The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad [Audiobook] [Audio CD]

In this fascinating book, author Fareed Zakaria looks at liberty and democracy. In the popular imagination, liberty and democracy go hand-in-hand, with more democracy meaning more freedom and vice versa. But, since the fall of the Soviet Union, the spread of democracy around the world has often resulted in "illiberal democracy," where fanatical groups vote in leaders that use the power of the state against other groups, or even the election of a radical regime that effectively does away with substantive democracy.

Following the history of the West (and particularly the Anglo-American part) from the Roman Empire to today, Dr. Zakaria shows that Western History followed a course, where enlightened despotism led to respect for the law, to transparency and balancing of power within government, to capitalism, and finally to restricted democracy (elected representatives instead of direct democracy, unelected judges, a constitution that the government could not violate in spite of overwhelming majority approval, and so forth).

But, in the modern West, unfettered democracy has become the newly enthroned ideal, and is being spread to the rest of the world, where it is producing some successes, and some dismal failures. Indeed, one has only to look at the present recall election in California to see what it is doing in the United States. As an added bonus, the author clearly focusing in on recent trends with in India, the Islamic world, and other parts of the world.

This is an absolutely fascinating book. I have always heard the Founding Fathers of the United States disparaged for their fear of unfettered democracy and a potential tyranny of the majority, but this book puts into concrete terms that which those men feared. While his solutions are somewhat nebulous, I did find Dr. Zaakaria's analysis to be highly thought provoking. If you are interested in examining what has happened to democracy in the modern world, then I highly recommend this book to you.

This, as the other reviewers have said, is an excellent book.
I learned several things from it.

Zakaria's main claim is that democratic institutions - especially election of the government by a majority or policy making by direct democracy/referenda - are not sufficient.

They may result in 'illiberal' or authoritarian democracy that doesn't protect minority or individual rights.

He also makes a convincing argument that resource rich countries tend to be less democratic than those that have to rely on a skilled, educated population - and on taxation- so that the government has to provide something in return for taxing its citizens.

However there are some flaws on top of the many good points that make this book well worth reading.

Zakaria says that Muslim dictators in the middle east are 'more liberal' than most of their populations as if this was an argument against too much democracy - when , i would argue, the growth of Islamic fundamentalism is a result of these foreign backed dictatorships which have made secular opposition weak.
To be fair Zakaria does make the point that the only political outlet left open under these dictatorships is the mosque.

Zakaria then confuses problems caused by the concentration of economic power in the hands of fewer and fewer companies and their lobbying power with the supposedly harmful effects of 'too much' democracy. He doesn't seem to have any concept of economic and social aspects of democracy other than free market ones - which in practice mean control of that market - and ultimately of governments and their policies - by the very wealthy and large companies.

He puts California's power cuts down to government by referendum - when we now know they were the result of de-regulation of the energy sector which allowed Enron to engineer power cuts to push up the unit price of electricity and its profits.

He claims Chavez is a dictator while Putin is a 'relative success story' or 'liberal dictator'. What exactly is liberal about Putin i'm not sure given that he jails potential opposition Presidential candidates while Chavez lets them stand against him and wins in elections judged free and fair by international observers. Chavez may be authoritarian but not compared to Putin.

Despite this there is a lot worth reading in 'The Future of Freedom'.

Fareed Zakaria's book is a pro-establishment look at globalization and its consequences. In contrast to Amy Chua (see my review of her book "World on Fire"), Zakaria isn't even mildly critical of globalization. On the contrary, he supports it to the hilt, from a very self-consciously establishmentarian, even "bourgeois" standpoint. At one point, he exclaims: "Without a bourgeoisie, no democracy". Unfortunately for Zakaria, not everyone agrees. In nation after nation, democracy has been used to vote in populist and vaguely left-leaning governments. In other words, governments which may threaten the gains made by the globalist "bourgeoisie".

What should the American establishment do to stop this? That's the real point under debate in "The future of freedom". Of course, Zakaria doesn't quite put it that way. Instead, he begins by pointing out that "democracy" and "freedom" aren't necessarily synonymous. This, of course, is true. The Nazis used the democratic process to take power in Germany. Hamas is a popularly elected government. Russia has democracy, but very little "freedom". Zakaria calls such a state of affairs "illiberal democracy". But what exactly does Zakaria mean by "freedom"? While he mentions equality before the law or an independent judiciary, what he really wants is protection of private property.

This explains the tendentious character of the author's analysis. He supports dictatorships which carry out market reforms, claiming that these will eventually turn into stable, liberal democracies: South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Chile and even mainland China. He doesn't mention obvious counterexamples. Indonesia carried out market reforms long before it became a democracy, yet its democracy is highly unstable. (Recent events show that Thailand is unstable, as well.) Nor does he mention the salient fact that it was the protests of the people that forced some of these nations to democratize. South Korea comes to mind. Further, most of the "illiberal democracies" mentioned by Zakaria turn out to be threats to globalization or American hegemony: Russia, Belarus, Venezuela, Zimbabwe. He doesn't consider pro-globalist democracies such as the Philippines to be "illiberal". Yet, it's difficult to see how a poor Filipino can possibly have "freedom". To Zakaria, "freedom" really means freedom for global multi-nationals and local market-dominant minorities to protect their private property. (In an afterword to the new edition, he suddenly waxes more positive about Russia. Why? The only reason I can think of is that he wants détente between Russia and the US, and actually thinks it might work. In reality, of course, Russia is even more "illiberal" today than when Putin came to power!)

The real agenda of the book is also revealed when Zakaria discusses the present state of US democracy. Zakaria wants to go back to the situation as it looked like about 60 years ago: powerful congressional committees, deliberations behind closed doors, no referenda, no primary elections, real political parties with real leaderships, etc. When discussing "checks and balances", he mentions NGO's and civil society as an important check and balance, but he considers the business community to be a part of civil society! Further, he wants potentially unpopular decisions to be taken out of the hands of elected politicians altogether, in much the same way as the Federal Reserve is already making important decisions about the economy all by itself. The point of all this, he wants us to believe, is to break the power of lobby groups and special interests, make politicians more responsible, and put some real leadership back in Washington, DC.

That's what they always say, isn't it?

Now, I don't deny that there is a grain of truth in all this: "direct" democracy isn't always the best form of government (even Switzerland has a Supreme Court), many of the lobby groups are unsavoury, and referendum campaigns are often manipulated by elite groups. This, however, is not really the author's point. Why does he mention the business community as a necessary "check and balance", while condemning labour unions as a "special interest"? Why indeed...

What Zakaria really wants is a more streamlined form of "bourgeois" democracy, in which the guys on top (from Groton?) can feel relatively secure from labour unions and other forms of unwanted popular pressure, while safeguarding the sacred right of "private property" (in reality, the power of the banks and multi-nationals). This also explains why he is positive to outright dictators, such as Pinochet, Chiang Kai-shek or even Deng Xiaoping, provided that they "liberalize" the economy, while waxing indignant over democratically elected leaders who take the opposite course.

The people want bread. To all extent and purposes, Fareed Zakaria wants them to eat freedom.