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The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad | 
 enlarge | Author: Fareed Zakaria
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy Used: $2.50
You Save: $22.45 (90%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  135 reviews
Sales Rank: 158269
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.2 x 1
ISBN: 0393047644
Dewey Decimal Number: 321.8
EAN: 9780393047646
ASIN: 0393047644
Publication Date: April 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Only a few markings and cover jacket is not there otherwise still in very good condition.
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Book Description
Democracy has reshaped politics, economics, and culture around the world. This provocative book asks, can you have too much of a good thing? Today we judge the value of every idea, institution, and individual by one test: is it popular? Or, more practically, do the majority of those polled like it? This transformation has affected not just politics but also business, law, culture, and even religion. Every institution and profession in society must democratize or die. Democracy has gone from being a form of government to a way of life. Like any broad transformation, however, the trends that democracy unleashes are not uniformly benign. Democracy has its dark sides, yet to question it has been to provoke instant criticism that you are "out of sync" with the times. No more. With an easy command of history, philosophy, and current affairs, Zakaria reinterprets our past and outlines our future. Woodrow Wilson said the challenge of the twentieth century was to make the world safe for democracy. This penetrating book challenges us to make democracy safe for the world.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 130 more reviews...
 A must-read for Americans. Zakaria reminds us of a critical insight we've collectively forgotten. July 22, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Here is a critical (but not flawless) book. In it, Fareed Zakaria reminds Americans of an idea that was obvious and fundamental to the founders of our nation, but is now anathema to most: That Democracy and freedom are not one and the same, and that too much Democracy can quickly become the enemy of freedom.
That probably sounds strange to most Americans, which is why Zakaria wrote this book. We've been raised to believe that Democracy is unquestionably good and that more of it is always better. In reality, that's a pretty new attitude. At the time of this country's founding, Democracy was viewed very skeptically. The Founders knew that left unchecked, the majority could be an even worse tyrant than an individual because it would have the illusion of morality on its side. For that reason, our nation's government was set up as Republic, not a Democracy (think of the Pledge of Allegiance). A Republic allows the people to choose from pre-screened applicants for leadership roles and then delegates leadership to them.
Zakaria argues that the gradual breakdown of the protections against the Tyranny of the Majority as we've moved further and further towards democratization has had a vast negative effect. Politicians most focus increasingly on the short-term approval of voters in order to get re-elected and are kept from using their judgment and long-term outlook.
The book is filled with eye-opening insights and makes you aware of problems you may never have considered before. It is one of those books that has the power to change your outlook on major issues. That said, it isn't perfect. Zakaria needs to fully form his ideas just a little more. He obviously is a fan of the free market in most cases, but then says that too much of the free market can act in the same way as too much democratization (he uses the downfall as the Book of the Month Club as an a example of cultural diminution brought about by too much free market.) It's an interesting point, but the reader is left wondering where Zakaria thinks the free market is good, and where he thinks it should be cut back. He needs a clear rule to say, "Use more until "X", then stop." There are a couple cases where Zakaria seems to want to have his cake and eat it too, and that rarely works out.
None of that stops this book from being a very important read for modern Americans. I believe Zakaria is striking at the central issue that will determine whether America can retain (or maybe even reclaim) its current and former glory, or whether it will slip off into history. Zakaria doesn't sound an optimistic note, but at least he's done his part to sound the alarm. I applaud his efforts. Read this book and give it to your friends as well.
This is a must read even though we do not see eye to eye July 19, 2008
21 June 2008 - In this remarkable guide to the major challenges, both foreign and domestic, that face America. Zakaria claims too much democratization and decentralization, two notions that are often hailed as universally good, can be disastrous. This argument is not new, as he readily admits. What is new is the contextualization of these problems to the modern world. Zakaria brilliantly analyzes both foreign and domestic policy through the prism of what he calls "Illiberal Democracy." I read this several years after it was written but the analysis is surprisingly proving correct. I love being a libertarian...we must return to our constitutional roots.
Freedom - Economic First? Or Democracy First? June 19, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is an excellent look at the promotion of democratic and economic reforms abroad. The main question in the book which Zakaria seeks to provide an answer to is whether economic reforms (and market reforms) should come first or democratic and governance reforms should come first over the other.
It is about the sequencing between economic and governance reforms. Which should be liberlized first? Which type of liberlization should the U.S. and international financial institutions promote? Should the U.S. promote economic market reforms in other nations or require nations to first liberalize their governance and institute democracy first. Zakaria argues in favor of economic and market liberalization and states that this has usually come first and then governance liberalization and then the creation of democratic institutions usually follow. He argues this by showing examples.
One of the main theses is that once a nations GDP rises above a certain level, the political institutions usually develop and liberilize into democratic ones with more wide-spread participation by a middle class.
This is an excellent book at the intersection of economics and international trade and the promotion of democratic political institutions. Having said that, I do not like the subtitle of the book - but that is a question of marketing for the publisher. We'll watch nations like Singapore and China to see whether liberalization of their governance follows their economic liberalization and thus confirm or deny his hypothesis.
great analysis but should have been deeper June 5, 2008
Good analysis. But just touched (it was democracy that produced Hitler) and dropped extremely serious issue of social, ethnic, religious, intellectual, knowledge, etc. diversity and its role in democracy functioning. This analysis and ways to make democracy more efficient and more "dictator resistent" must be continued without any political correctness.
Democracy on the Autopsy Table May 26, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
America's most brilliant columnist has struck again, this time with his sharp intellect used as a scalpel at the autopsy table dissecting American, and Western democracy. This book is his tutorial on freedom. It is refreshing and honest in a way we Americans are not use to. And had he plunged his knife in even an inch deeper, he easily could have been accused of "informal treason" (as everyone who criticizes American eventually is accused of).
It is impossible to miss his larger message: that democracy is more than just elections. It is really "elections plus." That is to say, it is elections plus an important package of assorted and related measures he refers to as "constitutional liberalism" -- such as freedom from tyranny, the rule of law, free speech, civil society, freedom of religion, etc. These "illiberal measures" that lay above and beyond democratic process itself, are the actual glue that makes democracies work. They depend completely on the moral strength of the people that devise them and carry them out.
And therein lies the rub, the fly in the ointment of all governments whether they be full fledged oligarchs or the best of Western democracies: Ideals do not automatically come into force by themselves; and governments are not inherently insulated against moral and political corruption, they require morally strong people to see them through. In short, ideals and governments, no matter how well designed, cannot be better than the people designated to carry them out.
The examples that Professor Zakaria chose in a rather backhanded way to make this point, could not have been better chosen: Hitler's democratic election in Germany and America's majority rule racial Apartheid which has lasted for over a century. Both came into being as a result of fair democratic elections by the majority of the respective nation's peoples. So too did Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Mugabe of Zimbabwe, for that matter.
Thus in the first part of the book, Zakaria makes a telling case that neither elections nor even democracies, are panaceas: It is moral legitimacy that is needed no matter what is the government's type. Yet, his prescriptions for fixing our problems seem to have gone off the rails. They ignored this important point at the subtext of his analysis, one of the most important forensic results of the autopsy. In his conclusions he falls back on the "mechanics of process" rather than rest his case on the strength of character of the people involved. The good professor thinks we need a better balance between capitalist regulations (which we now have too much of) and the regulations on our democracy (which he thinks has become entirely too free, as in free-wheeling). Sounding like one who has been recruited by the cult of neo-cons: he thinks the problem with American democracy is that we have gone too far in both cases, and that we now need to pull in our reins. Go figure?
But this solution does not fix the problem mentioned at the subtext of his analysis: the illegitimacy of creeping moral corruption, which sneaks in through the backdoor, and attacks all democracies whether large or small, East or West, like the locusts that descended on Egypt after the Jews fled to Israel.
It is corruption, not process that is the problem. No wonder people from the U.S. to Europe are losing faith in their democracies. Five stars.
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