are the consequence of those decisions - closed businesses, fired workers, raided pensions, etc . . - fair game?

What does it mean for a market to be free? Does it mean that business people can do whatever they want - freedom only applies to them? - or should rules be established and applied in order to ensure that the freedom of everyone is protected?

Most of the words we use to describe values get slippery after awhile. I want to dig into this at some point.  

The "Wikipedia Revolution" in Tunisia

Democracy may or may not be breaking out in Tunisia, a north African Arab nation judged across the board to be among the world's most repressive, but riots have forced the existing president to resign and flee the country. The president had been in power for over twenty years and was re-elected regularly by very high nargins -- never a sign of a truly competitive system (in 1994 and 1999 he received 99% of the vote). One source has dubbed this the "wikileaks revolution" because:

US diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks described Tunisia as a "police state" riddled with corruption, and claimed President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali had lost touch with his people.

It described the president and his siblings as "The Family" - comparing them to a Mafia crime organisation.
Wikileaks also revealed that Ben Ali's wife, Leila, had made huge profits out of building an exclusive school.

One cable was banned in Tunisia, although its contents became widely known.

In it, US ambassador Robert Godec wrote: "Corruption in the inner circle is growing. Even average Tunisians are keenly aware of it, and the chorus of complaints is rising. Tunisians intensely dislike, even hate, first lady Leila Trabelsi and her family. In private, regime opponents mock her."

Social network websites such as Facebook helped spread the comments, to the delight of Tunisians.

For general information about measurements of freedom in countries across the world check these out:

- Freedom House: Freedom in the World 2011.
- Democracy Index.
- Press Freedom Index.

Whether the revolution leads to the establishment of a legitimate democracy or simply another authoritarian regime, or whether it causes other leaders in the region to topple is an open question at this point.

Hyper Libertarianism

This analysis of Pay Pal co-founder Peter Thiel is a bit harsh (I can't vouch for its accuracy), but it touches on political conflicts central to this class. Note the highlight in the following quote from the story:

To describe Peter Thiel as simply a libertarian wildly understates the case. His belief system is based on unapologetic selfishness and economic Darwinism. His most famous quote—borrowed from Vince Lombardi—is, "Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser." In a personal statement produced last year for the CATO Foundation, Thiel announced: "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible." The public, he says, doesn't support unregulated, winner-take-all capitalism and so he doesn't support the public making decisions. This anti-democratic proclamation comes with some curious historical analysis. Thiel says that the Roaring 20s were the last period when it was possible for supporters of freedom like him to be optimistic about politics. "Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women—two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians—have rendered the notion of 'capitalist democracy' into an oxymoron," he writes.


This is similar to a point we make in the early lectures in 2301, but instead of "democracy" I we use "equality." Since democracy in based on political equality, we could probably use the terms synonymously. The story goes on ask some interesting questions about the role of government in these time. Perhaps you agree with the sentiment.

We will discuss.

Sacrificing Freedom to Gain Greater Freedoms

Here's some commentary on the different conceptions liberals and conservatives have about freedom. This guy uses an example I've used in class for years:

If freedom involves having a decent set of alternatives available to us, then government action can enhance our freedom even if it involves restraints on conduct that would not otherwise violate anyone’s rights. Consider traffic laws. Those of us who drive are constantly subjected to government dictates telling us what we can and cannot do. We can only drive on one side of the street. We have to stop at red lights and stop signs even when no one else is around. If freedom means only that government should not tell us what to do, then the traffic laws are a massive intrusion on our liberty.

I suspect that most people don’t see things that way, though. They probably agree with Elizabeth Anderson, from whom I have taken this example:

To be sure, in a state of gridlock, one has the formal freedom to choose any movement in one's opportunity set -- which amounts to being able to rock forward and back a couple of inches from bumper to bumper, getting nowhere. Some freedom!

Normally, the point of driving is to get somewhere. The traffic laws enable us to get where we are going much more quickly and safely than we would if each of us had to decide for him- or herself which side of the street to drive on. The traffic laws do not tell us where to go. They leave the choice of destination, and for that matter the decision whether to drive at all, entirely up to us. They simply tell us which side of the road to drive on, that we should stop at various points, and so forth. By taking away our freedom to drive on the left, or to blast through busy intersections, they grant us much more freedom in the form of a greatly enhanced ability to get wherever we want to go quickly and safely.
Anyone who thinks that the traffic laws enhance our freedom should acknowledge that in some cases, including this one, government action can enhance our freedom, even if that action takes the form of restrictions on what we can and cannot do.

Economic Freedom

After a discussion of what freedom "is" in one of my classes yesterday, this link to the Index of Economic Freedom might be an interesting read.

- Economic freedom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Least Free Places on Earth

From Foreign Policy.

Freedom in Burma

is non existent.

Peculiar circumstances have brought the country back in the news. It's leading pro-democracy supporter has been under house arrest for almost two decades and is now on trial again. Freedomhouse.org puts it on its list of "not free" countries. Opposition is not allowed, nor much news from the outside world. This is an understandable temptation. Democracy is threat to the military rulers.

Here's an interesting report on the world's most repressive societies (and no, Texas is not on the list).

Nuisance Laws

The Chron calls them a regulatory silver bullet which allows cities, especially Houston, the ability to regulate activities that might otherwise be out of reach:

Houston Mayor Bill White said the city’s “market-oriented” land-use system — also known as a lack of zoning — means that “use of nuisance laws becomes more important in making sure that somebody’s use of their land does not unreasonably interfere with their neighbor’s property rights.”

White said the city’s use of nuisance litigation in the coming year may or may not increase depending on whether certain businesses decide to change their tunes. He acknowledged that recent successes in this area, aided by some pro-bono work from private law firms, have helped reduce pollution and close sex-related businesses near neighborhoods that had been magnets for crime.

Nuisance laws go back centuries and long have functioned as a tool of governments and private land owners to haul into court those they believe are using their property in a way that infringes on rights of others.

Still, the laws, which have local and state components, largely have been subsumed in modern times with the advent of zoning and other forms of regulation, said Matthew Festa, a South Texas College of Law property land use professor.

Poll Results: Peaceful Tyranny v. Violent Freedom

Of the ten people who voted in this poll,

6 - would prefer living peacefully in a despotic regime while
4 - would prefer living freely, but subject to the occasional war.

This was the choice laid out in Federalist and Anti-Federalist #6. Hamilton argued that life without the Constitution would be subject to "frequent and violent contests" between the resulting confederacies, while Centinel prefers anarchy--and presumably its consequences--to the absolute power contained in the new Constitution. So assuming each argument contains a grain of truth, which option would a rational person choose, assuming that this is a rational choice at all.

It's a fair dilemma, and perhaps one we are not able to understand fully not being subject to a tyrannical government (unless we are so conditioned to a tyrannical order that we do not even recognize it as being one), but it is probably indicative of the American spirit that collectively we narrowly opt for violent unstable freedom when given a choice.

Now it might be useful to apply this abstract consideration to contemporary concrete examples of the dilemma. The seemingly arbitrary surveillance of cell phone conversations, or willingness to suspend civil liberties in general in order to root out terrorist plots--or suspected plots--is a good contemporary example. Think about this next time you have to take your shoes off before you board a plane.

It is worth considering what and how many liberties people would be willing to give up in order to ensure complete security from terrorist attack.

Benjamin Franklin allegedly stated "they that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." But it is useful to remind everyone that the very act of living in an orderly society under a system of law and order necessitates a reduction of individual liberty. The only question is which liberties and how much they should be curtailed and how.

Hence the dilemma.

The Trouble With Openess

As we discussed last week, the decision by Burmese military leaders to delay foreign aid and deny entry to foreign aid workers makes perfect sense from the perspective of a totalitarian regime that wishes to stay in charge. Foreign workers bring with them foreign ideas which can loosen your control. Efforts--successful-- to eradicate interior social institutions with their own values have the same effect.

Chinese decisions to allow aid, limited workers, and especially the foreign press put it in a different position that may cause the country to open up in ways and at a rate its leaders were not counting on. In a sense this is its own fault since the foreign press had been invited into the country in an apparent effort to ensure that coverage of the country prior to and during the Olympics was favorable.

The comes the earthquake. There's some bad timing for you. Thirty years ago, there would have been measures of tremors, official denials of severe damage and spotty reports of widespread damage. The reasons is obvious, no government wants to seem weak because that makes you vulnerable. This only works if a regime wishes to be isolated. Now that China wants to act on the world stage, the dynamic changes and can create problems for the continuance of the regime.

This is the subject of a worthwhile read in today's NYT:

A dash of openness can be a dangerous thing in an autocratic state.

Mikhail Gorbachev discovered this two decades ago when his campaign to inject some daylight into Soviet society doubled back on him like a heat-seeking missile.

Now China’s leaders are playing with the same volatile political chemistry as they give their own citizens and the world an unexpectedly vivid look at the earthquake devastation in the nation’s southwest regions. The rulers of cyclone-battered Myanmar, by contrast, are sticking with the authoritarian playbook, limiting access and even aid to the stricken delta region where tens of thousands of people were killed by the storm.

While China’s response to its natural catastrophe is certainly more humane, and is only a small step toward openness, it could set in motion political forces that might, over time, be unsettling. That’s especially true in an age of instant communications, even in a nation like China, which tries to control Internet access.

“When you start opening up and loosen controls, it becomes a slippery slope,” Jack F. Matlock Jr., the American ambassador to Moscow during much of the Gorbachev period, said last week as he watched the events in China. “You quickly become a target for everyone with a grievance and before long people go after the whole system.”

The author compares China's current situation with Russia's 23 years ago:

Still, it is worth recalling a time when a little openness flew out of control.

As a correspondent and bureau chief for The New York Times in Moscow in the late 1980s, I had a ringside seat to observe the slow disintegration of the Soviet Union under Mr. Gorbachev. The collapse of the Soviet empire and dissolution of the Communist Party were not exactly what he had in mind when he took power in 1985 and launched his twin policies of glasnost (greater openness) and perestroika (political reform).

As events unfolded, it was like watching a scientist start a nuclear chain reaction that races out of control, eventually consuming him and all those around him.

Mr. Gorbachev realized his country was rotting from within, paralyzed by repression and ideological rigidity, a backward economy and a deep cynicism among Russians about their government. “We can’t go on living like this,” he told his wife, Raisa, hours before he was named Soviet leader, he recalled in his 1995 memoirs.

But he clearly had no inkling of where his initiatives were headed when, shortly after taking office, he broke new ground for a Kremlin leader by mingling with citizens in Leningrad and giving unscripted interviews.

In those early days of glasnost, it was hard to tell whether the changes were purely superficial or the start of something more profound.

He suggests that a tipping point was the nuclear reactor accident at Chernobyl when the regime first downplayed the event, then was forced to reveal what had happened over time. The forces that allowed a small degree of openness were then forced by outside pressures to allow more, which they could not control. This was exacerbated, ironically, with a second tipping point precipitated by an earthquake:

A striking moment of glasnost [openess] came with the killer earthquake in Armenia in December 1988. Faced with the deaths of tens of thousands of Soviet citizens, and desperate for outside aid, the Kremlin lifted restrictions on travel to Armenia. Western reporters in Moscow were stunned to discover that they could just go to the airport and catch a flight to Yerevan, the Armenian capital, no advance government approval required. Foreign relief flights, including American military planes carrying food, water and medical supplies, were welcomed in Yerevan.

Sounds a lot like China today.

As the old regime frayed, Mr. Gorbachev wasn’t prepared for the assault of long-repressed political forces let loose by his reforms. The most potent was nationalism, the fierce pride in nationhood that Stalin and his successors had tried to suffocate in places like Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia; Armenia and Georgia; and throughout Eastern Europe.

Once uncorked, nationalism essentially overwhelmed Mr. Gorbachev, who, to his credit, choose not to try to hold together the Soviet empire by force.

He was rewarded for his efforts with the clumsy but wrenching coup attempt in August 1991 that gravely weakened him and empowered Boris Yelstin, who had broken with Mr. Gorbachev in 1987. Within months, the Soviet Union dissolved and Mr. Gorbachev was out of work.

Russia today, despite the restoration of authoritarian rule by Vladimir Putin, enjoys a degree of freedom that was inconceivable at the height of Communist rule. Glasnost helped make it that way.

China’s leaders may not take comfort in that thought.

As Mr. Matlock said last week, “If you remove the power of repressive state organs while stirring up a nation with many problems, you will get a process you can’t control.”

We will see, and it may be sooner than later. China has a history of brutal repression, but it has placed itself in a position where such repression will no longer by tolerated internally or externally.

Free market economists, notably Milton Friedman, have long held that economic freedom precedes political freedom. Some of this is due to the political strength given to those made rich by economic freedom and their increased ability to lobby for change. Some also has to do with the McDonald's rule we've discussed in class. A certain level of economic prosperity leads one to oppose military solutions to social problems that can compromise quality of life.

Freedom and Authority

The dark side of Giuliani for many, myself among them, has been the hint of authoritarianism in how he governs. The Daily Dish has a recent post with a link to a discussion of his in 1994 on the relationship between freedom and authority.

What do we make of the following sentence?

Freedom is about the willingness of every single human
being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion
about what you do.

Does this mean that freedom is about the willingness to not be free? Does it suggest that if one chooses to exercise freedom, then perhaps one has demonstrated that they are not worthy of freedom? Is authority an end in itself that precedes freedom? That has it's own merit apart from what it provides for the governed?

Perhaps Mr. Giuliani would deny that. He might suggest that freedom, properly considered, includes the willingness to curb one's behavior in certain ways that may be damaging to others, or to the permanent interests of the community. But though some of these restraints may be obvious (not raping, murdering or stealing), others may not (criticizing government, using intoxicants, getting a divorce or being homosexual, or Mormon). A key dilemma of government is determining what restraints are properly imposed by government, and where it needs to mind its own business. And since governmental decisions are sanctioned by majorities, this is akin to determining what a majority cannot do to a minority.

Madison seems prescient. It always comes down to the violence of majority coalitions and what can be done to protect the weaker party.

And what about this lawful authority? In a democracy, lawful authority rests with the people. The law enforcement apparatus, the bureaucratic organization that is the police department or any other entity given the ability to use physical force, is an expression of the consent of the people--the governed.

We should always be concerned when the interests of those organizations take a life of their own and their interests diverge from those of the people. This is what separates the authoritarian regime from the democratic. I trust that Mr. Giuliana understands the difference.