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Episode 321 - Democracy

My thoughts on democracy.

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Transcript
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Well, hello there, dear listener.

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This is the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast, episode 321.

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Normally, we're a panel discussion where we talk about...

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News and politics and sex and religion and the events that have taken place

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in the previous weeks and we head down various rabbit holes but I decided

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a while ago that I needed to mix it up a bit and every second week do a

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little monologue where I talk about a topic of interest and it's proven to

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be harder than I thought it would be.

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It's not easy just to sit on your own and just rant about

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things and keep it interesting.

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And anyway, I'm going to give it a crack on this occasion.

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See how we go.

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This is actually take two because I did one and then for some reason the power

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went out in this house and tripped and I kept most of my recording but it, it

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totally threw me off and I thought, oh.

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Wasn't happy with it.

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So I'm starting again anyway.

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There we go.

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We're going to talk about democracy and power and some ideas relating

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to that and well, the reason why is because Number one, I saw an article

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in the Rationalist magazine called The Rationale, I think it's called.

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It was by Carrick Ryan in defense of democracy And he wrote a few things

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which I just sort of have problems with.

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And also just recently the USA has conducted a Summit for Democracy, which I

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think is the height of hypocrisy myself.

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And I think what annoyed me in Carrick's article was to do with terminology

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and And the idea that we get confused between democracy and capitalism and

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market economies and the benefits that flow from one, assuming that they...

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are not necessarily tied in with the other.

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So, so what I'll do, in my first one I really gave a blow by blow

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description of Carrick's essay and I'm not going to do that this time.

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I'm just going to tell you what the general ideas were and just deal with

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them, try and make it more interesting.

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So here we go.

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So in his essay he says, he said, basically, democracy leads to countries

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that are better places to live in.

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This is because they have growing economies, which grow

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because of creative destruction.

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In democracies, innovation forces power structure, adaption.

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But in non democratic countries, the powerful are able to suppress,

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sort of, newcomers, challenges.

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Just look at history.

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The more democratic a state, the more successful it is.

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And democracies give us individual freedom, which other systems don't allow.

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And our democracies are not perfect, but rather than abandon democracy as an

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ideology, we should fight to improve it.

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I think that's a fair summary of, of what the article said.

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Now, what I want to say in, in my response and talking about democracy

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is that democracy is a relatively small factor in determining the

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success or failure of many countries.

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You've got to remember, most countries are relatively small and when a big player, a

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big bully, wants to bully them, they can.

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And it's not really going to matter whether they're a democracy or not.

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We live in the age of the American empire, and in my view, if you get in the road of

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American self interest, you're stuffed.

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No matter how democratic you are.

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On the other hand, if you can aid American self interest, you'll thrive

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no matter how authoritarian you are.

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So, to me, for a lot of players in the world, their success of particularly

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smaller countries isn't so much whether they are democratic or authoritarian,

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it's whether they're on the good or bad side of the American empire.

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Now, when I refer to American self interest, I mean the American military

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industrial complex, you know, the oligarchy that's running the place.

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So I think it's misleading to connect democracy with capitalism,

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prosperity, innovation, market economies, personal freedom, health

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and happiness, as if these things are all linked by some rule of nature.

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They all come hand in hand.

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So, it sort of annoyed me that the Rationalists published this essay.

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I mean, it not annoyed me.

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I mean, it's good that essays are published, and I

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guess this is my response.

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And, and I know that there's a certain view around the world

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that, you know, a guy like Steven Pinker, that everything's okay.

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Western and

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will continue to do so, provided we keep them in good shape.

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And...

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I really think rational Australians and others need to just sort of

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carefully look at that story and see if it's really true or not.

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So, how power truly operates in the world, I don't think is how it

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was painted in Carrick's article.

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So, as I said, the truth is that traditionally powerful countries,

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for me, they have exploited either other smaller countries, or their

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own resources, or their own working class, or the world financial system.

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And the opportunities for further exploitation have run out,

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and a reckoning is imminent.

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Capitalism requires growth, and those sorts of fake growth options have run out.

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So, I agree with Carrick that democracy is in trouble.

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I agree.

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I think to rescue it, we need to understand why it's in decline.

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And a book by Wendy Brown, and the title of the book is...

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In the ruins of neoliberalism, the rise of anti democratic politics in the West.

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And, according to Wendy, we can blame neoliberalism, so she says that

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neoliberalism was a political and moral project that put individual

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liberty above all else and it demonised democracy because it demonised Any

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idea of the state having the authority to interfere in individuals lives.

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So, neoliberalism pooh poohed the state, the commons, the social good, elevated

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the individual as the primary concern.

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And really, from a neoliberal point of view, democracy is a bit dangerous.

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It can allow the majority to limit the freedom of an individual.

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If enough people vote for it, and from a neo liberal point of view,

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they would rather personal freedom and would, and would put up with an

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authoritarian, undemocratic government if it were leaving individuals

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alone to do whatever they wanted to.

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That would be the sort of neo liberal approach, and that has permeated

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our culture, and that erosion of the common good in society.

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The elevation of the individual has sowed the seeds of doubt for democracy.

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That's her analysis, and I tend to agree with it.

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So, if we want to fix the decline in democracy, We're going to need

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to restore the social, the commons, the idea of society, alright.

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So, just a few introductory ideas on democracy and its

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place in the scheme of things.

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What is democracy?

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Essentially, power to the people, where everybody's treated equally.

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They get a vote and a say in how the society operates, and it's

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not dictated to them by a small clique of unaccountable people.

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So, a small clique of people running a place is an oligarchy.

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If they've got lots of money, which is normally the case, it's a plutocracy.

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You could have an aristocracy, where it's, you know, kings and queens, where

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it occurs via hereditary sort of means.

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And the other options would be sort of tyrannies and dictatorships,

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and interesting, Plato, the Greek philosopher, uh, ranked sort of oligarch

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and plutocracies and, and aristocracies as preferable to democracies, and

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only just above, and ranked democracy only just above sort of a tyranny.

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So, that was his view of the best ways of operating a society.

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So, the other idea we need to get across is that, you know, authoritarian states

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can, can conduct liberal societies, where they don't care what you do, get

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divorced, gay people can marry, have abortions, you know, do whatever you like.

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It's possible for an unelected government.

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authoritarian ruling group or person to, to have a fairly liberal

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interpretation of individual preferences and just that you can't vote them out.

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You know, it, it doesn't have to go hand in hand.

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It often does, but it doesn't have to.

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The other thing is just thinking about capitalism and market economies, you know,

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they're different things and authoritarian regimes can operate not only market

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economies, but also capitalist economies.

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I mean, if you look at modern day China, there's a lot of people getting very rich.

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Running capitalist enterprises.

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And capitalism, you have to understand, is quite different to a market economy.

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So, people, people tend to think, Oh, you can't have socialism or telling

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people what to do in terms of a command economy and how many loaves of bread

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to bake and all that sort of stuff.

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You know, that's different.

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A command economy where the central government body tells people what

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to do and how often to do it.

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It's a sort of a command economy versus a market economy where

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the market through the forces of supply and demand works things out.

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So you can have an authoritarian regime that runs a market economy.

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Capitalism is really a recent invention.

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It's only occurred in the last, you know, 400 years or so with the,

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you know, industrial revolution.

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So, we're, we're basically individuals were able to accumulate such wealth

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that they could live off the proceeds.

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So, most people who consider themselves capitalists are not capitalists.

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Even if you own a small business, if you're working in it every day

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because you have to, you're just another wage slave like the rest of us.

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It's just that you've got more pressure and accounting

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problems than the rest of us.

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You're not a capitalist.

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You're a believer in a market economy, but you're not actually

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a practicing capitalist.

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Unless you've accumulated such wealth, you don't have to work at all.

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All right, so enough of the sort of definition sort of things.

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What does Carrick say in the article?

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He says, well, democracy leads to countries that are

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better places to live in.

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And in support of that argument, he said, what did he say?

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He said, look at the, there's an index he came across, which was,

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let me just get it straight here.

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The Human Development Index is a score given to nations based on a number

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of variables such as life expectancy, education and per capita income.

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And Carrick says that in the top 30, all but one, Hong Kong, is a democracy.

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And he says, is it just pure coincidence, or not?

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And essentially he goes on to say that, well, democracies...

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allow for innovation.

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And it's because of that innovation that their economies grow

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and that they are successful.

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So it's no coincidence that the top third democracies, it's because

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democracies lead to innovation, which leads to growth of economies.

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Just want to make the point that really a lot of countries in the top

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30 would be doing very well because of circumstances beyond just their,

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the fact that they're a democracy.

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I mean, if you're a former colonial power and you've accumulated massive

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wealth over hundreds of years from, from extracting wealth from the

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colonies, And you've then reinvested that into modern day enterprises.

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You know, that, that can have a much more to do with why you're in the top 30 than

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the fact that you're running a democracy.

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That sort of build up of wealth through colonisation that you

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continue to live off is a huge factor.

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It might also be that the country...

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It just has itself vast resources per head of population, e.

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g.

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Australia or e.

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g.

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the Arab oil states.

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And there are other factors at play.

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If you look at that same index and you say, well, who were the big

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improvers in the last five years?

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You can actually...

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Play around with the figures and put in a spreadsheet and run them around, and

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which ones have moved up a lot of places.

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And in the last five years, guess what?

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The biggest improver, by a significant margin, is China, moved up 12 places.

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And it's not a democracy, apparently.

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So what does that say then?

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If your argument is, look at the Human Development Index, and

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the top 30 are all democracies, but the biggest improver is...

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Is not a democracy?

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What does that say about how the world is operating now?

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Also, if you're looking at the, at the top 10 improvers, China, Dominican

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Republic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Thailand, Maldives, Bangladesh,

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Ireland, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Georgia.

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And I'll just tell you whether they are democracies or not.

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And in that same order, China, authoritarian.

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Dominican Republic, Flawed Democracy, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hybrid,

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Thailand, Flawed Democracy, Maldives, I couldn't see what the information

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was, Bangladesh, Hybrid, Ireland, Full Democracy, Hong Kong, Hybrid, Kazakhstan,

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Authoritarian, Georgia, Hybrid.

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So in the top 10 improvers, the only one that was a full democracy was

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Ireland for the last five years.

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So, What does that say about whether you need to be a

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democracy, a successful country.

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Maybe other things are at play here.

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So my argument would be that for a lot of countries who are doing well,

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It's because of historical factors that they are continuing to benefit

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from, and if you look at countries that are doing poorly, it may not be

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because they're a democracy or not.

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It could be other factors involved that means life's not

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so great in those countries.

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And I looked at who's doing worse, who's the worst performers in this

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democracy, in this sort of development.

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When I came out with the figures, the worst performer was the Marshall

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Islands, but that was because it didn't have figures previously, so it

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was like a not applicable type thing.

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The worst performer by far, dropped 44 places in five years, was Venezuela.

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And then the second worst was Yemen, and then East Timor.

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Denmark, Brunei, Barbados, Lebanon, Dominica, and Palestine.

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When you look at those, do you think, yeah, maybe there

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might be other factors beyond?

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Democracy at play here.

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And Venezuela is an interesting classic example.

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The worst performer of the lot.

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And, and really, if you look at Venezuela and where it appears on democracy

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indexes, you'll often see it appears as a terrible authoritarian state.

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But when you read other material, you would say to yourself,

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well, it's actually a democracy.

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So we've mentioned it before in the podcast, but Jimmy Carter, former

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president of the United States, created the Carter Foundation.

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They go around the world looking at elections in places like Venezuela

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and send independent people to the voting booths, looking around,

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checking, reporting back on whether the systems in place are truly

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democratic or whether the fix is on.

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So, when Hugo Chavez was elected as the president of Venezuela, he of course was

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a socialist, the Jimmy Carter said, of the 92 elections that we've monitored,

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I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.

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By way of contrast, the US election system, with its emphasis on

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campaign money, is one of the worst.

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Just recently, Venezuela had Some midterm elections.

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So it wasn't the President, but it was other office bearers and the Carder

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Centre has not yet reported on that.

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But I'm keeping my eye out to see what they say.

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But there was another group called the National Lawyers Guild.

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Who seem to do a similar thing to what the Carter Foundation is doing.

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And they sent a delegation of lawyers, of guild members, to Venezuela to monitor

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the regional elections in November 2021.

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And in their report, they say they observed a balanced and

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transparent voting process, which voters expressed confidence in.

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And it goes on about how many sites they visited.

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And the communications that they had, and basically a conclusion that

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they were very satisfied with the conduct of the election in Venezuela.

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And a conclusion that said, so here, overall we observed a climate

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of political energy grounded in an understanding that the voting day

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process, regardless of one's individual political ideology, functions fairly

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and is received as legitimate.

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And they then went on to criticise the U.

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S.

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for its sanctions that it's operating.

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So when it comes back to, well, Carrick's argument, if you look at

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the, uh, development index, the top 30 are democracies, that seems to

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be more than a coincidence, it's democracies that allow innovation,

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innovation allows growing economies, well, you've got a dog democracy in

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Venezuela that's dropped 44 places.

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The reason is, even if you think it's an authoritarian state, the

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reason is because of the sanctions.

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The reason Yemen is the next country is because of a civil war that's

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been going on in that country with weapons supplied by the US and the

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UK, other democracies, to the Saudis.

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So, you know, it's, it's certainly the case that throughout history in

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Latin America, if we look at Chile.

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With the Allende government that the US overthrew, even though it was

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democratically elected, they just didn't like it because it was socialist.

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Henry Kissinger admitted that, and they were going to do whatever they could

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to get rid of him, so they installed an authoritarian dictator, General Pinochet.

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They did similar things in Guatemala, similar things in

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other Latin American countries.

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Same thing in Iran, where Mossadegh was duly elected, and Kermit Roosevelt.

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CIA agent engineered the overthrow of his government.

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I mean, these are all things that are beyond, these are not disputed.

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These are admitted by the U.

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S.

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in their own documents.

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This is not fanciful stuff.

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I mean, is the U.

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S.

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a democracy if it runs around the world overthrowing democracies?

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And installing dictators?

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What, how does that affect their ranking in the Democracy Index, I wonder?

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So the other thing that, so of course the sanctions are incredibly difficult

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on places like Venezuela and Cuba, that these people can't access products that

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other countries can access, just because the US decides to impose sanctions.

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The same with Iran.

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I mean, there was a deal done by Obama in relation to nuclear inspections.

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It was Trump killed that deal and sanctions reimposed, you know, a lot of

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the welfare and benefit in a country, if you are cut off from the world economy

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by the US, you are necessarily going to plummet down the development index,

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whether you're a democracy or not.

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And you know, on a, on a sort of a more macro scale, what

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happened in the seventies and eighties with the International

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Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

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Both controlled by, by, was that if countries got into trouble with

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their loans, loans that they probably shouldn't have been given in the

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first place, but once they got into trouble it opened up, uh, Pandora's

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box for these poor countries.

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Essentially the IMF and the World Bank would agree to certain loans on

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the condition that these countries implement neoliberal policies, which

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was they had to allow global companies, multinational companies, to come

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in and have full access to their economies, buy whatever they wanted to.

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They had to sell their infrastructure, publicly owned,

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to help pay off their debts.

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They had to deregulate so that when those companies were in there, they

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could do the hell, whatever they like.

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And they had to also, you know, lower tax as well.

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So they got stuck.

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And in particular, they were not allowed to impose their own regime of tariffs.

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Uh, to protect any industries and what that means is that these countries

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are perpetually locked into poor, low value agricultural production.

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And it's very difficult for them to develop a manufacturing

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base because manufacturing needs protection in the early days.

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If you decide you're going to create a car manufacturing

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industry or something of that like.

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You'll never get it off the ground while other countries are allowed to bring in

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their vehicles because the local company necessarily needs time to get up to speed.

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So typically what you would do, if you could, is put barriers and tariffs and

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protections in place to give your own companies some assistance and a leg up.

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And they just weren't allowed to do that under these rules

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by the IMF and the World Bank.

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So they're stuck in this position and can't develop those industries.

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Meanwhile, places like America and other countries America in particular, when

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it first kicked off, instituted those sorts of tariffs and protected its

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industries so that they could be created.

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And once they were, then they were happy to be opened up.

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But it's, it's terribly unfair on these countries that they're locked into.

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Oh, well you provide the agriculture for the world, we provide the high

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tech and the services in the West.

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Just a shame that the high tech and the services are the big paying ones.

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And Germany and Europe will provide some manufacturing as well.

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I mean, it's, it's very difficult for them.

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So, they're locked into things.

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and systems that are operating sort of a power imbalance that is operating

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irrespective of whether they are a democracy or an authoritarian regime.

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The most important thing is, are they being bullied by larger forces?

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And that's what's often occurring to keep these countries down out of the

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top 30 in terms of development index.

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So what else did Carrick say in, oh, innovation?

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Actually, let me go right back to the beginning.

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Yes.

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He says that in democracies, innovation forces power structure adaption.

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So, where there's innovation in democracies, existing

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players have to adapt.

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But he says in non democratic countries, the powerful are

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able to suppress the challenges.

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And, and there was a little bit there about, also, the propensity of

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democracies to produce innovation.

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Now, when it comes to producing innovation out of different systems.

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There's no reason why authoritarian regimes can't produce innovation.

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And there's a bit of a myth that a lot of innovation comes from

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the private capitalist sector.

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And just to sort of expose that myth, if you like, there is an

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economist, Mariana Mazzucato.

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She made a list of 12 key technologies that make smartphones work.

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So you've got on the hardware side, you've got tiny microprocessors, memory

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chips, solid state hard drives, liquid crystal displays, lithium based batteries.

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That's hardware.

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Then you've got networks and software.

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So you've got the Fast Fourier Transform Algorithms.

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You've got the internet.

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You've got HTTP and HTML.

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You've got cellular networks.

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Global Positioning Systems, or GPS.

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You've got the touchscreen, and you've got Siri.

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So that's 12 pieces of key technologies that are part of the smartphone,

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and most people would think, wasn't it amazing that Apple was able

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to invent all of those things?

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And when Mariana Mazzucato assembled this list of technologies and reviewed their

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history, she found something striking.

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The, uh, foundational figure in the development of the iPhone wasn't

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Steve Jobs, it was Uncle Sam.

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Every single one of these 12 technologies was supported in

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significant ways by governments, often the American government.

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So, she goes on to lit where the origins are of these various technologies.

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Often they came out of the military, often they came out of, sort of,

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government funded universities.

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Good on Apple and Jobs for putting it all together and, you

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know, packaging it attractively.

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But, you know, this did not come from the private sector, those 12 inventions.

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It came out of the public sector.

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And so one could argue when it comes to innovation based on that example, that

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perhaps an authoritarian regime is more likely to have a A larger, non private

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sector, and potentially, potentially, more likely to produce innovation.

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I mean, modern companies today don't have the money for innovation spends.

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They just like to steal and copy off each other, basically.

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Anyway, so that was innovation, and also, one of the other

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things that happens is, I mean...

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Just thinking of wartime, for example.

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I mean, were the Russian and German scientists at the cutting edge?

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Even though they were part of authoritarian regimes?

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Um, I think we could say yes.

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Did the Soviets put a man into orbit first?

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Yes.

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I mean, this came out of authoritarian regimes.

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The other thing that happens...

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If you've got an innovation in business today, in a western liberal capitalist

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democracy, what you'll find is that big players put up barriers to entry to

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stop smaller players coming in, even if they've got a slightly better product.

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If that doesn't work, they'll buy up the smaller new player and Either

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discard the innovation and thereby preserving their existing product.

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They'll utilise it, but they'll charge monopoly prices, wiping out the economic

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benefit for you and me, and keeping the economic benefit for themselves.

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So, you've only got to look at inequality graphs to see that even if innovation

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Actually transfers through to product.

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It's not, it's not so much the country's experience, the economic

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growth as the private enterprises are.

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It's probably shifting the profits offshore as a result anyway.

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So it's, it's not the case that innovation is so readily accepted in,

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in democratic capitalist societies.

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They have enormous, you know, power comes in different forms.

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It's not just democratic voting power, it's size.

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And, and, and there's a huge advantage for big existing players in any industry.

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It's very difficult for small ones to, to crack through.

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Alright, what else is going on is, what else did he say in his article

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before I just move on from that?

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I think that was the main part that I wanted to get through from that.

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So, just in terms of the US just recently convened, this happened

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on December 9th and 10th, 2021.

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The US convened a virtual Summit for Democracy, the first of its

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kind in what the State Department hopes to make an annual event.

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A summit focused on challenges and opportunities facing democracies.

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Provided a platform for leaders to announce both individual and collective

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commitments, reforms, uh, reforms and initiatives to defend democracy

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and human rights at home and abroad.

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And representatives from 110 governments were invited by the USA.

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They didn't invite Russia.

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Russia and China weren't happy about that.

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Um, spanning the globe, many other countries invited can hardly

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be classified as democratic.

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From Apartheid Israel to Brazil, also invited.

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Was the Venezuelan opposition activist, Juan Guaido, who was declared by the

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United States to be the interim president of Venezuela, at a democracy summit.

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Nearly three years later, Guaido is still considered the interim

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leader of the country by the US and its allies in the region, despite

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a failed attempt at a military coup, his coalition falling apart.

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And having never participated in a presidential election.

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That's who the US invited to its Democracy Summit.

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So, beyond the list of attendees that were invited, you could ask the US itself.

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Is it a bit of a people in glass houses shouldn't be throwing

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stones type of situation?

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So, maybe the US should have used the time and effort to look at its own system.

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So, this, I'll link to an article, is a peer reviewed Princeton

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University study from 2014.

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Entitled, Testing Theories of American Politics, Elites, Interest

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Groups, and Average Citizens.

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And what happened was, in Layman's term, they looked at policies and

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whether they came to fruition as actual law, and they looked at whether those

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policies were favoured by rich people or poor people, or by interest groups.

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In layman's terms, the policy preferences of average citizens have almost no

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bearing on the likelihood of a policy being adopted by the government.

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By contrast, the preferences of economic elites is highly correlated with the

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likelihood of a policy being adopted.

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And the study stated, The central point that emerges from our research is that

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economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have

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substantial independent impacts on U.

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S.

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government policy.

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While mass based interest groups and average citizens have little

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or no independent influence.

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So, that looks like an oligarchy, and you have to question whether the U.

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S.

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is actually a democracy if its citizens get little or no say in government policy.

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And just the other metric was only 66 percent of, uh, Americans actually vote.

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And also at the Democracy Summit, the very first event at the Summit for Democracy

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was Media freedom and sustainability.

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The bitter irony of the United States hosting a panel on media

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freedom is not lost on many in the international community.

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Who have expressed alarm over the U.

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S.

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prosecution of Julian Assange for the crime of journalism that exposed the

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war crimes of the American Empire.

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So, the first event at the Democracy Summit was about media freedom

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and sustainability at almost the exact same time where Julian

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Assange had lost recent appeal.

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A bit more on this thing.

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Talks about US interference.

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I won't talk about that anymore.

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There's a couple of articles in the John Menehue blog, and from the first article,

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the US president has urged the free world to guard against authoritarian threats to

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democracy, ignoring America's own history.

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As he promised in the election, US President Joe Biden held a

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virtual summit for democracy.

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America is back, he told the world.

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Again, mentions Russia and China weren't invited.

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Not invited of course were Russia, China and North Korea.

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Invited were South Korea and Taiwan, a democracy which is not a separate country.

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Um, not included were Donald Trump's friends in the House of Saud, nor

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Afghanistan, Iran, Libya, Syria, or Yemen.

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Latin American countries whose democracies produce results

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the US doesn't like were out.

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So they didn't make the cut.

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That was Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua.

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And of course, Venezuela, and so were several Middle Eastern states,

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Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Jordan.

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Turkey, Hungary and Belarus were out, Poland was in, and there

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was a confusing list from Africa.

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For Biden, the simple choice was between democracy and authoritarianism, and

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he could write his own guess, but when he sought to justify it further, the

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rationale behind his choices got murky.

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Authoritarian leaders, he announced, are reaching across

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borders to undermine democracies.

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From targeting journalists and human rights defenders,

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to meddling in elections.

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He refused to allow people he thought as targeting journalists,

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or who are meddling in elections.

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No self awareness of what his own government is up to.

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Ah, dear.

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Another article from the John Menendee blog.

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It's not enough to preach Western values.

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Australia should instead try to understand those who don't agree with us.

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Western approaches to the world are based on certain premises, which

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are not shared by everyone else, but which we believe should be.

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And one of these is democracy.

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The writer, Kevin Hogue, says, Democracy is one, is the one

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true universal political system.

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This is a moral judgment, and one which some claim is the end of evolution.

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It is preached with the kind of missionary zeal that earlier generations showed in

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converting the heathen to Christianity.

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We do not wish to accept that democracy is just as much a matter of faith as

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belief in Christianity, Islam, Communism or any other religion or ideology.

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However, there is no scientific proof that it is any different.

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Both democracies and autocracies have been successful and have been failures.

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He says some claim that democracy promotes economic development.

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Or even that it is necessary, but there is no evidence to support this view.

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Two of the most dramatic economic miracles are the Magi Japan and China under Deng.

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We also tend to practice it more than preach it.

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So, that was that article, and...

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Speeches on Australian foreign policy tend to be bombastic and often demand

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the right to run our country as we see fit, while denying the right of others

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to run their country as they see fit.

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We assume that there is something wrong with a country that chooses not

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to be democratic as we practice it.

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Even if a majority of its people prefer it that way.

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Look, I know the plural of anecdote is not data, and, uh, but I certainly,

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we've had some Chinese homestay boys stay with us over the years, and they had

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lived in Australia for two, three, four years, and had seen what we were up to.

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And in my discussions with them, when I said, well, you know, do

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you wish that you had a similar democratic electoral system in China?

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And they said, no, I'm quite happy with what they had.

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Want to join the Communist Party?

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You could.

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I mean, there's a deal cut.

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The deal with the Chinese and their leaders is, if the

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economy's going okay, then...

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You can do what you're doing, uh, is essentially it.

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I mean, they're happy enough, I think, with what is going on,

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and that is as much a sort of a cultural difference as anything.

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And, and, you know, do we do anything that different here?

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I mean, if the economy's booming and everybody's happy in that

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manner, governments just get re elected anyway, don't they?

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Before we swap over.

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So, there is a bit of a imposition of, of a value on other people where, I mean, I

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obviously want the democracy in Australia.

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I think it's the best system for us and that's what we're used to and what

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we want and I think for most people in most countries it would be, but...

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Different cultures have different priorities and thoughts and are in a

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different position to what we're in, so you can't always say that, uh, one

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system is always the best for everybody.

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We have to at least recognise that and think about it and not treat

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it as sort of almost a religious tenet that must be applied.

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So anyway, what's the sort of last comment to make is really on this book by, In the

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Ruins of Neoliberalism by Wendy Brown.

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I agree with.

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Carrick, that our democracy, uh, is in trouble around the world, and certainly

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Wendy Brown would agree with that, but her sort of thesis in this book is that,

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that the architects of neoliberalism, Hayek, Friedman, et cetera, it wasn't

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just about the deregulation of economies They, they reckon, like Hayek, reckon, uh,

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identified strong tensions, I'm reading from page 72 here, Hayek identifies strong

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tensions between liberalism and democracy.

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Liberalism, he says, is concerned with limiting the coercive

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powers of all government.

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While democracy limits government, only according to majority opinion.

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Liberalism is committed to a particular form of government, while

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democracy is committed to the people.

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So, above all, Hayek argues democracy and liberalism have

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radically different opposites.

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Democracy's opposite is authoritarianism.

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Concentrated, but not necessarily unlimited political power.

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Liberals, uh, liberalism's opposite is totalitarianism.

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Complete control of every aspect of life.

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This makes authoritarianism potentially compatible with a liberal society.

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So, it becomes reasonable for Hayek to join his fellow neoliberals in accepting

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authoritarians, authoritarians legitimacy.

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In the transition to liberalism, and that's how they can justify the sort of

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thing that happened with General Pinochet.

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So, from the neoliberal point of view, to posing a democratically elected

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leftist socialist president in Chile.

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Was the right thing to do, even though it led knowingly

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to an authoritarian dictator.

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I mean, they knew what they were getting there, a military

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dictator in Latin America, come on.

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But that was acceptable, because for a start the, the company

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that owned the copper mine would continue to own it, they thought.

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And, and other sort of individual sort of freedom of business

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and all the rest of it.

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would be allowed under the Pinochet government.

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So, so, so, so, for Wendy Brown, the, the neoliberal experiment, well, it's

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not an experiment, it's a practice that's going on and is adopted,

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has elevated the, the paramount importance of individual freedom.

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And, and really what happened was, There was this amazing alliance has been created

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with Libertarians, Plutocrats, right wing anarchists, zealous pro lifers,

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homeschoolers, I mean anti vaxxers, you could add to that as well now.

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They all want freedom from society's regulations and constraints, and we

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are continually bombarded with the paramount supremacy of individual

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freedom, and a downplaying of the role of society, and, and if you're doing

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that hard enough and often enough, people then come to the view, well, I

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don't want a democracy if it's going to impinge on my personal freedom.

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I'll have some other right wing authoritarian regime, unelected,

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if that's what I need in order to have my personal freedom.

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And that's her thesis of how we've got there.

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So, so I thought that was an interesting theory.

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I think it's probably right.

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And that's probably me, done and dusted on my thoughts on democracy at this stage.

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Hope that was an entertaining rant for you, and I'll be

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back next week with the panel.

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Bye for now.

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The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove
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