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Capitalism and Democracy Erica Brown, Michelle High, by Hilton L American Interest Pre-Publication Copy Winter (Jan./Feb.) 2008 (Vol. III, No. 3) The following article, in whole or in part, may not be copied, downloaded, stored, further transmitted, transfered, distributed, altered or otherwise used, in any form or by any means, except: • one stored electronic and one paper copy of any article solely for your personal, non-commercial use; or • with prior written permission of The American Interest LLC. To subscribe to our online version, visit www.The-American-Interest.com To subscribe to our print version, call 1-800-767-5273 or mail the form below to: THE AMERICAN INTEREST PO BOX 338 MOUNT MORRIS, IL 61054-7521 J BEST OFFER! Yes, send me two years (12 issues) of J Yes, send me one year (6 issues) for only $39*. I’ll The American InteresT for only $69*. save $5.75 off the cover price. I’ll save 23% off the cover price! Name Address 1 Address 2 City State Zip Country E-mail Credit Card Exp. Name on Card Tel. No. Signature Date *Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery of first issue. Add $14 per year J Payment enclosed for shipping & handling to addresses outside the U.S. and Canada. J Bill me later A81PPC CONTENTS THE AMERICAN INTEREST • VOLUME III, NUMBER 3, WINTER (JANUARY/FEBRUARY) 2008 The Americas, Together at Last? 7 The Paradoxes of Latin America by Mario Vargas Llosa Political truths reflect well in art and literature. 12 Left Behind? by Miguel Angel Centeno Vital U.S. interests will suffer if Latin American reform stalls. 7 21 Blow Hard by Russell Crandall Evo Morales’ cocaine problem—and ours. 26 Toolbox: A U.S.-Brazil Agenda by Luiz Felipe Lampreia A five-point proposal to advance a key hemispheric relationship. American Commonweal 29 A Call to National Service 29 A bold proposal to reverse America’s decline in civic participation. 42 Bowling with Robert Putnam A conversation with the author of Bowling Alone. Crisis Alert 52 Averting the Third Kosovo War by Alan J. Kuperman An 11th-hour proposal to prevent another Balkan train wreck. Trouble with the Law 98 59 The Vanishing Jury Sources and solutions to save our Seventh Amendment rights. A Lawyer’s Lament by Neal Ellis Hung Juries by William Tucker 70 The Price of Overlawyering by Cameron Stracher The travails of young associates and the roots of our legal woes. WINTER (JANUARY/FEBRUARY) 2008 3 76 Toolbox: Medical Malpractice Law Reform by David Kendall Some legal first aid for our health care woes. After Bush, Cont’d Adam Garfinkle, editor 81 Law Abiding Daniel Kennelly, senior managing editor by Nicholas Rostow Thomas Rickers, managing editor Healing America’s international legal black eye. Noelle Daly, assistant editor 88 Ban the Bomb. Really. Executive Committee Francis Fukuyama, chair by Michael Krepon Charles Davidson Nuclear abolition is an idea whose time has finally come. Josef Joffe Walter Russell Mead 94 Restraining Order by Barry R. Posen Editorial Board Anne Applebaum, Peter Berger, The author of “The Case for Restraint” responds to his critics. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Niall Ferguson, Bronislaw Geremek, Owen Harries, Samuel Huntington, G. John Ikenberry, Reviews Stephen D. Krasner, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Glenn C. Loury, C. Raja Mohan, 98 Self-Made Man? Douglass North, Ana Palacio (on leave), Itamar Rabinovich, Ali Salem, by Richard Hayes Lilia Shevtsova, Takashi Shiraishi, Meet the visionaries of the new eugenics. Mario Vargas Llosa, Wang Jisi, Ruth Wedgwood, James Q. Wilson 104 Capitalism and Democracy Erica Brown, Michelle High, by Hilton L. Root editorial consultants Markets, democracy and global carpet-bagging. Simon Monroe, R. Jay Magill, Jr., illustrators cover art by Tim Gabor 108 The Road to Pakistan’s Bomb cover design by Damir Marusic by Phyllis E. Oakley and Robert B. Oakley Was America complicit in Islamabad’s nukes? Hardly. Charles Davidson, publisher & CEO Noelle Daly, subscriber services 111 Semper Fidel Damir Marusic, associate publisher by Irving Louis Horowitz Jamie Pierson, circulation & operations As Castro’s life ebbs, books about him continue to flow. ADVERTISING SALES 117 Retroview: In His Proper Place Damir Marusic [email protected] by Thomas Hughes (202) 223-08 Samuel Smiles, the quintessential Victorian, is back. Perry Janoski publishing representative Allston-Cherry Ltd. Notes & Letters (212) 665-9885 122 Adventures of a Strip Mall Gourmet SYNDICATION by Brendan Conway Damir Marusic The art and science of hunting for good ethnic restaurants. [email protected] (202) 223-08 128 Winter Note: Tribunalations by Damir Marusic website History misunderstood leads to justice denied. www.the-american-interest.com 132 Yankee Doodle THE AMERICAN INTEREST which representative government and prosper- ity are strongly correlated. The direct, even more compelling causes are Capitalism economic liberty and the working of the free market. Mandelbaum refers to these dynamics and Democracy as the most influential and universal school of democratic politics and liberty. As he explains Hilton L. Root it, the skills and attitudes that arise from the play of the free market are transferred from the ow and why did democracy’s good economy to the polity. It is in the marketplace name become a norm of contempo- where people form Hrary international society? In a terse, clearly written philosophical treatise, Michael the habit, and the expectation, of exercising, Mandlebaum, Christian Herter Professor of through individual choice, a measure of con- American Foreign Policy at the Johns Hop- trol over the larger economic system in which kins School of Advanced International Studies, the individual participates. It is natural for claims that its golden reputation comes from them to carry over into the larger political the successful fusion system in which of two separate po- participants in the litical traditions, one Democracy’s Good Name: The Rise and Risks of market also reside: elevating individual the World’s Most Popular Form of Government and this habit, and freedom and the other by Michael Mandelbaum this expectation, en- popular sovereignty. PublicAffairs, 2007, 336 pp., $27.95 courage the practice, During the 19th cen- essential to democ- tury, most Western Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, racy, of popular sov- elites viewed rule by Democracy, and Everyday Life ereignty. the people as inclined by Robert B. Reich to demagogy and Knopf, 2007, 288 pp., $25 Moreover, Man- hence an enemy of delbaum points out, economic liberty, pri- free markets create vate property, religious and political rights. The the wealth that underwrites democratic politi- fusion that transformed individual freedom cal participation. Wealth creates and sustains and popular sovereignty from being perceived organizations and groups independent of the as opposites into being hailed as complements government: business, trade unions and profes- explains the extraordinary surge of democracy sional associations. Thus, as Milton Friedman during the last quarter of the 20th century. used to argue, Mandelbaum contends that de- Mandelbaum expounds two major causes mocracy requires private centers of economic for this transformation, one direct and one in- power to counterbalance central state author- direct. The indirect cause was the global success ity. Backed by the “examplarism” of Anglo- of the Anglo-American countries. The world’s American wealth and the lure of the interna- powerhouse economies, democracies all, have tional economy, the impulse toward democracy long been led first by Britain and then by the has become the “political equivalent” of a law United States. As these nations grew more of gravity, a force drawing the world toward a prosperous and more powerful, their political common political destiny. institutions and practices came to be admired Mandelbaum is an optimist and, to some and imitated, exerting “democratic exemplar- extent, a functionalist. He avoids getting tan- ism” for others to follow. British and American gled up in arguments over democracy promo- wealth and power has given democracy a boost tion, tending to the view that the maturation that no rival political system can match, form- of free markets around the world (he worries ing the nucleus of a socially cohesive cluster that the Middle East might be an exception) of democratic transplants all over the globe in will ultimately produce that outcome anyway. 104 THE AMERICAN INTEREST REVIEWS Mandelbaum is deeply knowledgeable in po- supercapitalism is that people’s desires as con- litical theory and philosophy, and in a sense his sumers and investors overwhelm what they can thesis in Democracy’s Good Name harkens back get from their governments by way of equity to some of the oldest and most cherished beliefs and public goods. Moreover, many of the pub- of Anglo-American liberalism. The problem is lic goods that citizens require to thrive, such that what ought to be, here meant both as so- as public education, environmental protection cial science expectation and moral norm, is not and social insurance, are in scarce supply be- what actually is. cause neo-liberal states increasingly lack the revenue to offer citizens assurances of equity or t falls to Robert Reich, the former Secretary security. The logic of the market, which endows Iof Labor and now professor of public poli- global brands with tools that poorly organized cy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at and diffuse citizens or civic society lack, is in- Berkeley, to explain that democracy’s glitter- creasingly setting the rules of the game. ing good name is today being tarnished by the The future of both the market and democ- same forces that Mandelbaum sees behind its racy, Reich concludes, will be determined by remarkable rise. What has long worked, at least efforts to place capitalism back under the regu- in most instances, within societies does not seem lation of the citizens it is supposed to serve.
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