Kruse Kronicle

If You Can’t Have Bread, At Least Have a Circus

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by

mwkruse
in , , ,

If You Can't Have Bread, At Least Have a Circus is an article in TCS Daily that shows how many of the problems in the Middle East are economic, not political. The author, Peter Schaefer, basically makes the case that economic opportunity precedes democracy. I have become persuaded of this view over the years. He concludes the article with the following:

After former grade-B actor Josef Estrada was elected president in 1998, the international press was shocked. "Why," they all asked, "would Filipinos elect a crooked, drunken, philandering buffoon as president?" But the honest answer was, "Why not?" If you can't have bread, at least have a circus. The sad truth is that Philippine presidents can do little but entertain, so in 1998 they elected an entertainer. Elections in the Philippines are little more than a chance for poor people to sell their vote for a few bucks.

But when the law protects a person's home and his life, the political equation changes dramatically. Then, those who make and administer the law directly affect the lives of the poorest voters. Elections will actually matter to the people. Only at that point will they tend to select leaders rather than entertainers. Economic opportunity fertilizes the growth of a civil society, which is the only real support for an electoral democracy. Votes alone are bricks along the Yellow Brick Road. Behind the curtain of electoral democracy, we'll find no wizards, only men.

Comments

2 responses to “If You Can’t Have Bread, At Least Have a Circus”

  1. gruntled Avatar
    gruntled

    Is the issue he is talking about poverty, or corruption?

    Reply
  2. Michael Kruse Avatar
    Michael Kruse

    I think ulitmately he is talking about the lack of property rights. When people can’t be certain their property rights will be respected, they tie up there wealth in non-liquid assets like land and buildings. They avoid like the plague converting assets to cash and placing them on deposit or investing them in financial instruments like stocks and bonds. This criples financial markets and economic growth.
    Similarly, some governments require weeks or even months of paperwork and approval just to open a business. There can be cost prohibitive fees. (I can go get a business license this morning and be at by lunch in many cases.) Then the government taxes the legal businesses at high rates. All this creates a black market economy where the government is viewed only as the enemy.
    When people can’t have a reasonable expectation that their rights to their property will be respected two things happen: 1. You kill economic growth and thereby end any chance of the poor advancing out of poverty, and 2. you make government at best an irrelevancy and at worst a hostile enemy. In such a case, democracy just becomes a decision about which boobs or tyrants you want to rule rather than a expression of freedom.
    True democracy often seems to be birthed from reasonably widespread prosperity. As a broad range of people begin to have a financial stake in the future they become less tolerant of corruption and insist on just and stable institutions, democracy being one them.
    I don’t know if that answers your question but that is my take.

    Reply

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