The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad

The Future of Freedom is not a book of history, although the author uses historical examples to make his points. It certainly deals with current affairs in America, the Middle East, India, and other areas but it is not typical journalism. It focuses on the freedom and democracy, but deals with the interplay of these properties of society and economics. Since the book is basically the presentation of the author's ideas on the nature of society, I guess I would characterize it as a book of the philosophy of political-economics. Of course, Fareed Zakaria is a distinguished journalist with an international "beat".

The key conclusion of the book by Fareed Zakaria, from the point of view of domestic policy, is that the increasing democratization of American society is leading to a deterioration of the quality of governance and threatens individual freedom. (Zakaria uses the term liberal in the 18th century sense of commitment to the protection of individual liberties.) Since Zakaria values democracy, freedom and good governance, the conclusion is painful.

The key conclusions of the book from the point of view of developing nations are that:

• Sustainable democracy is unlikely to be achieved while a country is suffering from extreme poverty
• Constitutional liberalism (representative government, independent judiciary, separation of church and state, bill of rights) appears to precede successful democratization
• Liberalizing authoritatian regimes may be needed to produce constitutional liberalism, and such regimes depend on the moral behaviour of the elite
• Constitutional liberalism is also the result of the development of social institutions (e.g. churches resisting state oversight, market economy sufficiently successful to generate economically independent classes, civil society organizations, political parties) which are sufficiently strong to counteract government coercive power
• Without constitutional liberalism, broad sufferage is likely to result in populist dictatorship or tirany of the majority.

Zakaria points out that there is a correlation between culture and political and economic development, but suggests that with the right institutions and policies, cultures can change in ways that are productive of political and economic progress. That seems to me to be likely to be true, but it also seems to me that culture includes items such as:

• The nature of elites and the moral commitments of the members of the elite,
• The instititutions that are accepted and utilized by the members of the culture
• The governmental policies that are preferred by the members of the culture.

The book is informed by research and the analysis of other authors, but I found myself with an inquietude that Zakaria is too smart and writes too well. It may be that his conclusions are too facile to be given full credence, but it is hard to see where they fail. One key point is that Zakaria shows how many very smart people have been wrong about these issues in the past. He may be in that good company.

Niall Ferguson did a good review of the book for The New York Times in 2003.