More Muttering About Dictatorship From the Right

Conservatives might think of democracy as a noble goal for Iraq, but they're not sure it's such a good idea for the United States. As RSI has noted here and here, right-wing intellectuals like Thomas Sowell and Harvey Mansflield have recently begun expressing a yearning for one-man rule, military coups, and the abrogation of First Amendment rights. The underlying problem, it appears, is that the right expects the Republicans to lose in 2008 and conservative op-ed writers are already passing around the sour grapes.

Yesterday, however, Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute published what looks like a bolder and more systematic claim for dictatorship as the best political system for business. Hassett focuses on data that "dictatorships with free enterprise systems" have been growing faster than "democracies with free enterprise systems." But the fast growth of China and Singapore is not Hassett's point. Actually, the data itself is specious because the dictatorships are developing countries starting from a very poor economic base while democracies like the U. S. and France are mature and prosperous economies. Hassett acknowledges this:

"[N]early all of the unfree nations are developing countries. History shows they grow faster, at least for a while, than mature nations."

What Hassett wants to emphasize instead is the general point that dictatorships might be better for economic growth in general because "dictatorships are not hamstrung by the preferences of voters for, say, a pervasive welfare state." "Burdened" by public opinion, political parties, an independent media, and relatively free political speech, democracies inevitably develop welfare states of one kind of another. As a result, the only way that a "free market" paradise can be either brought into being or sustained is through dictatorship. Interestingly enough, Hassett seems to believe that a one-party Communist state like China is more friendly to business than a free country like the U. S.

In my opinion, Hassett's argument for dictatorship is a more serious threat to American democracy than those of other conservatives. Hassett seems to be saying to the corporate interests that finance the American Enterprise Institute that dictatorship in the U. S., France, and Germany might be just as favorable to their interests as dictatorship in China. It turns out that the "communist threat" to the U. S. is that American business might adapt Chinese communism as its preferred model for American society.

It will be interesting to see if more of this kind of literature emerges.