Enemy? Probably. Ally? No Chance.
Gabriel Rubens is in proposition of the motion, ‘This House Believes the Free Market Is the Enemy of Freedom and Democracy’, arguing that the free market is legitimising and strengthening autocracy as it once did Democracy.
By Gabriel Rubens
In making his case for the Opposition, Eamonn Butler praised the ‘discovery’ of free market economics as humanity’s greatest accomplishment. We were told that this discovery paved the way for liberalised societies with strong middle classes, which would inevitably call for democratisation and civil liberties. In short, the free market is the natural ally of freedom and democracy. Unfortunately, the world has moved past the high watermark of the 1990s. Had the debate been held in 1991, amidst the crumbling Soviet Union, Eastern European states bolting towards Western democracy and the apparent coaxing of China out of its long isolationism and central planning, the claim would have been compelling, if not irrefutable. With the benefit of hindsight, however, the gains of these halcyon days have mostly turned to ashes.
The free market is the best economic system in the world for growth. Neither side truly disputed this, and it is easy to see why. China may not appear to be a free market economy compared to our system. Still, it undoubtedly is when compared to China’s command economy before the reforms of Deng Xiaoping in 1989. As a direct result of these reforms, 800 million Chinese citizens have been lifted out of extreme poverty, and the country’s economy has averaged a dizzying 10 per cent GDP growth per year since. Yet, despite this unprecedented surge in wealth, the government is arguably more authoritarian and socially repressive today than ever since the age of Mao. Presidential term limits, any semblance of personal privacy or tolerance of minority groups such as the Uyghur Muslims are all distant memories under Xi Jinping. A new middle class made possible by a freer market, now consisting of over half the Chinese population, has done little to oppose this tidal wave of totalitarianism.
All of this points to an unfortunate conclusion about the actual effect of free market economics on politics. Rather than free market economics producing an educated populace enlightened to the cause of democracy as ‘the most deeply honourable form of government ever devised by man’, as President Reagan declared, its supposed connection to freedom rests upon a misleading example of survivorship bias. Free markets “supported” democracy in the twenty-first century because democracies generally “discovered” and developed them first. Until the past few decades, the free market was almost inextricably tied to the United States, the “neoliberal” revolution of the 1980s under reformed right-wing leaders such as Margaret Thatcher, President Reagan and Brian Mulroney in Canada. As a result, the free market was, for a time, tossed into a broader package of anti-Soviet rhetoric on the virtues of democracy in the polarised atmosphere of the Cold War. The world, however, is no longer so divided along economic lines as it once was, and non-democracies’ ability to execute economic liberalisation policies is becoming clearer by the day.
The Free Market, therefore, is no natural ally of democracy or freedom, and its adoption by authoritarian nations threatens to transform it into an existential threat. The argument put forward by the proposition that it generally produces an affluent middle class is entirely accurate — but this middle class does not gravitate towards democracy but rather towards the ruling political system, rewarding it for delivering them financial security and wealth. If that ruling political system is totalitarian, it will gain millions of supporters who feel they owe their livelihoods to those in power. New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof warned that ‘one lesson of Asia is that economies can thrive under authoritarianism’, remarking upon the record 78% approval of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Presidential campaign of Bill Clinton in 1992 famously declared that ‘it’s the economy, stupid’, and this mantra is being played out in the staunch support enjoyed by autocratic leaders who manage to deliver prosperity as they roll back their countries’ civil liberties and press freedom.
A population tires of political systems only when they fail to deliver this prosperity, as was seen in the collapse of Russian democracy after a botched privatisation effort and a decade of post-Soviet economic woes. This piece is being written as Turkey votes to elect its next President, and it is widely acknowledged that if incumbent populist president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is to lose, then it will only be due to economic mismanagement and runaway inflation — not his centralisation of power and imprisonment of political opponents such as Selahattin Demirtas. By unleashing a new wave of economic growth in repressive states, the Free Market bolsters and legitimises their style of rule.
It is now dawning on the democratic world that economics is an amoral and malleable beast, unburdened by ideological loyalties. Free Market economics was indeed a historic discovery. But it is time to recognise that the fruits of that discovery are now disproportionately enjoyed by the enemies of freedom and democracy.
Gabriel Rubens is a first year BA in History and Politics student at Clare College, University of Cambridge
The opinions expressed in this piece are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Cambridge Union Society.
On May 11, Cambridge Union Society debated the motion, ‘This House Believes the Free Market Is the Enemy of Freedom and Democracy’. The motion passed with a vote of 43 in favour, 55 abstentions, and 76 in opposition.
