Charlie Rose

RE Mant  07/01/2008 09:40 PM Report

I will have to look at the book, but I have a strong feeling from this that Mandelbaum doesn't really understand Democracy, or its history. I think his Iraq analysis a lot better. Am I wrong in thinking tho' that JHU has a strong bias against any type of progressivism and long been a repository for academic misfits? BTW, the Greeks had a very fine idea of how democracy succeeded monarchy and was in turn supplanted by it.

Cheng  06/27/2008 09:09 AM Report

As a Singaporean whose country is very successfully run by a thinly-veiled benign dictatorship, that has the basic form of democracy, I wonder if Mandelbaum covers the varying nuances of democracy as CR rightly points out. To simply say that democracy is the most popular and pervasive form of govt in the world today is a little obvious and superficial. I wonder if he examines the varying levels of democracies and their real world success rates.

Our local media, which is pretty much state-controlled and therefore only ever tentatively and diplomatically critical of the government, often reports on the stream of govt officials from Africa, MidEast and elsewhere who come to study the gleaming success story that my country is. We read about Chinese provincial leaders who want to or actually do, like so many other political leaders, replicate our peculiar form of governance in their countries.

All these admiring visitors see a very viable alternative to liberal democracy. In fact, so viable that they actually prefer it to the chaos of unfettered democracy. Singapore is today what it is because we have had leaders who are honest, brilliant, uncorrupt, pragmatic but also unapologetic in their autocracy. Around our neighbourhood we have near basket cases like the Philippines that was once richer than us when we started nation-building in 1965, but now is a major supplier of our many domestic maids and service staff who fill positions that our people no longer deign to work in.

Malaysia, for decades under the similarly strongman leadership of Dr Mahathir Mohammad is starting to unravel since power was handed over to a successor who decided that people wanted a softer, more open and less dictatorial leader.

Taiwan has likewise suffered dreadfully during its flirtation with liberal democracy and the Taiwanese have firmly rejected it.

The list goes on.

I get the impression that the Chinese, who apparently very much admire our founding father Lee Kuan Yew, want the same for their country. They watched with dismay the implosion of the former Soviet Union due to unfettered democracy and decided that, no different from capitalism, an orderly market is much preferable in the long run for stability and therefore the people's welfare. I believe that the Chinese, together with many states in the Arab Gulf, take more to our alternate form of democracy.

It would be interesting to know what the Chinese govt thinks of India's form of chaotic govt, its mirror image. I know that for some business leaders like Jeff Immelt, they actually find China a lot easier to handle than India.

Shalom Freedman  06/27/2008 05:36 AM Report

This was truly a lucid presentation on the world political situation. Mandelbaum argues Political Democracy as we understand it today involves three componenets 1) Popular sovereignty 2) Economic and political liberty 3) A social welfare net which provides citizens with a stake in a democratic government.

He argues that the first priority of the next President is Energy Policy , as the present situation is one which works against Democracy. Vast revenues go to non- democratic nations. Morever the great wealth delays democratization within the socieities themselves. He speaks also about the situation in Iraq and says one great test of the American police relates to the role of Iran in the region's future. Should it emerge as predominant regional power this will be the grave failure of America's democratization effort in Iraq.

As usual Charlie Rose is informed, and brings out the best in his guest.

--- Charlie probably still believes, even after the U.S. killed 3 million Vietnamese, the Vietnam War was   06/25/2008 04:27 AM Report

kidding, right?:

rdolivaw  06/25/2008 03:08 AM Report

Nobody knows whats going to happen in China? Seriously? We taught China well but then appear to have fallen into a comma. Looks awfully like by the time we wake up, China will be a 2 billion-pound (or person) economic gorilla that owns just about as much of the world economy as it wants. You think Japans owns too much of America's debt now? Ha!

The question isn't what kind of democracy the gorilla will live under. It is what kind will he let us live under. The answer is of course, any kind he wants.

skeptic  06/25/2008 02:13 AM Report

Democracy measured by techno-advances, and electronic can-openers, then ours is a success. Measured by humanity and peaceful pursuits our (untaught) history is stained with preemptive wars and land grabs (ask the Mexicans, Spaniards, Vietnamese et al) and now exporting financial chaos with subprime scamming, we are in the process of failing (being unsuccessful). It will take more than a buttoned-down JHU type to jawbone us into ideality. Unfortunately, we've worked hard to get here. Irreversible? Ask the Romans. We're headed to being the largest bannana republic ever. We're 'trapped' into printing money. 1000%/day?

kidding, right?  06/25/2008 01:43 AM Report

Charlie's absolutely naive (or disingenuous?) assertion that Shrub passionately desired democracy in Iraq was too specious. [Yeah, right!\ The same way he wants it in Dafur, N. Korea, et al. That is if they too had oil. And maybe more importantly that his father had made (in W's opinion) miscues before him, so Jr. could 'heroically?' set them aright. Over weaning seems to arrest development. Adults are rare in our system.