Читать книгу Incompatibility and other essays - Peter Lustig - Страница 11

IV. The Warpath

Оглавление

When the terrorist raid against the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo took place recently, in Paris, the authorities immediately went about putting an end to the affair by shooting the perpetrators on sight. True, public demonstrations- unequalled since the end of World War II -brought about a gathering of government heads and politicians so diverse that the only thing that they can be said to have in common was their support for the “liberal” traditions of Western democracy. All this happened at once. Only afterwards was the decision taken to discuss methods and procedure to prevent a repetition of such things. Though the far right party of the Le Pens was invited to take part in the so called internal debate, they were unwelcome at the international level, where they would appear to represent a discriminatory disposition that might a) be regarded as a provocation and b) place France in an equivocal position with regard to xenophobia.

The massive repulse expressed by three or four million protestors was able to account for a call to take action which, in view of the large number and the ideological divergences of the participating politicians from all over the world, could be expected to resolve itself in an agreement to pursue the matter farther. No instant response or joint undertaking was forthcoming. Still, the security forces took it upon themselves to proceed right away, leaving aside considerations about citizen rights, international charters and all the weighty propositions that have been conceived to protect individuals from the power of the state. The terrorists were not treated like people assisted by human rights. They were wiped out then and there. No attempt was made to disarm them or to arrest them. A few snipers were simply instructed to pick them off. If anything, these terrorists were never going to be given a second chance to do their worst, whatever might be the outcome of imminent discussions on how to make borders safer, or restrict transit within the E.U., or carry out closer control of suspects traveling back and forth from locations outside Europe known to harbour training camps for converts and volunteers. Already, if they only sympathize with extremism, these people are being deprived of their rights as citizens (i.e. their “human rights”) to move about freely. Even before they have the opportunity to do something frightful, they lose their rights.

How can such a situation be reconciled with the “liberal” principles of democracy, unless the authorities take it upon themselves to make certain that misfits who pose a threat to their fellow men, for political reasons, are dealt with like any other sort of criminal caught red handed? One might go a step farther and ask how a liberal democracy, representing multiple opinions, could be made operational if violence were not to be eliminated out of hand, without regard to procedure, even if there seems to be a basic incompatibility between the precepts of democracy and the measures required to give it a chance to work.

The same incompatibility could be transferred, at a stroke of the pen, to the manner in which a pluralist relates to a fundamentalist, only this would apply at an earlier stage, before the situation were about to end in a free for all. There are many precedents, in recent history, in which politicians who were known for their undemocratic convictions switched to populism. Once in power, they claimed they had been legitimized by the vote, as if this were supposed to mean that they had always been in favour of democracy. From the standpoint of this critique, one finds it hard to believe, as well as the notion that a person’s views may change with the passing of time. Such a possibility might stand an intellectual in good stead; but it has no credibility at all in the case of somebody with political ambitions, in spite of which it has become a regular feature of democracy to have these former terrorists, or sympathizers with their cause, play the system to the extent that they can be passed off as “successful” politicians (assuming that whoever has the votes is, for that reason, upholding the best interests of the people). One can only wonder what these politicians might think and do if they did not have the votes or, worse still, if they were prevented from competing, as ex-cons, or even if they had never been sentenced. In the words of the wife of the outgoing president of Uruguay (he served time for active terrorism), if any attempt were made to depose her husband, they were prepared to take to the streets again. She gave this warning as a corollary to his inauguration. Coming from an old woman, it sounds somewhat grotesque; but it must be remembered that she, too, holds (or held) a seat in congress. The democratic system provides generous pensions for former executives and parliamentarians, particularly in countries where democracy is at a premium and it pays to access public office. It may be assumed that someone who had spent almost fifteen years in custody, without a change of heart - in view of what can be construed from the lady’s words -, might easily have done worse!

Quite apart from the question as to why so many successful politicians should have a past that was not precisely law-abiding, one ought to ask whether the reason might not lie with the discriminatory view in which the less affluent sector of society is held, in a “liberal” context, and whether this ought not to be attributed to too many people having been left out, basically because they did not fit the cultural bias that accorded an identity only to those who met the institutionally prescribed standards, socially and ideologically. Divided societies are always ripe for dissent: the worst form of dissent appears in the guise of religious conflict. Why? Because there is no way to reason around belief; so it becomes impossible to temporize. This was why the clergy were gradually disempowered in the West. No such disempowerment has taken place in the Muslim society (nor among the Zionists, or the Peronists, or the Congress Party, just to mention a few well known examples of single track thought models). In some respects, these constitute a solid majority bloc that is unlikely to give way to any sort of opposition. If some of the more damaging economic consequences of political reliance on state sponsored investment are surveyed, one could hardly expect that a rational electorate would endorse such a system. But that is how the vote tends to go. So, inevitably, one must conclude that more people stand to gain by depending on the state, either through participating in government, or benefiting from perks.

The ordinary voter does not take the long view of an economic trend, because a) he is faced by urgencies closer at hand and b) he is skeptical about the future, quite apart from whether he has a grasp of economics or is completely ignorant in that department, as is often the case. There are even members of the entrepreneurial class who ought to know better; but their thinking does not go beyond the returns of the balance sheet, at the end of the fiscal year. It cannot be said that they are ignorant; but they have other priorities than the long term outlook of the economy.

Supposing one were to piece together the economic plunge of regimes like those of Cuba and Venezuela with the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is hard to understand how anybody could expect a policy of redistribution to hold up in the absence of investment, after all the haves had been fleeced dry or done in. That was what Stalin and Hitler did. They differed mainly in that Hitler lost the war. In addition to the very similar social discipline put into practice by sundry totalitarian regimes, to prepare for war, there is very little difference, if any, between what needed to be done after the collapse of their economies. That should speak for itself when it comes to evaluating state sponsored capitalism. In every case, after the resources taken over from the more affluent (or more helpless) sector of local society gave out, it became necessary to embark on wars of conquest, which mostly ended badly, as a logical outcome of unequal military and economic capabilities.

Was this something the leaders of the different regimes did not know or could not foresee? Of course not. They just decided to take their chances when the time was right, particularly because they could rely on the support of their infatuated populations that had been geared to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. One would have to have lived through the phase of nationalistic exaltation to realize how irrationally people can behave. Not only because of the blinding and intimidating effect of propaganda and the subtleties of the police state. The whole idea of the nation state, as preparatory for mobilization, leaves ordinary folks at the mercy of their loyalties: patriotism or religion, whichever should take priority in one society or another. The question is: how can this be dealt with and what can be done about defusing the danger of self-destruct?

Closest to the well-being of a society hampered by inequality lies the problem of deciding how far the encroachment of the government upon private incomes can go. This has nothing to do with jockeying for advantage in a parliamentary debate. The question is: when will the economy have reached the point of no return in the transfer of resources to the poor? It should be discernible when the first signs of a recession appear. That does not mean that there is a crisis in the offing, yet. But it ought to turn on a warning light. As a rule, the way in which a downturn in the economy is evaluated and acted upon reveals the difference between responsible management and otherwise. As soon as the inadequacy of a currency rating goes out of control, a major crisis may be under way. It would depend on how seriously concerned a government might wish to admit that it felt on such slippery ground and whether it was prepared to do anything about it, before the realization were to sink in that there was downright incompatibility between increasing expenditure and indebtedness and making a serious effort to balance the budget. What happens, then? A pendulum swing across the political board takes place and, for a time, everything goes according to the book, until there is a surplus to distribute, once again, and another round of over-spending begins. This cannot happen where the political pendulum does not readily swing back and forth and there is a rigid commitment to policy, based upon loyalty to a leader, or a regime, that can be expected to resort to pressure tactics, when it would be advisable to work out a method to make sure the resources will be there to carry out a specific program A declaration of incompatibility will be of no help. Neither will the arbitrariness of “strong”government. At best, one can expect a waiting game before a showdown; but it could not last indefinitely.

Incompatibility and other essays

Подняться наверх