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It’s finally becoming clear that we don’t think like the current administration

June 2nd, 2004 · No Comments

Here are some late night musings in-progress. Two of points of view on
democratic development in edge states like Sudan, Iraq, and Afghanistan:

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Component of nation building	Current de facto US approach	Alternative point of view
Bombing, shock and awe	Plows the ground for later establishment of democracy by destroying the enemy and the enemy’s institutions, and showing the people the power of the United States to help and protect them	Spreads trauma, fear, hatred and desire for revenge. Psychological and social damage makes subsequent democracy, social and economic development difficult
Democracy	Focuses on identification of a few elite leaders with appropriate values and credentials, and on limited voting	Requires a web of capabilities, including a free press, open education, free speech and assembly, and a variety of democratic institutions constituting a vibrant civil society and producing effective democratic leaders
Economic development	Systems integrators help get the major utilities and industries operating. Best if these systems include substantial oil production	Promotes a robust innovation-oriented entrepreneurial business sector, with most business formation in small and medium-sized businesses developing middle-class workers and owners
Information and communication technology	Supports big business, and is itself big business	Provides low cost access for individuals in order to promote open communication, education, and thus democracy. Supports small and medium-sized businesses in order to promote efficiency and innovation; is mostly an ecosystem of small and medium sized businesses, layered on top of affordable communications and computing
Law for economic development	Provides congenial operating environment for large businesses and protection for large domestic and foreign investors	Provides a framework for giving the poor property rights and access to the formal economy; provides for worker health and safety and fair wages and rights to bargain collectively; provides a fair level playing field and effective dispute resolution for entrepreneurs; establishes workable competition law in order to protect middle class businesses from monopoly practices of large established companies and interests
Law for social development	Controls aberrant behavior	Protects the democratic rights of individuals so that they can pursue their lives with a minimum of government and/or authoritarian interference, and can participate in democratic institutions without fear of reprisals

In my own experience in Africa, these two approaches are often at
odds. Support for large businesses and large-scale investors
tends to raise prices and make services too expensive for most of the
population. Thus the broad public of the nation does not
benefit. By contrast, maximum development of small and
medium-sized entreprenerial businesses requires that infrastructure
services such as telecommucations and energy become low-cost, highly
accessible public goods–which in turn gores the ox of the largest
companies and investors.

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