Condolences

My condolences to the people of India, a vibrant and justifiably confident democracy. Of course, it is sad again to see fellow Jews targeted in a disconcertingly familiar episode.

"Green and Flat"

Could renewable energy somehow connect to the integration of the global poor into the global economy?

Friedman argues, in "Hot, Flat, and Crowded," that, just as developing countries, lacking infrastructure, leapfrogged over the age of landline telephony directly into cellphone usage, so, too, do they need to leapfrog (at least in large measure) the age of centrally organized 'dirty' power into decentralized solar, wind, etc. power. He writes of a rural Indian village that powers internet-based employment with solar power. Interestingly, he notes, some town residents had lived in the city but returned, in spite of somewhat lower salaries, so that they could enjoy the openness of the countryside, the culture and family ties of their youth, etc.

THE AUSTRALIAN PM

I hadn't been expecting to write about Australia. Still, I found this description of the new Prime Minister's foreign policy to be interesting. He seems to me to be on the right track for the decades ahead.

An excerpt:

It would be easy to ridicule [Prime Minister Rudd's foreign policy] ambition and it would be wrong. The European portion of Rudd's world tour takes him deep into the second leg of his now famous foreign policy tripod. The American part of the journey represented the first leg of the tripod: the US alliance.
Here Rudd made profoundly important commitments to the US alliance as central to Australian foreign policy, to a view of the US as "overwhelmingly a force for good" in the world, and displayed a warmth to Republican and Democratic leaders alike, which underlined the bipartisan quality of the alliance in both the US and Australia.

Now, in Europe, he displays the second leg of his policy tripod, his commitment to multilateralism and the institutions of global governance.

Next week, in China, we'll get the third leg: deep engagement with Asia.

WEALTH, CAPITALISM, DEMOCRACY, AND INTERNATIONAL ASSERTIVENESS

My thinking about China and my reading of Alan Greenspan's new book ("The Age of Turbulence") has led me to some conjectures about democracy, capitalism, wealth, and assertive power.

I want to propose the following:

+Countries that are capitalist and wealthy tend very strongly to be democratic and internationally assertive. The converse tends to be true as well.

My reasoning:

+Capitalist countries tend to promote an ethic of individualism, which lends itself to democratic political organization and to a sensitivity to international threats. The second point is, perhaps, the more subtle one: I would argue that the 'rough and tumble' world of capitalism keeps its participants more keen to competitive challenges. This principle applies equally to business challenges and to geopolitical challenges. Essentially, this could be one explanation for the more internationally assertive stance of the UK, the US, and Australia, as opposed to France, Germany, and Japan.

+Wealth affords people the opportunity to reflect upon, and oppose, policies that are perceived to be unfair. Also, of course, wealth affords countries the opportunity to play a globally assertive role.

Some exceptions:

+Singapore and Hong Kong are both wealthy and economically free but lack political freedoms. This imbalance may be sustainable, in part, because of their small size. In short, it may be easier to control the political expression of a small, as opposed to a large, merchant society.

+India is an interesting exception. It is neither wealthy nor particularly economically free. Still, it shows some signs of appreciating the importance of confronting geopolitical challenges from less free neighbors. This may be due to (1) India's large size, which makes it both more able to play a regional/geopolitical role and more conscious of its geopolitical weight and to (2) the very fact of the existence of potentially aggressive, less free neighbors, especially Pakistan and China. We am forced to ask: Why is Japan then different from India? It is both relatively large and in the proximity of a neighbor who presents some degree of geopolitical challenge (read: China). If we argue that Japan's history (and constitution) make it especially inclined to pacifism, we are forced to question the assumption that less economic freedom is the proximate cause of Japan's (and, similarly, of Germany's) relative international quietude.


Conclusion:

There is still some more sorting to do on these issues. India is clearly an interesting case for further investigation.