Sports How We Learned To Start Worrying and Hate Authoritarianism
posted by on August 8 at 14:07 PM
The opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics reminded me most strongly of Blade Runner. Not in a good way.
The filthy air made every light cast a shadow. It was difficult to make out the spectators on the far side of the stadium.
So began the first modern Olympics in an authoritarian state, since the 1936 Olympics in Berlin (depending upon how you wish to count Moscow in 1980, or Sarajevo in 1984.)
The United States—and our form of self-governing, divided power capitalism—is in decline. The Chinese new combination of authoritarian capitalism is on the ascent. Our time on top is dwindling. The Chinese, and despotic forms of government, will succeed us. So goes the dominant thought in our culture, one that should be thoroughly enforced by GE over the next few weeks of Olympics coverage. Authoritarian capitalism: it’s the future!
Bullshit.
Left or right, liberal or conservative—everyone cannot eat up enough of the notion that repressive, undemocratic, imperious governments are more successful than our, now quaint, notion of a government of the people, by the people in which the law is king and all is overseen by a vigorous judicial system.
On the right, you have the Unitary Executive neo-con movement—epitomized by “I’m my own branch of government, beyond reach” Dick Cheney. Extra-judicial detentions, torture, denial of oversight and a private security force above the law—all the trappings of an authoritarian state. Most of the discussion of these horrors assumes a trade-off: Yes, it’s all horribly corrosive to underlying principles of the Constitution. But, such tools just work better than things like Habeus Corpus, warrants, proper trials, Judicial oversight and civilian police operating under strict rules and supervision.
Truth is, all of these special powers have netted us no benefit. None. Nada. Zip. The new authoritarian system has performed far more poorly than the old civilian judicial system. Compare the results of the recent trial of Bin Laden’s driver—detained, tortured, tried and convicted under the despotic system—to the results of the trial of the shoe bomber—under constitutional civilian law, courts and oversight. The system of checks and balances, of laws and rules, of openness and transparency simply works better. It’s not a matter of style, but results. We are less safe when abandoning the principles laid down by the founding fathers.
The left’s insidious embrace of authoritarianism might be more terrifying.
Take Michael Pollen’s loving, vigorously anti-science, embrace of serfdom at the end of the Omnivore’s Dilemma that underlies his shallow, and ultimately hollow, stance against empiric discovery of nutrition and agricultural science. (I dislike Pollen’s analysis, but in retrospect think I’m being unfair here. So, away it goes!)
Even more telling is Jared Diamond’s description of China in Collapse. After 19 pages of detailed accounting of the environmental horrors of present-day China, he ends on a strange hopeful note. Yes, China’s rapid development over the past two decades has ridden on an unsustainable wave of environmental degradation. But, with one wave of the authoritarian magic wand, the government of China could reverse this trend—like they did with the One Child Policy. This logic was already weakened by Diamond’s own accounting. Yes, population growth had been dramatically slowed—but not household growth, nor growth in resource consumption or pollution.
In the months and weeks leading up to the Olympics, the Chinese government has done exactly what Diamond wanted. The wand has been waving, ever more vigorously as today approached—ordering drivers off the road, factories closed, pollution to halt, the rain to fall. The full peremptory force was activated and the skies over Beijing (just one city, for only a couple of weeks) could not be cleared.
(The pollution of Beijing, as viewed from a satellite.)
With all the bitching on the left and right about the EPA, and all the wrangling and compromising that goes into crafting environmental regulations under a democratic government, the United States has done a vastly better job of containing pollution than China (or any other authoritarian state.) Period. There is no magic wand, no way of forcing a desired outcome—only hard fought compromise by all.
On the left, it’s assumed that the past decade has gone so poorly not because of the ever larger levers of power handed to the president, but the man wielding them. While watching these Olympics enfold, I suggest you consider the levers of power themselves are the problem, that no man or woman can be a success, for us all, with such power.
Um.
I don't think you know what Authoritarianism means.
Let's just use the correct descriptions: syndoanarchalist cryptofascists.
Thanks.
Oh, and it's not a Monarchy in Saudi Arabia, since that would require the Saudi King to have been the tribal leader of all the tribes in that country, which never happened.
Enjoy your toys.
China's growth is unsustainable -- they're about to run into a population crash because of its gender imbalance at the same time its having to deal with its aging population.
Well said.
(Golob, that is. I have no idea what the hell WiS is on about, but then that's not unusual.)
Your "on the left" seems especially tenuous. Why are Pollen and Diamond supposed to be representative of the left? More substantively, even if Pollen is as anti-science as you submit, what's the clear connection with authoritarianism there?
can we put the "dr strangelove" reference in the "done to death" bin now?
So began the first modern Olympics in an authoritarian state, since the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
Uh, Moscow 1980? Sarajevo 1984?
Other than that, a characteristically brilliant post, Jonathan.
I am curious to read The Wrecking Crew. It suggests that conservatives seek to simultaneously wrestle control from outsiders and the people while using their increasing power to help dismantle the government. On the surface it does seem believable.
Good post...but ummmm, wouldn't the 1980 Moscow Olympics also have qualified as modern and in an authoritarian state?
It's starting already, but in about 20 years China is going to have truly unimaginable problems with their gender imbalance. That's what happens when you abort most of the girls.
oops...Martin slipped in
I'm critical of Pollan too, but I don't think it's quite fair to lump him in with fascists based on his criticism of nutritional science. That's the kind of hyperbole that right-wingers are all too quick to throw around.
Ooooooh, Charles is going to dislike your post bashing his precious communism.
Jonathan, I don't wanna slam your entire premise, 'cause the last paragraph is fairly redeeming but:
a) it's one thing to admire the ideals of "notion of a government of the people, by the people in which the law is king and all is overseen by a vigorous judicial system" but it is pollyanna thinking, at best, if you really believe thats been implemented consistantly or fairly over the last 235 years in the U.S.
b) Seems like you really misread both the Omnivores Dilemma and Collapse, if what you took away was some sort of worship or apology for Authoritairnism, both books had their flaws but thats not really one of 'em.
c) Wasn't the 1980 Summer Olympics held in Moscow, but that doesn't count 'cause the freedom and rule of law loving Americans weren't at them, right?
Re-reading this, I kinda agree with several of you. I probably shouldn't of lumped Pollen in so directly in this post, or at least explained my reasons better. I really dislike his romantic notions of pre-industrial revolution rural life.
And I don't wish to characterize Pollen or Diamond as fascists--just that both implicitly buy into the notion that there is a trade-off between liberty and efficacy.
On Moscow in 1980: with the boycott, I wasn't sure if that counted as a real Olympics.
"On the left, it’s assumed that the past decade has gone so poorly not because of the ever larger levers of power handed to the president, but the man wielding them. While watching these Olympics enfold, I suggest you consider the levers of power themselves are the problem, that no man or woman can be a success, for us all, with such power."
-Amen Brother!
Golob, Diamond does illustrate in collapse that the trade off between liberty and efficacy of environmental protection is totally dependent on what the people denying the liberty do with the efficacy they gain. In some cases it is who is in control rather than control being given such as the difference medieval japan or the dominican republic vs. easter island.
But this is one of the central concepts to micro econ and libertarianism; it's not that government is inherently bad, it is that there often times that government are making choices that arent optimal to the individual or group of individuals or that can't take into account the net effect on the individual or has the information that the entire market of individuals has. Or that the preference of values a central decision maker don't reflect the greater values of the decisions they are making for other people.
Also--the IOC awarded the 1988 games to South Korea when it was very much an authoritarian state.
The regime was booted out a year before the games started, so while the games weren't held in an authoritarian state, they certainly were sponsored by one.
Bellevue Ave:
Be careful by what I mean by Liberty here.
Take the Critical Areas Ordinances. Some people in King County might believe their liberty is being infringed upon by these laws restricting use of their land. But, these are laws enacted, enforced and written in a (more or less) functional democracy, with the consent of the majority of the residents in King County. I'd say this is an example of big-L Liberty being properly used to enact environment-saving restrictions on some people's little-L liberty.
In contrast, the anti-pollution measures taken by the Beijing government were decided and enforced by pure fiat. I'd argue, because the majority wasn't consented--because big-L Liberty was ignored--they failed.
But we all *can* agree that this year's opening ceremonies will probably be better than Atlanta's with the cheerleaders and pick-up trucks, right? Those Pinko Commie societies sure know how to throw a well-orchestrated and perfectly synchronized party!
I take exception to the comparison between the Chinese environmental problems to the US's. Sure it's terrible in China. But these economies are vastly different: we've dumped all the industrial dirty work to China, while keeping jobs like Starbucks or banks which pollutes very little.
It's a bargain with the devil that China seems to have made in order to get the economic benefits to modernize its economy. Remember only 30 years ago a billion Chinese were consistently under nourished, and it's probably not hard to fall into the trap that degrading the environment is not such a terrible thing compared to mass starvation.
Regarding the Jared Diamond magic wand idea: remember that in the short term, a "benign dictator" could theoretically do better than a democracy since it can dictate the "right" action and enforce it without opposition. Our democratic system, however, will always outperform dictatorships in the long term, since chances are dictators gets corrupted by power, or hand power off to his far less benign and maladjusted descendants.
The current sentiment that "we are losing" is just a temporary illusion. I see no need to feel defeatist about our political system.
You're misunderstanding a few things about China, Jonathan. First, while authoritarian, China isn't really totalitarian anymore, as a huge amount of power has been devolved to local governments. Communist Party, to be sure, but not necessarily controlled from Beijing, as long as they follow the basic principle, which is GROWTH.
The failure of a few half-hearted anti-pollution measures tells us nothing about the failure of authoritarianism. It tells us that the Chinese juggernaut is no longer controllable from the center. Beijing is a basin, like LA, and suffers summer inversions like LA. The reason it's worse than LA now is not because the EPA is so effective but because the worst of LA's pollution occurred in the past. And the thousands of Chinese cement plants -- something like 75% of the world's total -- are cranking away at full power and beyond regardless of what Beijing says.
Compare China today not with America today but with America 100 to 50 years ago and you'll get a better picture. You're seeing an expansion in development unprecedented in speed and scope but not in concept.
I don't think it has anything to do with the innate superiority of a government that has an EPA. It has to do with the innate superiority of a government that simply got there first.
Pollan was frustrating because he's right for the wrong reasons (as opposed to many liberals who are often wrong for the right reasons). We really should rethink what we eat and how it gets to our table. But his anti-scientific, "if it's natural it must be good", conservative-in-the-old-school-sense attitude about it all is really aggravating.
Also, you're insanely wrong about Pollan, unless you believe that ecology (not environmentalism) is anti-science. Nutritionists (in the FDA-pyramid sense) are not scientists, and even scientists agree that there are holistic aspects to food value (vitamins in food are better than vitamins in pills, for instance). And many of Pollan's arguments about food production are are much more science-based than the Department of Agriculture, which is primarily a marketing board.
Add Mexico 1968 to your list of authoritarian Olympics. The massacre in Tlatelolco* and the takeover of the national university in Mexico City were part of the "clean-up" during the month before the Olympics. Mexico had(still has) one party rule, press censorship, imprisonment and execution of opposition, massive corruption, crony business monopolies etc just like China.
South Korea was an authoritarian state in 1988 as well. Italy in 1956 and 1960 barely had what we would recognize as a government at all. Finland in 1952 was in the outskirts of the Soviet orbit. Japan in 1972 was a one-party authoritarian state. Yugoslavia has already been mentioned.
Golob, I usually think your pieces are dead-on. But the pollution issue is pure sensationalism. I probably breathed in as much pollution on I-5 today as the average track athlete will during a race in Beijing. IIRC, we had a smog warning just last Tuesday, right here in Mayor "Kyoto Treaty" Nickels' backyard.
I don't think Diamond was praising dictatorship as a preferred form of government. In the chapter before the one on China, he talked about General Balaguer of the Dominican Republic, who instituted many environmental reforms by force. I look at this not as an endorsement of dictators, but of strong, effective governments. The U.S. could (and has) instituted many of the same reforms by popular vote and representative government. China, as Fnarf noted, no longer has a strong government. Is that because of the rise of the evil capitalist bourgeousie? Possibly. China is in a weird transitional state.
Kebabs, if you think our smog, even on I-5 in the middle of rush hour, is even remotely comparable to the funk that lies over industrialized China, you're completely mad. Not even in the bad old pre-EPA days, when there was a thick brown layer hanging over the area for weeks at a time, was like it. London's famous killer fogs might be comparable, but I'd still bet on China.
Sadly, Fnarf's right.
On a good day, LA in the old bad days was still cleaner than what Beijing is now.
Although London used to be able to give it a run for the money back in Victorian times.
London's killer fogs long predated Victoria and industrialism, and the last was long after, in 1952. Many thousands died in a couple of days. Even at that late date, almost everybody in Britain heated their homes with soft bitumin coal.
I didn't say it didn't predate it, but it wasn't popularized in fictional (and subsequent references in print, TV, etc) before Victorian times.
Heck, we could start arguing over the killer fogs in Paris at the time if you want, or why the Marais are known for their pestilence, but the reality is that Beijing today is far far far worse than LA ever was in the 70s.
Now, go out and enjoy our much milder smog here.
Weva. The fight for resources is on, and China will probably win.
The "Marais are"? Your French IS remarkable, like you're always saying, Will. Let me guess the answer: I'll start with the NAME.
Authoritarian capitalism is the future that I felt while watching the opening ceremony (live, without sound, in a nosy pub on the coast of Midwestern Australia). I do not think that it will do a BETTER job than a more civically representative model, but it is STRONG and it is here. Now the questions is: how will the cultural changes blossoming inside of China reshape it into something beautiful, and how long will that take? How can I help?
If the Los Angeles City Council of 1984 was anything like the Council they have today, the 1984 Olympics also count as being hosted by an authoritarian state.
OH, yeah, sure, because banning fast food in a small area is totally the equivalent of apartheid in South Africa. Right. And you wonder why people laugh at libertarians.
I don't know if anyone said this yet, but it didn't look like it: The fucking "smog" you see there is firework smoke, it's not the haze of China. If you watched the whole opening ceremonies you would know that. There was ha-HUGE fireworks show at the very beginning and then like 10 minutes in, and you could see the smoke settle on the stadium.
Otherwise, I like your thoughts. You probably don't care, however, for this factual information I've provided.
Note to Jonathan Golom: it's Michael Pollan, not Pollen (although either may make you sneeze).
Our system of government is presently being held hostage by corporations (& the moneybags which guide them), thanks to a perverse conflation by a sick-fuck Supreme Court that wants to equate "money" with "speech"-- which is like conflating the bullhorn with the words that pass through it. And, the present administration is running this country just as the corporate behemoths are run: by executive fiat... and bullying. How different is that from fascism? ^..^
Afraid a little of the end of American hegemony?
Call me insensitive to the plight of modern humanity and future generations, but I thought it was a good show. I guess I'm a sucker for choreography. And fireworks. But that's just me me.
Comments Closed
Comments are closed on this post.