The Return of Africa’s Strongmen
online.wsj.com
The Return of Africa’s Strongmen
1–10 of 26 posts
Re: The Return of Africa’s Strongmen
#2Given that democracy is at its heart mob rule, in countries without a liberal democratic tradition the losers of elections tend to also lose their lives and privileges; it'd be insane to ever step down as president in many of these Third World states.
Rather than embracing democracy fetishism, what if we embraced liberty instead? Let the strongmen declare themselves Kings or Presidents-for-Life or whatever, but encourage them to actually foster liberty for their subjects, rather than trying to run an entire nation from a single desk.
Just a thought.
Re: The Return of Africa’s Strongmen
#3Given that democracy is at its heart mob rule, in countries without a liberal democratic tradition the losers of elections tend to also lose their lives and privileges; it'd be insane to ever step down as president in many of these Third World states. Rather than embracing democracy fetishism, what if we embraced liberty instead? Let the strongmen declare themselves Kings or Presidents-for-Life or whatever, but encou…
I would think what you call liberal democratic tradition is because most democracies are established as functioning republics.
Re: The Return of Africa’s Strongmen
#4From the article: "But Nigeria’s army...still wields considerable power. A fifth of Nigeria’s nearly $30 billion budget goes to the armed forces."
That's almost exactly the same percentage as in the USA[1].
Re: The Return of Africa’s Strongmen
#5From the article: "But Nigeria’s army...still wields considerable power. A fifth of Nigeria’s nearly $30 billion budget goes to the armed forces." That's almost exactly the same percentage as in the USA[1]. [1] http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=1258
A more insightful measure would be against GDP rather than government budget total.
Re: The Return of Africa’s Strongmen
#6From the article: "But Nigeria’s army...still wields considerable power. A fifth of Nigeria’s nearly $30 billion budget goes to the armed forces." That's almost exactly the same percentage as in the USA[1]. [1] http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=1258
A more insightful measure would be against GDP rather than government budget total.
USA = 3.8%, Nigeria = 0.5%
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS/countr...
Re: The Return of Africa’s Strongmen
#7Given that democracy is at its heart mob rule, in countries without a liberal democratic tradition the losers of elections tend to also lose their lives and privileges; it'd be insane to ever step down as president in many of these Third World states. Rather than embracing democracy fetishism, what if we embraced liberty instead? Let the strongmen declare themselves Kings or Presidents-for-Life or whatever, but encou…
[deleted]
Re: The Return of Africa’s Strongmen
#8Given that democracy is at its heart mob rule, in countries without a liberal democratic tradition the losers of elections tend to also lose their lives and privileges; it'd be insane to ever step down as president in many of these Third World states. Rather than embracing democracy fetishism, what if we embraced liberty instead? Let the strongmen declare themselves Kings or Presidents-for-Life or whatever, but encou…
That's the truth at the heart of statist (as opposed to anarchist) libertarianism. A despot is a despot, whether they're exercising power purely for self-interest, or according to "enlightened" principles.
Re: The Return of Africa’s Strongmen
#9I was struck by what the article reported about recent trends in democratization after years of economic progress in most of the many countries in Africa. "For now, the advance of democracy in Africa appears to have stalled. In 1990, just three of Africa’s 48 countries were electoral democracies, according to Freedom House, a Washington-based pro-democracy advocacy group. By 1994, that number had leapt to 18. Two decades later, only 19 qualify." What I like about the article is that it distinguishes the situations in differing countries on a continent of considerable diversity. Going to a recent Freedom House blog post[1] showed a map of which countries that organization identifies as "free" (green on the map), "partly free" (yellow), and "not free" (purple) by that organization's rating scale. Fortunately, some of the most populous countries in Africa are free (e.g., South Africa) or partly free (e.g., Nigeria and Kenya). The commentary in the post about ten different countries was also informative about key issues.
Yes, the main issue is freedom. The countries that additionally have democracy usually bring along with effective democracy such individual liberty features as an independent judiciary, a free press, and freedom of speech for the populace. That's important for people's daily lives. I lived in Taiwan both before and after that country's democratization, and life became much better with democracy. I'd like to see the same happen in many more countries around the world.
[1] https://freedomhouse.org/blog/10-positive-developments-afric...
https://freedomhouse.org/regions/sub-saharan-africa#.VIO9pDH...
Re: The Return of Africa’s Strongmen
#10Given that democracy is at its heart mob rule, in countries without a liberal democratic tradition the losers of elections tend to also lose their lives and privileges; it'd be insane to ever step down as president in many of these Third World states. Rather than embracing democracy fetishism, what if we embraced liberty instead? Let the strongmen declare themselves Kings or Presidents-for-Life or whatever, but encou…
Isn't this what we practiced in the '80s, with Pinochet's Chile?