1 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Simplistic -, August 4, 2010
Author Kampfner is an obvious human-rights advocate, extreme and simplistic to the point of being annoying. I suspect he'd rather have total freedom (anarchy) than reasonable prosperity - if so, let him move to Afghanistan, Iraq, Kurdistan, or Pakistan.
To start with, his basic presumption is tenuous - that people are giving up freedom in return for prosperity. 'Victims' include citizens of Singapore, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and even the U.S. post 9/11. A simpler explanation is that democracy is too complex for today - issues and proposals require deep, often cross-functional education, and plenty of analysis time. Who can adequately consider 2,000+ page bills on health-care or financial reform while also working full-time and raising a family? Bundling anything into 2,000+ pages is nonsense from the get-go. Regardless, who could devote the time and talent to do so even without job and family responsibilities? Does the idea of universal-suffrage even make sense in a nation with 20%+ functional illiteracy, or the fact that 80% of families didn't even read a single book last year?
If that doesn't dissuade you, there's the dominating role of money in politics, the plethora of half-truths promulgated by both sides, and the failure of the press to scratch below the surface - eg. the rush to invade Iraq. It just adds to the work expected in a participatory democracy.
Just what is his point? He admits that Chinese people in 2008 were the world's most satisfied, out of the 24 surveyed, when asked about the country's direction and economy. (U.S. was 20th, at 23% satisfaction with the nation's direction and the economy (20%).) Doesn't that equate to a rousing 'democratic' endorsement of non-democratic government? Should we be proud that Saddam Hussein is gone, the strongman that kept ethnic divisions under wraps - replaced by 100,000 local deaths and climbing, loss of basic services such as electricity, garbage pickup, and clean water, 4,000+ American deaths, and the squandering of $3+ trillion? Is he even aware that almost all the nations making the greatest economic advances in recent decades - China, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea, were under stable authoritarian leadership at the time?
Maslow's 1943 'Hierarchy of Needs' should have cleared this up long ago for Kampfner - physiological (stability, food), security (health, financial, personal) and belongingness (family, friends), and esteem (respect, competence) need to be satisfied before self-actualization (realizing full potential) becomes an issue. It took about 5 minutes in a Vietnamese jungle clearing watching the locals for me to realize their focus was getting food on the table and living another day, period. Us military 'temps' at that time also quickly realized that a major reason 'lifers' gave up much of their freedom to be in the military was to obtain the financial, health, and retirement security it offered. (Nothing wrong with that, either; it's probably the same today.) And what are we to make of American women who adopt Islam, with all its restrictions, as their religion?
China's expecting 9%+ economic growth this year - the rate they've achieved for 30+ years. This is no accident, but the result of many intelligent decisions and hard work. We're limping along at 2.4% or so, and have been for many years - the result of making many poor decisions and avoiding making many others, while taking it easy. Like LeBron James (I realize this an extreme stretch), I much prefer being on a winning team - even if the coach doesn't give a damn what I think and I'm left on the bench! (That's the way it is here now, for far too many Americans.)
On the other hand, it was interesting to read Kampfner's account of how Singapore's authoritarian leadership put a stop to racial violence.
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6 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Too much information, too few insights, January 31, 2010
This review is from: Freedom for Sale: Why the World Is Trading Democracy for Security (Hardcover)
This book talks about Freedom without defining what it means. Freedom is one of those concepts that depend on a historical context. He seems to assume that the concept of Freedom conceived in 17th Century, in the parts of world that were becoming the modern world, are the definition for all time. This is obviously not the case. In most parts of the world at the present time, freedom is not even a useful idea - and only muddles our thinking. And this book is proof of that. It is a long recital of the failures to achieve freedom in almost any part of the world.
I prefer two different approaches to these kinds of problems: (1) an analysis of the kinds of power in a society, and who has them (which is much easier to see), and (2) a complex systems approach, where everything affects everything else - within limits - and all kinds of things can happen - sometimes suddenly. His approach is too linear for my taste.
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