SUNDAY,MAY 30, 2010
ECONOMICS REVIEW BY STEVEN LEVINGSTON
“
Safe, rich and under an authoritarian thumb
I
n a chest-thumping essay and book published 20 years ago, Francis Fu- kuyama asserted that the end of the Cold War ushered in the everlasting dominance of Western democracy.
History, as Fukuyama famously declared, had ended — the evolutionary struggle be- tween ideologies was over, and market de- mocracy had emerged as “the final form of human government.” Well, it turns out history lives on. Three
convincing new books show that, far from ascending as predicted two decades ago, Western values are under threat in many corners of the world. The books identify a convergence of forces: the influence of China’s authoritarian capitalism, skepti- cism over free markets in the wake of the financial crisis, and the willingness of mil- lions of people to exchange individual rights for a secure middle-class life. The authors — a former White House and State Department staffer under Presi- dents Nixon, Ford and Reagan; a political risk expert; and a journalist — collectively create a portrait sure to chill the hearts of Western optimists. Stefan Halper, the former administra- tion staffer and now a senior fellow at the University of Cambridge, England, sums up the dilemma as “the shrinking of West- ern appeal as a politicoeconomic brand.” In “The Beijing Consensus,” he lays out the crafty tactics China has deployed to push its brand of state capitalism over the West’s messy, market-driven version. For example, China has shown countries from Africa to Asia to South America that ro- bust economic growth can be achieved and sustained under the controlling hand of the state. In place of the aid structure known as the Washington Consensus, which imposes onerous, free-market con- ditions on emerging countries in ex- change for assistance, a Chinese alterna- tive has emerged that provides generous debt relief, infrastructure investment and
other assistance with fewer demands. The Beijing Consensus, as Halper calls it, di- minishes the monetary and ideological suasion of the West that has long guided international development. “Twenty years ago . . . globalization was driven by American capitalism and its two founding ideas — that markets, not gov- ernments, drive progress, and that de- mocracy is the optimal way to organize so- ciety,” Halper explains in his tightly writ- ten argument. “Today, in the world beyond the West, these certainties are eroding.” In “The End of the Free Market,” Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group, a research and consulting firm specializing in political risk, presents a solid primer on the emergence of state capitalism, its op- eration in countries such as Algeria, Ukraine and India, and “how it threatens free markets and the future of the global economy.” The Western model is an ever tougher sell to these countries, thanks to that ugly poster child of free markets: the global financial crisis. But China, Russia and the nations of the Persian Gulf are not averse to exploiting markets to their ad- vantage. Bremmer shows how they have built massive state-run companies that now control three-quarters of the world’s crude-oil reserves and intervene in a range of industries from aviation to tele- communications. Their success has spawned national wannabes among re- gimes — particularly in Africa — attracted by the prospect of strong growth and lim- ited democracy. Bremmer points out that the goal of state-run capitalism differs markedly from that of its free-market cousin: “The ultimate motive is not eco- nomic (maximizing growth) but political (maximizing the state’s power and the leadership’s chances of survival).” But when markets are exploited for po- litical gain, Bremmer adds, inefficiencies result, causing price distortions and im-
THE BEIJING CONSENSUS How China’s
Authoritarian Model Will Dominate the
Twenty-First Century
By Stefan Halper Basic.
296 pp. $28.95
THE END OF THE FREE MARKET Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations?
By Ian Bremmer Portfolio.
230 pp. $26.95
balances in the global economy. What’s more, state-ordained commercial rela- tionships freeze out free-market competi- tors such as U.S. multinationals. Bremmer cites an energy partnership between Iran and Venezuela that “is more about politi- cal stagecraft than commercial coopera- tion.” If these kinds of business ties accu- mulate, he writes, they “will have impor- tant consequences for America’s global political influence and the longer-term health of the U.S. economy.” But state capitalism has its vulnerabil- ities. Despite his book’s dire title — “The End of the Free Market” — Bremmer is confident that over the long term an au- thoritarian model will prove a poor rival to Western capitalism. Governments that make themselves responsible for eco- nomic performance also will have to shoulder the blame when prosperity fal- ters. China, for instance, must continue to push its economic engine at high speed to
FREEDOM FOR SALE
Why the World
Is Trading Democracy for Security
By John Kampfner Basic.
294 pp. $27.95
satisfy consumers’ accelerating demands. Beijing acknowledges it is under pressure to deliver 10 million to 12 million new jobs every year to maintain current employ- ment rates. Too many Chinese out of work, Bremmer says, and the threat of social un- rest escalates. “In the end,” he adds, “it’s much more likely that the Chinese leader- ship will have to reconsider core assump- tions about government’s role in an econ- omy than that the leaders in the United States will retreat fundamentally from free-market principles.” To John Kampfner, the differences be-
tween the two economic approaches hard- ly seem the point anymore. Both systems are dedicated to creating wealth — and over the past 20 years have done so with remarkable success. The result, Kampfner writes in “Freedom for Sale,” is a “narrow- ing of the gap between democracies and autocracies.” What has emerged, he con- tends, is populations dedicated to amass-
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I told her I love that she’s a little naughty. She said thank you.”
— Tim Domick, the library director at Rockland Community College in suburban New York, offering encouragement to the scandal-plagued Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, at a book signing
ing wealth and material comforts, even at the expense of their individual liberties. In Kampfner’s telling, consumers now pur- sue the same goals no matter whether they live under authoritarian regimes in Singa- pore, China, Russia or the United Arab Emirates, or in democratic societies of the United States, United Kingdom or Italy. In all cases, he argues, these consumer societ- ies have produced docile, disengaged citi- zens who have formed a pact with their governments: The people will overlook an infringement of liberties so long as they are permitted the freedom to pursue a life- style of designer clothes, sports cars and holiday travel. The loss of liberties is obvi- ous in the authoritarian countries. But Kampfner, the former editor of the New Statesman, also identifies subtle encroach- ments in Britain, for example, where au- thorities spy on citizens using a fifth of the world’s closed-circuit television cameras, and in Italy, where Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has systematically eroded the independence of the Parliament, media and courts, and in the United States, where the war on terror brought covert surveillance of citizens, expanded the gov- ernment’s powers of detention of nonciti- zens and gave the Treasury increased pow- er to investigate bank dealings. The assumption among free-market pro- ponents over the past 20 years has been that the globalization of wealth would in- spire a growing middle class to lead a march toward ubiquitous democracy. Kampfner takes the reader around the world with him on an engaging first- person journey packed with interviews of locals and finds such optimism sorely mis- placed. “It sounds good in theory,” he writes, “but it has not worked out that way.”
levingstons@washpost.com
Steven Levingston is the nonfiction editor of Book World.
MEMOIR
JENNIEMAE & JAMES A Memoir in Black & White
By Brooke Newman Harmony. 306 pp. $24
Picture this: A midnight-
blue Rolls Royce drives down Connecticut Avenue with a middle-aged white man at the wheel and a 300-pound black woman in the passenger seat. The car would cause heads to turn today, but in 1950s Washington, the racial makeup of its occu- pants really had tongues wagging. “Jenniemae & James” is a biography of this unlikely pair. Jenniemae Harrington was a “very
religious, dirt poor, and illiterate” maid who also served as “adviser and moral compass” to the Newman family. James Newman was a wealthy and brilliant mathematician and policymaker who helped coin the term “googol” for a very large number (the word is the source of the brand
JERRY MOSEY/ASSOCIATED PRESS
RELIGION
HEALTH REVIEW BY ASHLEY SAYEAU
One pill makes women stronger
AMERICA AND THE PILL A History of Promise, Peril, and Liberation
By Elaine Tyler May Basic. 214 pp. $25.95
“I
would be perfectly happy if not for the same old thing — too many ba- bies too close together,” wrote a young mother to birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger in a letter Sanger included in her 1928 book “Motherhood in Bondage.” Like many women seeking Sanger’s advice about contraception, this mother was prob- ably poor, uneducated and, by her own ad- mission, desperate. One pictures her at her kitchen table, pen in hand, a child in each arm and on a knee. “My third baby was born a week after the first one’s third birth- day,” she went on. “Just three babies in three years and I am only twenty-two years old.... I am also so nervous sometimes I don’t know what to do.” Sanger is one of the heroes of “America and the Pill,” a new cultural history of the birth control pill written by Elaine Tyler May, a professor of American studies and history at the University of Minnesota. Throughout her long career as a nurse and activist, Sanger was a tireless advocate for an oral contraceptive, calling as early as 1912 for a “magic pill.” By the time this dream was realized in 1960, six years be- fore Sanger’s death, other contraceptives were widely available, but the pill stood out for three main reasons: First, it was the only form of contraception that was
not directly linked to the act of sex (that is, no coitus interruptus necessary). Second, it was nearly 100 percent effective. Third, and most important for Sanger, women controlled it. Unlike with condoms or the rhythm method, men’s cooperation didn’t matter at all. They didn’t even have to know.
Despite these benefits, from its in- ception the pill was shrouded in contro- versy and in some senses doomed to fail. May argues succinctly — at just over 200 pages, the book is as compact and power- ful as the pill itself — that expectations for it were too high. “When the oral con- traceptive arrived on the market, its champions claimed that the tiny pill promised to end human misery and erad- icate the causes of war by controlling population.” This ambition led to the messy business of separating humanitar- ians who were truly concerned about world poverty from politicians and cor- porations (and, shamefully, Sanger her- self to an extent) who wanted to use eu- genics to weed out “undesirables.” Small- er, wealthier families were considered a plus for the Cold War fight against com- munism as they bolstered capitalism by buying more consumer goods. The pill was further promoted as a key ingredient to happy, nuclear families, and women were expected to use it despite many con- cerns about negative side effects. May devotes many pages to delineating the moral and physical risks posed by the pill, and rightfully so. But there are lots of reasons to celebrate the pill, and she is at
her best when allowing herself to do that. She gives a wonderful account of Sanger’s advocacy and of Katharine McCormick, a women’s rights activist who bankrolled the pill’s development. Likewise, she skillfully shows how women fought for access to the pill, as well as for a safer pill, against some pretty big contenders, pharmaceutical companies and the Catholic Church among them. May stops short of arguing that the pill
triggered the women’s movement of the 1960s and ’70s, but she does rightly claim that it was a very useful tool for women’s rights advocates, who saw the ability to control one’s fertility as essential to secur- ing educational and economic opportuni- ties. The pill may not have cured world poverty or unhappy marriages, but it’s safe to say that — on the 50th anniversary of its approval by the FDA — it has been a great boon to women. The ability to organize key events in their lives is now a right most women hold dear — 82 percent of Amer- ican women have used the pill, making it the nation’s most popular form of birth control. As May shows, they frequently do this despite opposition from familial, po- litical and religious sources, suggesting that authority over their own bodies is something women from all backgrounds can agree on.
bookworld@washpost.com
Ashley Sayeau writes regularly on women, politics and culture for the Guardian and other publications.
SCIENCE VS. RELIGION What Scientists Really Think
By Elaine Howard Ecklund Oxford Univ. 228 pp. $27.95
Americans are almost evenly divid- ed between those who feel science conflicts with religion and those who don’t. Both sides have scientific back- ers. Biologist Richard Dawkins rallies atheists by arguing that science ren- ders religious faith unnecessary and ir- rational. Geneticist Francis S. Collins (before becoming NIH di- rector) organized evangeli- cal scientists to offer a vi- sion of science and faith reinforcing each other. Rice University sociolo-
gist Elaine Ecklund offers a fresh perspective on this debate in “Science vs. Reli- gion.” Rather than offering another polemic, she builds on a detailed survey of almost 1,700 scientists at elite American research universities — the most comprehensive such study to date. These surveys and 275 lengthy follow- up interviews reveal that scientists of- ten practice a closeted faith. They wor- ry how their peers would react to learning about their religious views. Fully half of these top scientists are
religious. Only five of the 275 inter- viewees actively oppose religion. Even among the third who are atheists, many consider themselves “spiritual.” One describes this spiritual atheism as being rooted in “wonder about the complexity and the majesty of exis- tence,” a sentiment many nonscien- tists — religious or not — would recog- nize. By not engaging with religion
more fully and publicly, “the academy is really doing itself a big disservice,” worries one scientist. As shown by conflicts over everything from evolu- tion to stem cells to climate policy, breakdowns in communication be- tween scientists and religious commu- nities cause real problems, especially for scientists trying to educate increas- ingly religious college students. Religious groups — creationist movements in particular — are not without blame here. Creationist at- tacks on evolution “have polarized the public opinion such that you’re either religious or you’re a scientist!” a de- vout physicist complains. Indeed, the National Sci- ence Board recently spiked a report on Ameri- can knowledge about evo- lution, claiming that it was too difficult to tell the dif- ference between religious objections to evolution and questions raised about the state of the science. Only through a genuine
dialogue between scientists and the broader public can these divisions be bridged. To her credit, Ecklund avoids editorializing even while encouraging such dialogue. She gives voice to scien- tists, relaying and synthesizing their ex- perience. Though “Science vs. Religion” is aimed at scientists, her myth-busting and her thoughtful advice can also ben- efit laypeople. For Ecklund, the bottom line is recognizing and tolerating reli- gious diversity, honestly discussing sci- ence’s scope and limits, and openly ex- ploring the disputed borders between scientific skepticism and religious faith.
—Josh Rosenau
bookworld@washpost.com
name “Google”) and regularly visited Albert Einstein at home. Newman was also an adulterer many times over and prone to severe bouts of de- pression. Author Brooke Newman tells how her father and Jenniemae came to rely on one an- other, becoming close enough friends to take lux- ury joy rides together. “Jenniemae & James” is at its finest when it sticks to this relationship. Too of- ten, though, it brings in the political and social events of the era, falling flat and detracting from the com- pelling domestic story, where conflicts arising from race, class, divorce
and substance abuse play out. “From the outside, our house looked tidy and inviting,” Newman writes, “but that did not accurately reflect what was transpiring on the inside.” The goings-on behind the drawn curtains are the ones that give this story its emotional wallop.
— Stephen Lowman
lowmans@washpost.com
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