The End of History Comes to Iran
Like a lot of Americans, I’ve sort of let myself get distracted away from the news out of Iran, which has taken a turn for the worse lately. But I did like this post from Peter Juul at the Wonk Room:
While I can’t read minds (I’m no Charles Xavier or Emma Frost), I think Roger Cohen hit the dynamic on the head in another recent column: “…the loss of trust by millions of Iranians who’d been prepared to tolerate a system they disliked, provided they had a small margin of freedom, constitutes the core political earthquake in Iran. Moderates who once worked the angles are now muttering about making Molotov cocktails.”
These two Irans – the vibrant, diverse coalition that voted for change and then demonstrated in the streets versus the authoritarian, rule-by-force regime – will remain in conflict no matter if the government manages to disperse street protests in the short run. Khamenei and his successor(s) may be able to hold onto power by force for years, but they must do so now knowing large swaths of the population find their rule illegitimate and their system discredited. As Cohen wrote earlier, “Whatever happens now, all is changed in Iran.” We can only hope that the change is positive for the Iranian people, and that it comes sooner rather than later.
One way to think about this is in terms of Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history” thesis. The geographical scope in which Shi’a Islamism and velayat-e faqih could possibly become the dominant form of government is obviously pretty limited because there aren’t that many Shia Muslims in the world. But despite that limit the Islamic Revolution represented the only real example I think you could come up with of a true ideological alternative to liberal democracy in the world. And part of what we’ve seen over the past several weeks is the collapse of that alternative.
The Mullahs haven’t been willing to contest the basic democratic idea that he who gets the most votes ought to win the election. Nor have they been willing to actually permit fair voting. They can, plausibly, get away with this just as lots of autocrats (most importantly, though hardly exclusively) get away with all kinds of things. But when that’s done, it’s just unmasked as rule by force and by fraud rather than some genuine alternative political model that people can embrace.
60 Responses to “The End of History Comes to Iran”
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June 27th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
So which is it Iran and the End of History or The End of History comes to Iran. I find it interesting that people spend time trying to make these decisions, but I guess if you have a huge audience it might matter. For some reason good spelling isn’t worth the same consideration.
June 27th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
I hate it when I double post.
June 27th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
There is a good argument to be made to ignore, from the Western point of interest, whatever is happening in Iran.
Historically speaking, Iran has always been a problem for Western interests in the region, whatever the regime, popular or unpopular. A large part of the problems we have in the Middle East concerns Iranian involvement, which I do not see receding just because of a regime change.
It is a much easier, from the Western point of view, to deal with the likes of Saudi Arabia, which has no mythical interests to pursue in the region and no incentive to destabilize others. Saudi Arabia has also proven to be a much more reliable partner than either the Shah or anyone else, really.
June 27th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
It’s awesome to see Matt make a double post. He’s just like us.
“The end of History” will have a much larger legacy than “The clash of civilizations”. Since the fall of the USSR, there is still no true alternative that has emerged to counter Western social democracy. Only China may offer such a model, if it continues to grow at the current pace for 20-30 years without democratic reforms.
June 27th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
In their zeal to discredit Iran, the zionists and their allies in the media ignore Mousavi’s corruption and ties to repressive clerics:
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22903.htm
June 27th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
…but they must do so now knowing large swaths of the population find their rule illegitimate and their system discredited
So what. In the US these large swaths of the population are jailed and no one cares what they find or don’t find. So, maybe Iran will adopt the US approach.
June 27th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
On a more serious note Mousavi made a similar point last week. Except that he seems to still believe in the Islamic Republic as an alternative to secular democracy. His arguement was that when the election was stolen it undermined the ideal of the Iranian revolution which he said was a bad thing.
June 27th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
It is a much easier, from the Western point of view, to deal with the likes of Saudi Arabia, which has no mythical interests to pursue in the region and no incentive to destabilize others. Saudi Arabia has also proven to be a much more reliable partner than either the Shah or anyone else, really.
This was best shown by the 13 Saudi hijackers during the 9/11 attacks, funded in part by Saudi money.
June 27th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
It is by no means clear, and actually unlikely, that Mousavi got more votes than Ahmadinejad
June 27th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
How come Mr. Yglesias has clogged up the internet with his musings on the killings of 17 protesters in Iran, but failed to even notice the killing of 34 indigeneous protesters in Peru. Clearly, if those Peruvian Indians wore Gucci and twittered away on their cell phones instead of spending their time growing potatoes to feed their families, they would be easier for the Yglesias to identify with.
June 27th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history” thesis.
Actually Fukuyama got most of that straight from Hegel.
June 27th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
the Islamic Revolution represented the only real example I think you could come up with of a true ideological alternative to liberal democracy in the world
Latin American socialism is an alternative being offered and embraced, at least by Latin Americans.
As noted by Why oh why, China’s system is also an alternative, for China at least.
Europeans think that social democracy is another alternative for their part of the world.
To state that the crumbling and de-legitimized systems of two countries, the US and Iran, whose populations comprise less than 6% of the world’s population, are the only two alternatives left for the other 94% to choose from is quite depressing and, more to the point, false.
Yglesias has diminished the nations of the world to the status of consumers choosing between VHS and Betamax.
June 27th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
As for alternative models, while it’s true that there is no single ideological force strong enough to counter Western liberalism, we have certainly seen powerful and popular antiliberal movements arise in the last few years. Most notably in Latin America (Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua) and in the former Soviet republics (Russia and her satellites). Neo-socialism in Latin America, and neo-authoritarianism in the Orthodox East, look to at least give Western liberalism a serious challenge over the next few decades- not on a global scale, yet, but on a regional one. And who knows, they might win.
June 27th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
It is by no means clear, and actually unlikely, that Mousavi got more votes than Ahmadinejad
I don’t know how you make the claim that it is “unlikely” given the extreme fishiness of the actual reported vote totals. Sure it’s not “clear”, but if Ahamdinejad won, why wouldn’t the mullahs just use real numbers?
June 27th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Lupita already said it better than me. I would add that if the violent clashes between indigenous activists and the increasingly unpopular Garcia regime (currently with about 20% approval rating) continue, Peru may also have its own social revolution within the next few years, and then you can add them to the list of Latin American countries under hard-Left governments.
June 27th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Neo-socialism in Latin America, and neo-authoritarianism in the Orthodox East, look to at least give Western liberalism a serious challenge over the next few decades
The ongoing implosions of the Venezuelan and Argentinian economies, particularly compared to their neighbors Brazil, Chile, and Colombia, suggest otherwise, at least for your first claim.
June 27th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
How come Mr. Yglesias has clogged up the internet with his musings on the killings of 17 protesters in Iran, but failed to even notice the killing of 34 indigeneous protesters in Peru.
There’s no oil in Peru. Also, these days that region of South America has fewer mythical sky fairies of the correct provenance doing battle through their intrepid fan clubs.
June 27th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Latin American socialism has been a big fat failure for 50 years. It seems hard to believe that will change now.
June 27th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
RIght,
Yes, that would be why Venezuela currently has a lower unemployment rate than the United States (7.7% as of first quarter 2009) and registered positive GDP growth (unlike the US) in the first quarter of 2009. What’s the conservative equivalent of a hipster again?
June 27th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
“the (Iranian) Islamic Revolution represented the only real example I think you could come up with of a true ideological alternative to liberal democracy in the world.”
When I first read this, I did a spit take.
Then I re-read it and realized that Matthew had italicized “ideological alternative” to specifically exclude the Chinese model, with the implication being that the Chinese model is non-ideological.
But I think that’s a quite incorrect implication.
The only reason the Chinese model is seen as non-ideological is that no one has named the ideology yet. But the basic features of the Chinese model are an actual ideology. And it’s an incredibly popular ideology – nations like Iran, Russia, and a fair bit of the developing world are all looking to directly follow the Chinese model.
We don’t call the Chinese model “fascism” because it’s not militarily expansionist, it’s not explicitly anti-left, and it’s not clownish in the manner of twentieth century fascism. But the Chinese model shares a helluva lot in common with the basic ideas of fascism. And it seems to be growing, not shrinking.
Someone ought to hurry up and write a book naming the ideology of the Chinese model, as this seems to be untapped territory whose relevance is only going to increase.
June 27th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
DMonteith,
Actually, the current clashes in Peru were initiated by pigf*cker president Alan Garcia’s proposal to open up the Amazon to oil and gas exploration. Whether or not they find much oil, Peru is an exceptionally well endowed country in terms of natural resources (timber, fisheries, and various metals) and we ignore it at our peril.
June 27th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
But the Chinese model shares a helluva lot in common with the basic ideas of fascism
And that helluva lot is what? Absent blood-and-soil, anti-cosmopolitan rhetoric–and maybe that’s happening; I can’t pretend to know–I don’t see it.
June 27th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Not only China. I think American plutocratic democracy clearly is a true ideological alternative to liberal democracy. Also militant-racist democracy in Israel, as long as it still exists. 60 years and still going – quite an achievement, I must say.
June 27th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
The Iranian mullahs revealed themselves to simply be the same kind of gangsters to rule in Cairo or Medina. It wasn’t novel or a surprise, but it was definite and unambiguous.
June 27th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Instead of pointing to that or that country, answer the question: what is the alternative ideology to the ideal of Western social democracy? Saying that Israel (or the US) is different from this ideal doesn’t count; she just fails to live up to it.
Various Latin America leaders use some communist rhetoric, but they stick to democratic institutions. As for Russia, I don’t think mafio-tsarism is something that will be embraced by many countries willingly. If you look at Eastern Europe, they made sure to anchor themselves firmly to the West instead.
Only China may offer an alternative in the future, but with state control of the media and harsh repression against unions and political dissent, let’s hope not.
June 27th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
“And that helluva lot is what?”
- Single-party politics
- Suppression of free speech
- Heavy corporatism
- Strong limits on individualism
“Absent blood-and-soil, anti-cosmopolitan rhetoric–and maybe that’s happening”
There really are significant differences between the Chinese model and twentieth century fascism. The Chinese model is a more “progressive” form of fascism. But it really does share some basic ideological assumptions on how society should be organized and to what ends.
The fact that the word “fascism” is so tied to the particulars of 1930’s Germany, Italy, Japan, and Spain is precisely why someone needs to come up with a different name for the Chinese model.
But whatever the name, the Chinese model is an ideology. It’s a very popular and influential ideology across the globe. And it does share certain core components of fascism, minus the military expansionism and ethnic clownishness.
Matthew is wrong when he suggests the Chinese model is not a true ideological alternative to liberal democracy in the world. The history of the next few decades seems likely to be delimited by the competition between the two ideologies.
June 27th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
But whatever the name, the Chinese model is an ideology. It’s a very popular and influential ideology across the globe.
Really? Where? And I don’t count export-driven growth or market reforms as examples of Chinese ideology.
June 27th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
“Only China may offer an alternative in the future, but with state control of the media and harsh repression against unions and political dissent, let’s hope not.”
The future is now.
Putin-ism is, to a not insignificant degree, a self-conscious effort to mimic the successes of the Chinese model. Keep the perestroika while losing the glasnost.
And the Russian government is not alone in the world in taking this approach.
June 27th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
@25, but the post contrasts one sort of democracy with a different sort; ‘Islamic’ against ‘liberal’. ‘Liberal’ means what – equal right for everybody, something like that, right?
But in the US there is no pretense anymore that a guy born in an urban ghetto is equal to someone in Manhattan penthouse. The official line is that the guy in penthouse is more deserving – because he is more talented, he works harder, he’s more responsible – or (and this is important!) because his ancestors did all that. That’s not liberal.
Similarly in Israel it’s all about your ancestors; there is an official algorithm to calculate what you’re entitled to based on who your ancestors were. This is much less liberal (the opposite, in fact) than Islamic or, say, Christian democracy.
You can’t say that they just “fail to live up to it”. They explicitly rejected it.
June 27th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
“Really? Where? And I don’t count export-driven growth or market reforms as examples of Chinese ideology.”
Market reform are a crucial part of the Chinese model.
If you had to sum up “the Chinese model” in one short sentence, you’d get:
Everything else follows from that.
June 27th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
- Single-party politics
- Suppression of free speech
- Heavy corporatism
- Strong limits on individualism
Isn’t this, to some degree, Singapore?
June 27th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
This is MY at his worst. If he really thinks there are two count em two models of political governance in the world, he’s out of his mind.
Iran’s population showed clearly that they disliked Ahmadinejad’s government, but that is different, clearly, from liking the political order – my dislike for every vile and dismal day that the Bush junta misruled the U.S. was not a comment on the constitution per se. That doesn’t mean that, in the U.S. as in Iran, one might not want radical changes in the order. For instance, the U.S. could borrow an idea from Iran – democracy – and actually make the person who gets the most votes in the presidential race the president. Thus, the prez would be like a senator or a representative or a mayor, etc. And the time is coming when we seriously need to examine how the Senate is elected – at the moment, it is a crazy institution that gives excess power to America’s rightwing white mullahs.
One of the features of the American response to Iran has been the problem of projection. Projection is one of Freud’s great themes, and it is a theme that needs to be transposed into political science. The collective projection by the U.S. – or, I should say, by the punditocracy – upon the rest of the world – its making up of a world system that consists entirely of America and non-America – has had terrifically bad effects in American foreign policy – and these effects have gotten worse over the last nine years. Your refusal, Matt, to simply look directly at what was happening in Iran – your search for analogies, or hermeneutic screens, by which you could align what was happening with your projection of the U.S. upon Iran – vitiated your instincts, and turned your commentary from being initially helpful to being pretty mediocre or worse.
Too bad. You obviously need to think more seriously about where you went wrong, supporting the invasion of Iraq. You haven’t rid yourself of that projective tendency, which will blind you – always – to the otherness of the other.
June 27th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Singapore, Malaysia, Japan. “Asian values” it’s called.
June 27th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
At the beginning of “The Stoning of Soraya M.”, there is a quotation from the Koran that makes it pretty clear this Islamic government of Iran is an abomination to Allah and the Koran. They probably do not survive that.
June 27th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
“Isn’t this, to some degree, Singapore?”
Singapore is able to do this all with a human face only because it’s a city-state.
When you try to do it in a state-state, you get less desirable results.
In short, Singapore doesn’t scale, or rather, when it scales it becomes the semi-fascism I’m discussing.
—–
“Singapore, Malaysia, Japan. “Asian values” it’s called.”
Japan is fundamentally an adherent to liberal democracy, not to the Chinese model. There is no need to put dissenters in prison in Japan precisely because there are multiple parties and regular elections.
The same party may win every election in Japan, but the fact that the elections are very real means that if you post overtly dissenting views on the internet in Japan, the state has no need to put you in prison (ala China) or have you shot (ala Russia).
(The previous paragraph could use some revision, but I have no time, and I think the meaning is decipherable.)
June 27th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Actually Fukuyama got most of that straight from Hegel.
More like “via Kojeve.”
(It’s beyond belief that there is, apparently, STILL no complete translation into English of Kojeve’s lectures on Hegel. What list of the 20th century’s 10 most influential works of philosophy would that not make?)
June 27th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
@11
Yes, The End of History was basically a weird brew of Nietzsche, Plato and Hegel – the most unlikely intellectual foundations for a case for liberal democracy imaginable, but there you go. The problem with Fukuyama’s ‘End of History’ thesis is that he assumes that because liberal democracy is the best possible model we can currently conceive of, it’s the final model in a process of historical development. He also assumes that progress towards liberal democracy is inevitable, which in some respects it might be – if you believe it’s the best form of government and you have quite an optimistic outlook, you essentially subscribe to it being so – but it’s not as if repressive regimes are just going to roll over and suddenly let people take power – Iran is a case in point.
What has happened in Iran is that the hard-line mullahs have realized that allowing full democracy means allowing the gradual liberalization of the Islamic Republic; they’d rather have the Islamic bit than the Republic bit, basically. In fixing the election, they tried to have their cake and eat it; now they’ve seen they can’t get away with that, they’ve decided to crack down and rule things in a flagrantly undemocratic way.
June 27th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
If you had to sum up “the Chinese model” in one short sentence, you’d get:
Market reforms in a single-party state.
Everything else follows from that.
What’s so Chinese about it? It also describes Pinochet’s Chile, Singapore as noted, South Korea and Taiwan in the past. Note that all those states eventually became democracies. If China follows the same path, then it won’t provide a new, really different model.
Also remember that Chinese are still very, very poor. China (outside a few pockets of wealth like Beijing or Shanghai) is not an attractive country for anybody living outside of the worst regions in the world. As I said, it has a long way to go before we can even identify and speak of a “Chinese model”.
An interesting “country” is Hong Kong with many freedoms and a prosperous economy, but not really democracy since after the Brits, it is now ruled over by China.
June 27th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
@36
Yes, Fukuyama does go on rather a bit about ‘Hegel-via-Kojeve’, but i rather think that stuff is a bit outdated now. He was naive to use it in the first place, when the economic arguments he put forward were much more plausible. About a third of the book is solid economics-based analysis, and the rest is silly Hegelian conjecture dressed up as historical inevitability.
June 27th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
There is no need to put dissenters in prison in Japan precisely because there are multiple parties and regular elections.
There were three parties in Poland between 1949 and 1989, and regular elections.
Also, there are different ways to deal with dissenters. For example: to make sure that they can’t find jobs. This way they will probably eventually end up in jail anyway.
June 27th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
“What’s so Chinese about it?”
Like I said, the ideology needs a better name.
I use “the Chinese model” because that’s what other people use to describe it.
When you don’t have a better coinage, you can’t go wrong with common usage.
And if you know the history of the past twenty five years, you can figure out for yourself why it’s become the commonly used name of the ideology.
“Also remember that Chinese are still very, very poor”
The ideology has garnered interest primarily among relatively poor nations. I don’t think the Dutch are about to adopt the Chinese model.
But given that most of the globe is comprised of relatively poor nations, the Chinese model could end up as the dominant system of government across the planet.
June 27th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
For some reason, I’m reminded of Loa Tzu’s teachings. It’s not really clear who he was or if he ever existed, but let’s just assume he was real. But he said that even kings need the support of their people to be effective. Nobody can govern without the will of those that are governed, no matter how powerful he may be. Ultimately, even the king is just a servant. The Clerics will fight as hard as they can to preserve their rule, but at some point, the people just won’t listen to them. And that’s happening now. The Clerics face a real dilemma. If they crack down, they lose their religious authority. If they don’t, they lose their political authority. Either way, they lose the will of the people. Can the people win? Well, they did against the Shah, who had the support of the rest of the world. The current leadership of Iran has the support of nobody. They will fall eventually. How long it takes is anyone’s guess, but they cannot survive.
June 27th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
“There were three parties in Poland between 1949 and 1989, and regular elections.”
No sane person would argue that Poland in 1960 was a liberal democracy for reasons that ought to be obvious.
There’s a whole package that needs to come along with elections in order to be a liberal democracy – stuff like the right to assemble, the right to free speech, and the rule of law. Iran has regular elections, and they’re not a liberal democracy.
June 27th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Like I said, the ideology needs a better name. I use “the Chinese model” because that’s what other people use to describe it. When you don’t have a better coinage, you can’t go wrong with common usage.
Well if you can’t define what the “Chinese model” is, it is fair to say that it doesn’t constitute yet an alternative to social democracy. After googling “Chinese model”, half of the results link to fashion models; the rest seems to refer to poor, authoritarian regimes opening up their economy without political reforms. But it is not clear even China will be able to do so in the long term; by some standards – mainly accountability of provincial officials – China is getting more liberal.
The ideology has garnered interest primarily among relatively poor nations.
Which nations?
As I see it, the “Chinese model” boils down to:
1. China was a very poor country living in quasi-autarchy under an authoritarian regime
2. After market reforms, it experienced tremendous growth but the Communists still control everything
3. So all very poor countries in quasi-autarchy should reform and open up their economy – and their leaders can keep all the political power
#3 is a long-standing goal of rich nations, so it is not surprising to see this non-model talked up and convince a few dictators to let foreign investments flow in. We’re very far from a new ideology threatening the western model.
June 27th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
But it was you arguing in 35 that Japan is a liberal democracy “because there are multiple parties and regular elections”, and the fact that the same single party has been in power for about 50 years doesn’t bother you at all. This seems odd to me. Personally, I don’t feel that even US-style two-party system qualifies as democracy; you have to have proportional representation. A Republican living in Massachusetts is not represented on the federal level. Anyway, Japan actually has a limited freedom of press (”Kisha club”).
June 27th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
More like “via Kojeve.”
That’s possible of course – like all the French dudes. I personally loved reading Kojeve, while knowing that he got it wrong on many things or was simply talking about something else. It’s like Hegel for those who can’t be bothered.
i rather think that stuff is a bit outdated now.
Actually I still think that Hegel has some very good points about ideologies that have outlived their usefulness and can only be upheld through coercion. We see it every day.
June 27th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Re. Chinese model, here’s what I found in an asian newspaper article that read like propaganda:
Honestly it can summed up: let the CCP be in charge of everything (”we promise we’re not crazy Maoists anymore”), plus some nonsense references to “Marxism and Confucian teachings” and “socialist core values”.
June 27th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Anyway, all this nonsense is a result of one euphemistic construct that is tattooed on the brain of the average American intellectual.
When they say “liberal democracy” they mean “capitalism”, a country that allows free flow of capital. Any little fascist client state that allows free flow of capital is a ‘liberal democracy’. That’s why they find China confusing, it doesn’t exactly fit the pattern.
And of course it makes sense, because the socio-economic system (capitalism is this case) is the Base. Parties, elections – that’s all secondary and superficial. I just wish they were more open about it.
June 27th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
An interesting thing, of course, is that China (or more precisely, the Chinese Communist Party) is self-consciously trying to imitate the successes of Singapore, the richest country in Asia (barring the oil-sheikdom, Brunei), and has had a political structure (no direct elections for head of government and state, general elections with political apathy) that one would assume appeals to the Chinese Communists in the long run.
The notion that state ownership is, in the long term, anything but a fig leaf in China is a bit disingenuous. The people who are running the place believe less in state economy than American and Europeans.
I can potentially see a circumstance where China, post-democratization (if it manages to get that far without civil discord), has a dominant party (the Communists) that is pro-capitalism and moderately conservative, which would win the election every single time, and govern with a heavy authoritarian bent. Let’s not forget, most pre-war Western governments were fairly repressive and authoritarian by modern standards. The Third Republic certainly had no scruples crushing populism.
June 27th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
There’s an interesting article in Counterpunch about the election. Articles in the AsiaTimes just before the elections seemed to think Ahmadinejad had it sewn up. I think it’s a good rule of thumb to be very suspicious of our media coverage of Iran. Why the media is still so tainted by neo-con propoganda is a mystery to me, but on foreign policy, the MSM is right-wing, even when it’s cheerleading for “democracy” in Iran.
Seems the right-wing has been doing a good job of cultivating hawkishness among liberals. There is nothing outlandish about the idea that the incumbent won more votes—he campaigned very hard, came out on top in the debates, and has strong support. I can see the desire for change in the youth, but they might be being taken for a ride by Mousavi and Rafsanjani.
June 27th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
It’s a mistake to call any authoritarian regime of the right ‘fascist’ (or worse yet, any regime you don’t like; in a comment thread on this blog I saw Nasserite Egypt referred to as fascist.) I don’t think that the term ‘fascism’ (which i dislike anyway on the grounds of imprecision) can be precisely translated into a Chinese context (for similar reasons I think ‘Islamic fascism’ is a contradiction in terms). What we know of as fascism, in both its Nazi / Italian and its Falangist form, wasn’t simply a name for authoritarian government, it was a concrete thing, something with substantive ideological content, and which made arguments that had to be dealt with. I’m not sure Chinese government today is even that ideological.
Spanish and Latin American Falangism, for example, drew on a number of intellectual currents in European history: on Romanticism, on the Counter-Enlightenment, on the cult of the Middle Ages, on the reaction against the French Revolution, and on certain aspects of Catholic social teaching. Without those intellectual touchstones it would not be Falangism. I’m not sure it makes sense to extend the term ‘fascism’ to a Chinese or Islamic context where the historical touchstones are very different.
The current Chinese Communist Party, for example, wants to develop cosmopolitan, ‘modern’ cities and to industrialize China’s economy, and they have boasted since 1979 of how much they value pragmatism over ideology. None of those seem typical of a ‘fascist’ regime. I do agree though that China could, in time, pose an ideological counterweight to the West, and that the Chinese model could be more attractive to developing countries. If I recall correctly, China still does have a large state-owned (as well as smaller local public enterprises like TVEs) sector.
June 27th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
The end of history does not depend on any ideology. As long as there is ideology, in any form there is history. End of history depends on so many unknown factors. As regards Iran, anybody who thinks that Mr.Musavi was the winner of the election does not know the Iranians. The fact that twitter and facebook and internet was instrumental in galvanizing the opposition says it all that the movement is in minority. the rural population who lacks such instruments is the core supporters of Ahmadinejad has been totally ignored. NO revolution in Iran has succeeded,in the last century, without the support of BAZAAR,i.e., merchant class and the theocracy. Iranian ideology is developed by Iranians and improvised by Iranians and it is only good for Iran.
June 28th, 2009 at 12:10 am
Re: Japan. I believe that the dominant party (the LDP) did temporarily lose control of the lower house of parliament during the 1990s. I believe that they also lost control of the upper house in 2007. As far as I know, this did not result in any upheaval or violent incidents. I have no further insight regarding the Japanese political system.
June 28th, 2009 at 12:28 am
Let me correct myself: of course fascist states in Europe also industrialized their economies, but they tended to be attracted to antimodern and anti-cosmopolitan rhetoric, none of which China today seems to be into.
June 28th, 2009 at 4:44 am
@53, it’s all games. If you look closely, most (probably all) of the top ‘opposition’ politicians who briefly gained control in 1993-94, they all drifted in and out of LDP all the time. It’s all a sham, good ol’ boys club, just as is was designed to be. It has about as much to do with democracy as any Soviet election.
June 28th, 2009 at 6:35 am
Come on people, we all know that American liberalism is the true heir to fascism. Mr Goldberg told us so. So China can’t be – I wonder if they read Goldberg over there?
Back to Fukuyama, in The End of History & The Last Man he specifically discussed Islam as a potential ideological rival to liberalism but basically (IIRC) hand-waved it away by saying that it couldn’t spread beyond its current borders.
June 28th, 2009 at 8:00 am
China, Singapure, Malaysia, or as another this time economically and social devastating example Serbia, those are all just elites creating a dictatorship and manipulating people with nationalism to stay in power. Maybe someone with better psychology background can explain that better. What i know is that it works to some extend and gets done even in liberal democracies all the time.
June 28th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Why oh why,
I greatly appreciated your comment upthread at #47.
June 29th, 2009 at 11:11 am
but i rather think that stuff is a bit outdated now. He was naive to use it in the first place, when the economic arguments he put forward were much more plausible
Fukuyama argues that there’s no clear reason why an authoritarian regime that allows a market economy is *economically* inferior to a democracy, which itself is prone to warp free-market principles. (Pace abb1, Fukuyama is not merely an apologist for capitalism.)
Hence the argument on “the struggle for recognition,” which is harder to quantify than mere desire, but which does seem to address a genuine aspect of human nature that economics does not.
July 1st, 2009 at 1:32 pm
[...] reveals itself more and more as a corrupt and totalitarian regime. Many news sources like Yglesias and the Economist are reporting that this is likely the beginning of the end of the hard-line [...]