{"id":165,"date":"2006-08-07T09:37:43","date_gmt":"2006-08-07T14:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2006\/08\/07\/the-folly-of-democratic-inevitability\/"},"modified":"2006-08-07T09:37:43","modified_gmt":"2006-08-07T14:37:43","slug":"the-folly-of-democratic-inevitability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2006\/08\/07\/the-folly-of-democratic-inevitability\/","title":{"rendered":"The Folly of Democratic Inevitability"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0The good folks at the Future of Freedom Foundation<\/a><\/strong> posted my article today on one of the great democratic delusions of our time.\u00a0 The piece is online here<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0 – and below:<\/p>\n

Freedom Daily May 2006 (posted August 7, 2006)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nonsense on the Inevitability of Democracy
\n<\/strong>by James Bovard<\/p>\n

Many Americans are being lulled into assuming that democracy is inevitable. This is a favorite theme of President Bush\u2019s beating on the same drumhead used by President Clinton, President Wilson, and other notable demagogues. But the fact that politicians agree does not make something true.<\/p>\n

Since Woodrow Wilson proclaimed that democracy was the destiny of humanity, more than 100 democratic governments have crashed and burned around the globe, replaced by dictators, juntas, or foreign conquerors. Yet we continue to be assured that democracies are inevitable and that universalizing democracy will solve almost all of the world\u2019s political problems.<\/p>\n

The current cult of \u201cdemocratic inevitability\u201d was jump-started by Francis Fukuyama, whose 1989 article (later expanded into a book) \u201cThe End of History\u201d made him an instant intellectual cult figure. Fukuyama was a Reagan political appointee at the State Department and is currently on the board of directors of the National Endowment for Democracy. He hailed the \u201cunabashed victory of economic and political liberalism\u201d and proclaimed that \u201cwe in the liberal West occupy the final summit of the historical edifice.\u201d He announced,<\/p>\n

What we are witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or a passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind\u2019s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.<\/p>\n

Fukuyama revealed that \u201cthe present form of social and political organization is completely satisfying to human beings in their most essential characteristics.\u201d Fukuyama is the Pangloss of political philosophy: liberal democracy is the best of all possible worlds, and we should all be happy because its triumph everywhere is fated.<\/p>\n

Democracy and the French Revolution<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fukuyama hailed German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel as the supreme \u201cphilosopher of freedom.\u201d But Hegel was as much a champion of freedom as Nietzsche was a champion of Christianity. Fukuyama reminds readers that Hegel<\/p>\n

proclaimed history to be at an end in 1806. For as early as this Hegel saw in Napoleon\u2019s defeat of the Prussian monarchy at the Battle of Jena the victory of the ideals of the French Revolution, and the imminent universalization of the state incorporating the principles of liberty and equality.<\/p>\n

Fukuyama stresses that the 1806 battle \u201cmarked the end of history because it was at that point that the vanguard of humanity (a term quite familiar to Marxists) actualized the principles of the French Revolution.\u201d He notes that \u201cthe present world seems to confirm that the fundamental principles of sociopolitical organization have not advanced terribly far since 1806.\u201d He neglected to mention Hegel\u2019s rapturous comment after the battle of Jena \u2014 \u201cI saw the emperor, this soul of the world, riding through the streets.\u201d<\/p>\n

To view the armies of Napoleon as engines of liberal democracy is peculiar. Napoleon, aside from crushing the Venetian republic, destroyed freedom of the press, had political opponents in France assassinated, brutally suppressed popular uprisings against French rule in Spain and elsewhere, and spawned wars that left millions of Europeans dead. Perhaps Fukuyama was merely ahead of his time, championing democracy\u2019s being imposed by foreign conquests. But Napoleon\u2019s invasions did not create democracies; instead, they spurred a backlash of repressive reaction throughout Europe. His wars profoundly stimulated efforts to unify Germany, which did not exactly advance liberty in Europe.<\/p>\n

Fukuyama quotes Hegel\u2019s assertion that \u201cthe History of the World is nothing other than the progress of the consciousness of Freedom.\u201d But Hegel was not using \u201cfreedom\u201d in the sense that Washington or Jefferson did. Hegel declared, \u201cThe State in-and-for-itself is the ethical whole, the actualization of freedom.\u201d
\nGlorifying the state<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hegel was renowned as the \u201cRoyal Prussian Court Philosopher\u201d at the University of Berlin. Far from being a champion of the individual against his rulers, he stressed that \u201call the worth which the human being possesses \u2014 all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State.\u201d He profoundly influenced modern political thinking by mystifying government, declaring that the state is \u201cthe shape which the perfect embodiment of Spirit assumes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hegel was the great liberator of political power: The State is the self-certain absolute mind which acknowledges no abstract rules of good and bad, shameful and mean, craft and deception.<\/em><\/p>\n

German philosopher Jakob Friedrich Fries, a contemporary of Hegel\u2019s, declared that Hegel\u2019s theory of the State had grown \u201cnot in the gardens of science but on the dunghill of servility.\u201d German philosopher Ernst Cassirer observed in 1945 of Hegel,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0“No other philosophical system has done so much for the preparation of fascism and imperialism as Hegel\u2019s doctrine of the state \u2014 this \u201cdivine Idea as it exists on earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

No alarm bells went off in Washington, even though this theory of inevitable liberal democracy was deduced from the writings of a philosopher whose ideas were previously invoked to sanctify both communism and fascism. One eminent historian speculated during World War II on \u201cwhether the struggle of the Russians and the invading Germans in 1943 was … a conflict between the Left and Right wings of Hegel\u2019s school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hegel\u2019s canonization as the hero of democracy is another example of how the historical record is not permitted to cast doubt on theories of history.<\/p>\n

Fukuyama referred to \u201cpost-historical societies\u201d \u2014 nations where democracy had already been established \u2014 as if there could be no turning back. He takes his definition of the end of history from Hegel. As Cassirer noted, “To Hegel, the State is not only a part, a special province, but the essence, the very core of historical life…. Hegel denies that we can speak of historical life outside and before the State.”<\/p>\n

Fukuyama\u2019s article concluded with profound lamentations:<\/p>\n

The end of history will be a very sad time…. In the post-historical period there will be neither art nor philosophy, just the perpetual caretaking of the museum of human history. I can feel in myself, and see in others around me, a powerful nostalgia for the time when history existed.<\/em><\/p>\n

Washington\u2019s embrace of Fukuyama<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fukuyama\u2019s assumption that life would have little or no meaning after the spread of democracy and freedom implies that political action, or political strife, is the primary source of life\u2019s meaning. This may be true in Washington, but happily, most people in the world do not take their life\u2019s mission from the government.<\/p>\n

Fukuyama\u2019s article evoked thunderous praise. His thesis was fanatically embraced by many Washingtonians and much of the U.S. policy elite. The Fukuyama\u2013democratic-inevitability boom illustrates that Washington intellectuals react to pretentious obscurity with the same gullibility that many poor people react to Lotto advertisements.<\/p>\n

Fukuyama\u2019s theory came at the perfect time: just as the Cold War was ending and a new rationale was needed for a massive U.S. military machine. His thesis sanctifies U.S. power the same way that Marx\u2019s law of history sanctified Soviet aggression to impose communism on foreign countries. Marx\u2019s interpretation of Hegel helped \u201cprove\u201d that communism was inevitable. Fukuyama\u2019s reading of Hegel provides an iron law of history in favor of the triumph of democracy.<\/p>\n

The democratic-inevitability theory is also akin to the Marxist theory of the withering away of the state. Marx asserted that, after the creation of communism, the state would simply wither away, since there would be no need or incentive for people to exploit one another. Democratic inevitability implies that, once democracy is achieved, politicians will no longer seek power to violate the rights and liberties of citizens. For some unexplained reason, after democracy becomes universal, voting will turn politicians into choir boys.<\/p>\n

In a preface to his administration\u2019s 2002 National Security Strategy, Bush practically canonized Fukuyama\u2019s view:<\/p>\n

The great struggles of the twentieth century between liberty and totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom \u2014 and a single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Bush administration effectively invoked historical inevitability for its preferences and values \u2014 in the same document in which it proclaimed the right to launch preemptive attacks on practically any nation on Earth.<\/p>\n

George W. Bush uses God instead of G.W.F. Hegel to sanctify his foreign policy. Bush proclaimed at a 2004 fundraiser that<\/p>\n

the Almighty has \u2014 believes that every person should be free. It\u2019s a gift from the Almighty, regardless of their religion or the color of their skin. I believe that as the torchbearer of freedom, the United States must lead and must never shirk our duty to lead.<\/em><\/p>\n

(Bush routinely uses \u201cdemocracy\u201d and \u201cfreedom\u201d interchangeably.) If nothing else, promising to spread freedom abroad consoles some Americans for its loss at home.<\/p>\n

Nothing has happened in the last century \u2014 or millennium \u2014 to make politicians less dangerous. Those who pursue power remain the predator class. There is no magic in a proclamation that \u201cdemocracy has now been officially achieved everywhere\u201d that will change human nature.<\/p>\n

Why would history stop after democracy was achieved? The experience of many countries has, instead, been \u201cone person, one vote, one time.\u201d Yet, we are supposed to assume that the parade ceases after democracy is reached and will not proceed over any nearby cliffs.<\/p>\n

Encouraging people to view democracy as inevitable lulls them to dangers posed by their rulers and other ambitious politicians. If democracy is inevitable, then political progress is on automatic pilot. The Founding Fathers believed that freedom would always be in danger from power \u2014 that there would always be politicians and tyrants and tyrant assistants conspiring against freedom. \u201cEternal vigilance is the price of liberty\u201d was a common American saying in the 19th century. The contemporary version of that slogan appears to be \u201cEternal sloth is the luxury of democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why would democracy be inevitable? Not because of human genes \u2014 since most of the human race has gotten along without it for 99.9 percent of its recorded history. Not because of technological destiny: the tools for surveillance (and thus, central control) are spreading far more quickly than the average citizen\u2019s defenses against external intrusions.<\/p>\n

Some people insist that democracy is inevitable because it is the only just form of government. Since when is justice inevitable? \u201cWould be nice if true\u201d is not a good test of probability. Democracy is inevitable only if one assumes that almost all history is the \u201cexception that proves the rule\u201d about what the future will be.<\/p>\n

The more that democracy is assumed to be inevitable, the more likely democracy will self-destruct. Faith in inevitability deadens the sense of peril \u2014 and people blithely acquiesce to one power seizure after another by the ruling class.<\/p>\n

James Bovard is the author of Attention Deficit Democracy [2006] as well as The Bush Betrayal [2004], Lost Rights [1994] and Terrorism and Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice and Peace to Rid the World of Evil (Palgrave-Macmillan, September 2003) and serves as a policy advisor for The Future of Freedom Foundation.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0The good folks at the Future of Freedom Foundation posted my article today on one of the great democratic delusions of our time.\u00a0 The piece is online here\u00a0 – and below: Freedom Daily May 2006 (posted August 7, 2006) Nonsense on the Inevitability of Democracy by James Bovard Many Americans are being lulled into assuming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[22,659,6,31],"class_list":{"0":"post-165","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"tag-attention-deficit-democracy","8":"tag-bovard","9":"tag-wool"},"yoast_head":"\nThe Folly of Democratic Inevitability - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2006\/08\/07\/the-folly-of-democratic-inevitability\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Folly of Democratic Inevitability - 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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