Say Anything Blog

Amy Chua, Yale Law professor, has a new book out entitled "World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability." As you can probably imagine, the book is every bit as pretentious and arrogant as the title.

From the New York Times:

To most Americans, the notion that free markets and democracy are essential to curing the world's ills is an article of faith. If only Iraq and Afghanistan, Cuba and North Korea, Syria and Rwanda would adopt both, their people, not to mention the world, would be safer and richer.

Yet to Amy Chua, a professor at Yale Law School, such accepted wisdom is mostly evidence of a persistent and disturbing national naïveté. All too often, she says, bringing free markets and elections to developing nations leads not to stability or prosperity but to hate-mongering, discrimination and even genocidal violence...

As she states the case in her recent book, "World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability"(Doubleday, 2003): "Markets concentrate wealth, often spectacular wealth, in the hands of the market-dominant minority, while democracy increases the political power of the impoverished majority. In these circumstances the pursuit of free market democracy becomes an engine of potentially catastrophic ethnonationalism." And this, she adds, is precisely what is happening today in Indonesia, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Russia and the Middle East."

With its volatile mix of Sunnis (the elite Muslim minority favored by Saddam Hussein), Shiites (the generally poorer Muslim majority) and Kurds, Iraq could soon join the list, Ms. Chua said. "It's a big mess," she said. "You have a 60 percent Shiite majority that has long been oppressed and has just every reason to take back the country and re-establish its identity."

A Chinese-American whose family is from the Philippines, Ms. Chua says she has seen firsthand the destructive effects of free markets and democracy. Both arrived in the Philippines after its independence from the United States in 1946, benefiting the tiny, entrepreneurial Chinese community at the expense of the Filipino majority. Though they make up barely 1 percent of the population, she writes, "Chinese Filipinos control as much as 60 percent of the private economy, including the country's four major airlines and almost all of the country's banks, hotels, shopping malls and major conglomerates."

Today ethnic tensions on the island are high. In November 2003, The New York Times reported that there had been 156 kidnappings so far that year -- apparently a 10-year high. Most of the victims, some of whom were eventually murdered, were ethnic Chinese. In 1994, Ms. Chua's aunt was stabbed to death in her home by her Filipino chauffeur. He was never arrested. And though he stole money and jewelry from his employer, Ms. Chua writes, the motive listed in the police record was not robbery but "revenge..."

"I'm an optimist," Ms. Chua said, summing up her position. "In the last 20 years, we have done things in many ways so badly, so foolishly, often with the best of intentions -- like dropping a stock exchange in Mozambique or xeroxing copies of the U.S. Constitution. I think we can do better."

In her book, she argues that one way to reduce inequality and ethnic tension in democratizing nations is for market-dominant minorities to share some of their wealth by making "significant, visible contributions to the local economies in which they are thriving," by which she means building universities, hospitals or recreational facilities, supporting local schools and employing members of the indigenous majority in their companies.

For any society to be truly free a few basic truths must exist:

• The people must have some form of elected government. It doesn't have to be exactly like America's, but a system wherein the people vote their leaders into power must exist.


• People must be able to express themselves freely, worship as they please and have access to accurate and fair news coverage.


• A free market allowing individuals and businesses to compete for jobs and market share and where all types of products are readily available.

You could, perhaps, add an item or two to this list, but in my opinion these are the three ideas which must exist in a society for it to be considered free. Ms. Chua doesn't understand this.

Ms. Chua states that free markets and democracy only encourage the enrichment of a small portion of a country's population. I would say that a free market, when applied correctly, distributes wealth according to each individual's ability to succeed.

What I don't understand is what Ms. Chua would have us do about her perceived problem. She claims that spreading democracy to a country is divisive to its population so her solution is to withhold democracy from these countries? Or to delay its spread?

I'll admit that introducing democracy to a society that has long been oppressed is a painful process, but I'm not sure there's any way around it. Would Ms. Chua have had us move even slower in Iraq? Would she want us to let those people to continue to suffer under oppression until some arbitrary date when we decided they were "ready" for democracy? Should we just give up? Should we stop trying to spread democracy since it is, in Chua's opinion, so disruptive?

In her own words Chua has described Americans as naive. She implies that we are barbarians seeking to shove our ideology down the throats of unsuspecting nations. What people like Amy Chua don't understand is what made this country great. We are the most powerful and prosperous nation on earth. Why do you think that is? Because we are a democracy with a free market. Ours is a system that works, why wouldn't we encourage its spread to other countries? Why would we delay for a moment to throw the blanket of oppression of a country and expose them to freedom, pure and absolute?

If Amy Chua isn't convinced of this, then perhaps she should go to Iraq and visit with those who have been protesting the terror attacks and tell them that they must put their right to protest on hold until she decides they're ready to do so.

I'm sure it would go over well.