John RapleyAT THE Summit of the Americas two weekends ago, US President George W. Bush declared that free trade helped promote democracy. Indeed, the document that emerged from the Summit attempted to connect any future free trade agreement for the Americas to democracy, though how the two would be coupled was unclear. It was not, for example, specified whether anti-democratic coups would cause member countries to lose the privileges of any free-trade deal.
Mr. Bush's attitude continues a line that was promoted by the Clinton administration, and its origin lies in some of the neoliberal theorising that has been done on democracy. Simply put, the argument is that free trade promotes capitalism. Capitalism produces private enterprise. Private enterprise creates a class of people with both private interests they seek to defend and the resources to resist government challenges to that autonomy. So as free trade spurs capitalist development and capitalist development spurs democracy, it therefore follows that free trade is good for democracy.
Proponents of this view point to the apparent historical connection between capitalist societies and democracy. On such a grand level, their case appears reasonable. But the road that gets there can be quite bumpy. Put simply, there is no a priori reason that entrepreneurs should prefer democracy to dictatorship. Often the opposite turns out to be the case. What neoliberal theorists now admit is that the private interests they seek to defend are their economic ones. But this liberal mind-set can co-exist with a tolerance for the violation of the rights of their workers, not to mention human and democratic rights more generally.
Indeed, the Asian success stories were among the least democratic of societies during their periods of most rapid growth. Moreover, during times when economic crises demand drastic measures, authoritarian governments may come to power in the name of the defence of capitalism. Such was the case in Latin America in the 1970s. There are some fears the same might happen again, as some of the region's democracies grow more fragile.
But there is another paradox of free trade that is perhaps poorly understood by the political leaders who point to its democratising aspects. In some respects, they are more correct than they might like to be. Their underlying assumption seems to be that more democracy will lead to enhanced support for the very reforms that ostensibly brought democracy in the first place. That doesn't necessarily follow.
Globalisation and free trade have created myriad opportunities for transnational organisation by civil society. The Internet, in particular, has helped multiply the number of autonomous nodes, which in Third World countries can bolster their resources by forming alliances with partners in the rich countries. But often, these groups turn against the policy changes being implemented by their own governments, because of the social costs they carry.
Thus, for the heads of government at the Summit of the Americas to decry the protesters on the streets of Quebec as anti-globalisers or worse, anti-democrats, is curiously ironic. By their organisation and tactics, they are among the most globalised of people. By their grassroots organising, they are among the most democratic. They are the fruits of the democratic wave celebrated by these politicians. But once the genie has been loosed and won his freedom, he no longer has to do what he is told.
Indeed, governments may find themselves embattled by their own civil societies. Their efforts to advance neoliberal reforms may exact a toll on their peoples, which then give rise to protests. Once again, these interests, from labour unions to indigenous groups, may form alliances with like-minded interests abroad. Faced with such opposition, democratic governments may find it necessary to resort to undemocratic means to advance their reforms, as Argentina recently did when it gave its Economy Minister almost absolute powers.
Democracy, in the end, is about more than just markets. Free markets may be a necessary condition for the emergence of democracy (though even that is questionable, as African village democracy, for instance, predated the arrival of capitalism). But if so, they are not a sufficient one. And the protesters on the streets have as legitimate a claim to the title of democratisers as the men and women meeting in the conference centre.
John Rapley is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona.
