Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Are Democracy and Capitalism Synonymous?

NP - Royskopp - What Else Is There

I asked two of my friends this question, here were their replies:

(friend 1) says:
Akeed ['of course' in arabic]

JZL says:
hell fuckin no ... if anything, theyre incompatible

Both of these people know their politics quite well, although they clearly have differing opinions on this matter. I guess it depends which way you lean. If you lean to the right, you see capitalism as the natural extension of democracy perhaps, something inevitable. As we progress as a society, naturally we would look towards free-trade solutions, where the ultimate fairness is obtained through the free movement of the dollar. Its not necessarily equal, but life's like that. If you lean towards the left, capitalism is not necessarily the natural evolution of a democratic society. Its the will of the political or corporate elite, an unfair system that may breed equity, but has no guarantee of equality (indeed, by its very nature, will continue to expand the difference between the rich and the poor).

I'll admit I'm a left-leaner. I like to believe that democracy does not necessarily mean capitalism.

Looking up dictionary definitions, initially it seems theres no link between them:

de·moc·ra·cy Audio pronunciation of "democracy" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (d-mkr-s)
n. pl. de·moc·ra·cies
  1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.
  2. A political or social unit that has such a government.
  3. The common people, considered as the primary source of political power.
  4. Majority rule.
  5. The principles of social equality and respect for the individual within a community.
cap·i·tal·ism Audio pronunciation of "capitalism" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kp-tl-zm)
n.
An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.
(source: www.dictionary.com)

However, if we were to take real life examples of 'successful' democracies, we'd see that most of them are capitalistic societies. Look at the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, etc. Successful democracies (by some counts), capitalist states. Look at Cuba - dictatorship, far from capitalist, far from successful economically.

But I doubt, personally, the relationship is that simple. I'm more interested that political theory, not current events and that (although I realise that current events are probably more important than mere theory). In theory, theres nothing tying democracy to capitalism. It just seems to be the trend in today's world. But theres examples of democracies that reject capitalism and free-market policies. Look at Venezuela and Bolivia. Both of these countries are democracies (theres a bit of talk about Venezuela, but I'm not sure about that). Bolivia's president-elect Evo Morales won something like 54% of the vote, the highest majority in quite a while, apparently. And he, like Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, has rejected US-sponsored free-trade policies.

In the end, I don't know whether democracy=capitalism. I like to think it doesnt: I like to think that our happiness is ultimately measured by how many widescreen TVs we have, or how many Starbucks Frappucinos we can buy a week. I read a book once, called Cloud Atlas, where there was this society which was I guess what you could call a pure capitalist society: he called it a 'corprocracy'. 'Coffee' was called 'Starbuck'. TVs were called 'Sonys'. Everyone had a certain amount of their income that they HAD to spend. I thought it was a very fascinating description of what society could become.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Some useful links on both, for you to decide :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy
http://www.democracyforamerica.com/
http://www.opendemocracy.net/home/index.jsp

http://www.capitalism.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
http://www.aynrand.org/

And heres something new to me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism sounds...interesting.

Posted by illogicist at 12:24 PM

9 Comments

  1. Blogger Lym posted at 1/04/2006 01:40:00 PM  
    Money---} Power----} Domination----} So called Democracy?

    Thats how I see it.
  2. Blogger muscati posted at 1/05/2006 08:03:00 AM  
    Democracy and capitalism are not synonymous. You can have one without the other, and you can have one despite the other. Non-democratic, strongly capitalistic countries: China, Singapore, Dubai, Malaysia, etc. Democratic country where capitalism had a very tough time and is still unable to break entirely free: India.

    In fact the India vs China comparison shows that in third world economies it can be argued that lack of democracy can more favorable to the emerging of capitalism. It can also argued that capitalism can eventually lead to increased democracy.
  3. Blogger . posted at 1/05/2006 08:15:00 AM  
    -Democracy is a political system.
    -Capitalism is an economical system.
    -You can't compare both in same level.
    -Democracy tends to use Capitalist system to run its economy,
    -while the economical communist system prefers to use Dectatorship. -Dictatorship can also use Capitalism such as Nazi Germany.
    -India vs China = India is using democratic political system that runs on some capitalistic economical system.
    -While China is trying to adjust, by running Communistic economical system and capitalistic system in the same time under dictatorship political system!
    - Therefore, I conclude that Capitalism is not Democracy, if so, then it's ok to say Communism is Democracy!

    Salam--[x]
  4. Blogger Arabian Princess posted at 1/05/2006 10:16:00 PM  
    I think I agree with you, I dont think capitalisim means Democracy .. in fact I think it means the exact opposite. As a capatlist, if you have what it takes you win the market. If you win the market, you have power. If you have power you can rule.

    In another note, I am always surprised why do we have to push our countries into democracy thinking that its the best ultimate way to live. Democracy works in some places and doesnt work in others.
  5. Blogger illogicist posted at 1/07/2006 12:09:00 PM  
    Some interesting comments, I'm glad that I got some cause this kind of topic usually doesnt go down too well on my blog. I'll comment more later, but I just want to clarify that I wasnt equating democracy and capitalism. What I was basically saying was does a democracy have to have a capitalist system.

    Anyway, more from me later.
  6. Blogger illogicist posted at 1/07/2006 01:37:00 PM  
    @a.b.dada: thanks for stopping by. I glanced thru the Wiki page, and I'll make sure to read some more on it later. But one criticism comes to mind for now: what about public goods? Things that have no real monetary benefit to the person who develops or maintains it, but has a positive externality on everyone else? E.g. national parks?

    Also, can you please explain to me the significance of 1859 in relation to America being a capitalist state? Please excuse my ignorance - I know few details about American history.

    @Muscati: I wonder if you could provide some more info or some links about India having a tough time breaking entirely free, I'd be interested to know more.

    @the rest: thanks for ur posts. SR in particular thanks for providing that info.

    On another note, does anyone apart from me get the perception that it seems to be taken for granted amongst everyday people that democratic societies are generally capitalistic to some degree? As in some greater degree than, say non-democratic countries? Thats just the impression I get.

    Regarding what AP said about democracy not always being ideal, I might agree, might disagree. If you have a good monarch, you're lucky. Thats pretty much what we have in Oman. But too often thats the exception and not the rule - look at pre-war Iraq, Libya, and Syria for example. I specifically chose arab countries btw to show that even in this relatively small region, the rule when it comes to dictatorships seems to be bad. With democracies, its still ugly and more often than not you end up with a non-so-good government.
    I was looking up a particular quote, I couldnt find it. Its something like democracy is the worst form of government that works, or something like that. Instead I found this:

    ... the 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: The growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.

    Australian social scientist Alex Carey

    That quote is also kinda cool. Its ironic that so many of the famous quotes about democracy tend to put it down, eh?
  7. Blogger muscati posted at 1/07/2006 06:51:00 PM  
    Check your email :)
  8. Blogger muscati posted at 1/07/2006 07:00:00 PM  
    btw, totally agree with your last comments. It is by the grace of god that we have fortunate to have good rulers like Sultan Qaboos. Otherwise it would be an absolute disaster living in a non-democratic society. Look at how Oman was before Qaboos. We had close to 40 years of rule by his isolationist paranoid father which did nothing but damage to Oman. Because of the monarchy and lack of any kind of system for the people to do anything about it they had no choice but to either rebel, escape the country or simply stay and live in misery.

    The lack of democracy is only good when the leadership is good. But that's very rare. Not every country is lucky enough to be blessed with a Lee Kwan Yew or a Mohd bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
  9. Blogger Arabian Princess posted at 1/11/2006 12:19:00 PM  
    but look at arab world countries?? give me one democracy thats successful?

    the problem with us arabs is that we still have the mentality of triblisim in our blood .. we cant get it out .. whoever gets the chair *be it with election or by over-throwing the previous ruler" would try his best to keep his kin controling the country.

    ask me whats the soloution, I dont know .. I just know that we are happier in oman as a monarch. Without monarchy we would have a tribal war!!

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