Democractie, globalisering en de natiestaat: kies er 1

William Easterly becommentarieert de these van een opkomend boek.

Democracy, globalization, the nation state are not mutually compatible, you can only pick 2 out of 3.

I look forward to the book for the detailed logic and evidence. Of course, skepticism is allowed already, since Dani’s already put it out there and since the burden of proof is on the proponent of a new hypothesis. So far I have 2 big reasons for skepticism:

(1) exaggerating the constraints of globalization.

Dani has a much more respectable version of this than Tom Friedman’s ridiculous “golden strait jacket,” but the reason for doubt are the same: we do observe a lot of diversity of policies in the rich globalized economies, and they became rich all the same.

(2) over predicting the demise of either democracy or good economics

There’s a long history of arguments about why democracy is incompatible with good economics that benefits everyone. Either the masses will vote to expropriate the capitalists, or the capitalists will use their wealth to buy votes to get power to exploit the masses. Neither happened in capitalist democracies (maybe the two threats cancel each other out).

Lijkt me iets waar een LVSV-afdeling eens over kan debatteren, niet waar?

In ieder geval ben ik ook wel geïnteresseerd naar het boek. Als ik er meer over hoor, laat ik het zeker weten.