Making the case for democratic, limited government and economic liberty in the Americas
This work is derived from an address given by the author to the InterAmerican Institute for Democracy on December 4, 2024, in Miami, Florida.
In discussing the status of political and economic freedom in Latin America, my thoughts go to the consolidation of power of criminal dictatorships in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, the deterioration of democracies in Honduras, Bolivia, and Peru, and the movement toward a radicalized party dominated state in Mexico. Globally, I reflect on the collaboration of a range of illiberal regimes, including Russia and Iran, fueled by Chinese money and financing vehicles, united only by a common interest in escaping responsibility to the rules based international order.
In the economic arena, I’m moved by the remarkable turnaround of Argentina, based on painful but sound policies, showcasing the message of its president Javier Milei, that it is the individual, secure in liberty and the fruits of their labor—and not the state–that is the key to innovation and the generation of value.
It’s hard to think of a time that democracy in Latin America and the world has been so fervently fought for, yet so much at risk.
It is also hard to recall when economic freedom and individual initiative were so fundamental, yet so undermined by governments on both the right and left, and by the technology trends of our times.
In talking about democracy, human rights, and economic freedom (all terms poorly understood as they are bantered about it), it is vital to recall that their value is both to unite and to limit, recognizing both the value, but also the dangers of people coming together, and the governments, technologies and other creations they produce.
Everywhere in Latin America, people seek to control their own destiny, even while they become more and more disillusioned by “democratic government,” owing to the failures of their rulers (on both the right and the left) to solve their problems of corruption, inequality, and insecurity. The covid-19 pandemic and the inflationary effects of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine both exposed and worsened those deficiencies.
Compounding the problem, the new combination of social media, big data and artificial intelligence have exposed even greater vulnerabilities in the democratic edifice. Social media has facilitated instantaneous global communications to communities united–yet also fragmented–by their interests and biases. Social media allows these fragmented communities to selectively consume and produce material that reinforces their biases and radicalizes them, while decreasing their confidence in “national” media sources. At the same time, big data and artificial intelligence make it easier for malign actors to target these groups with false or distorted content that is hard to distinguish from reality, and ever more difficult for authorities to control. Even the “model” U.S. democracy has struggled under these strains.
If this were not enough, the example of China and its self-serving engagement, coupled with new technologies and the machinations of authoritarian actors further undermine both democracy and economic freedom.
By contrast to the gray Soviet Union of the cold war, PRC economic progress over the past four generations has created the illusion for less developed countries, that authoritarian regimes with a strong state role in the economy can provide a viable path to economic development and order.
Reinforcing this, Chinese digital technologies seem to offer order and efficiency, although by sacrificing individual privacy and freedom. The more those technologies dominate global markets, the more they impose on the rest of us their prioritization of efficiency and order over the protection of the individual.
Beyond China’s “example,” its commercial engagement, that ultimately enriches its own companies, also undercuts democracy by propping up authoritarian regimes as they consolidate power and menace their neighbors.
For their part, authoritarian regimes have improved their toolkits for weaponizing discontent to destabilize democracies, then capturing power for themselves and repressing the resulting dissent.
In responding to this multidimensional threat, western governments are currently acting in self-defeating ways. The Chinese communist party will always be more effective than private sector led democracies in channeling and taking credit for its business, even if the benefits of the western private sector are ultimately bigger and better. Nor can the u.s. “impose” democracy like a religion whose moral value and contribution is presumed to be self-evident–especially when the region perceives that the “democratic governments” it has had, have not served it well…and least of all, when China is offering seemingly tempting alternatives.
In the face of such challenges, it is important now, more than ever, to revive a public discourse in (not just toward) the region, on why, in the era of China, transformative technologies, and illiberal authoritarians chopping away at the rules-based order, that democratic and limited government, the protection of privacy and other basic rights, and economic freedom, are more important than ever. They are important not because a country will “get” something from the United States for adhering to them, but because it is in a country’s own long-term self-interest to protect and nurture them.
That discourse must be honest, acknowledging that democracy may not always be the most efficient and orderly form of big government. Democracy is, however, best at making possible collective endeavor, while at the same time, protecting against the risk of an overreaching state, enabled by modern technologies, imposing its will on its minorities–whether over speech, or religion, or social norms. The more than two million imprisoned Uighur Muslims in Xinjian, the repressed protesters of Hong Kong, and the millions forced to flee Venezuela, are reminders that democratic protections are often most missed when they have been lost.
In the economic arena, ownership and the corresponding ability to reap the fruits of one’s labor and ideas, has always been fundamental to inspiring human ingenuity and effort.
Command economies like the PRC, enabled by new technologies, can harvest and direct such hopes (for a time), with impressive effect. In the end, however, such efforts create self-destructive distortions, and ultimately evaporate, when authoritarian leaders like Xi Jinping forget that it is not their managerial brilliance that produced the results, but rather, human spirit, which withers once cut off from the hope that nurtured it.
In this strategic competition, even the United States has lost its way–waging a self-defeating effort to try and “out-government” communist China, rather than focus on the empowerment of the individual in the political and economic realms, that serves as a bulwark against authoritarianism, while promoting innovation and the creation of economic value in ways that support our partner’s prosperity and limit the more dangerous aspects of engagement with the PRC and other predatory actors.
There are no easy answers, but there are enduring principles, and those include the value of individual freedom and liberty, at the heart of democratic political systems and market-oriented economies. The challenge of the current era, more than ever, is educating a new generation regarding what that system can and cannot do–and inspiring them about why it is worth fighting for.
