Autocracy, Inc. by Anne Applebaum, Ch. 4, Changing the Operating System/Hegemony
From a Google Image Search – What’s so bad about multipolarity? – Al Majalla
When we look at politics in America at this moment, poised as we are to go to the polls to elect a new president, and when we realize that one candidate wants to change America’s operating system while the other candidate will stay within the parameters our founder’s and previous administrations have designed for us, we can’t help looking ahead and imagining what American governance will be like in the future. The world seems to be slowly converting to autocratic governments run by dictators who pay loyalists by turning them into oligarchs to ensure their continued loyalty. These oligarchs steal money from citizens, stashing it away in tax shelters or secret bank accounts allowing kleptocracy to exist together with autocracy. How grim life becomes for people who are not part of these governments depends on the temperament and ideology of the “dear leader.”
Autocracy is not as shocking in a country that has never been a democracy, which perhaps evolved from a monarchy to a communist government and then to a dictatorship. But it is shocking to hear autocratic echoes in America which has always been a democracy since it won the right to be a sovereign nation rather than a colony. (We could take a moment to bemoan our imperialism, but it won’t help us in this instance.)
“Sovereign” is a key term that autocrats like to use, Anne Applebaum tells us in Chapter 4 of her book, Autocracy, Inc. As in, we are a “sovereign” nation. Keep your laws out of our country. Mind your own government. Your human rights are not necessarily our human rights.
In a review of Timothy Snyder’s new book, On Freedom, in the New York Times, the reviewer reminds us that
“On Nov. 9 it will be 35 years since the Berlin Wall fell. The exhilaration of that moment was followed by high hopes for the spread of democracy throughout Eastern Europe, then in Russia itself when the Soviet Union imploded. Gradually hope gave way to frustration, disappointment and then dismay. Russia did not become a liberal democracy, and nor did a number of its former satrapies.”
Sovereignty means keep your mitts off my country, hegemony means my country belongs at the top of the heap because it has the strongest economy, government, and military. If America held the hegemony in the twentieth century, other nations, autocratic nations, are competing for hegemony in the twenty-first century and beyond. We didn’t necessarily need Anne Applebaum to tell us this. As humans, we understand human nature. Competition seems hardwired in humans and all living things. What Anne Applebaum is telling us is that autocrats might be uniting to woo underdeveloped countries with aid and support for their autocratic leaders to create a world-wide-web of autocratic nations for the strength in numbers that might shift hegemony from America and the West to China and/or Russia.
Where once (after WWII) human rights became a goal of the nations that beat the Nazis and did not end up behind the “Iron Curtain” of Stalin’s Russia, all bets are now off. Where once nations declared that “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. It is also acknowledged that ‘disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind.’…everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person. Applebaum continues to remind us of what was said in the shadow of Nazi genocide, “No one should be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile. Torture and slavery should be banned.” (p. 99)
Applebaum speaks of what has been collectively known as “the rules-based order. She goes on to say that how the world ought to work is not how it actually works, that many signatories have violated these rules, but that (for now) they still influence behavior in the real world.”(p. 100)
She warns us that powerful autocracies like China or Russia want to get rid of the language of these old agreements. Xi Jinping said this while addressing the Communist Party in 2017, “China seeks to take an active part in leading reform of the global governance system.” She tells us the remarks of Andrea Worden, a legal scholar and China expert, “For the CCP to attain the moral legitimacy, respect, and recognition it needs for leadership of a new world order, it must remove the threat of Western universal human rights.” (p.101)
She tells us what Putin has to say about sovereignty. “Sovereignty includes the right to abuse citizens at home and to invade others abroad. This privilege is available to only a very few large nations. There are not many countries in the world that have sovereignty.” (p.102)
Another term that is popular with autocrats right now according to Applebaum is the term “multipolarity” because it telegraphs an organization of autocratic states, banded together for greater power, stronger economics, and hegemony. Of course, hegemony is not up for grabs. As in Putin’s view on sovereignty, hegemony belongs to very few nations, or perhaps only one and that would be whatever country wins the hegemony competition, takes hegemony away from the US.
What does this have to do with America? A lot. We have an autocrat running to be our president right now and he has a passionate cult following. You might also want to read this article from today’s New York Times about what liberals may not realize about MAGAs.
If you are paying any attention to politics, then you must have heard that this is an existential election. Donald Trump is not only not a Democrat, but he also doesn’t put much stock in democracy. He likes strong men and sees himself as one of these alpha males. He wants to head America and go steady with other autocrats. He may even think that his presence alone will ensure America’s hegemony among autocratic nations.
Perhaps inciting your followers to violence is something strong leaders do, but Trump doesn’t like to take responsibility for the violence he incites. Other autocrats have no difficulty showing that they don’t just intimidate, they act (although often they still delegate violent actions to others). Donald Trump believes that by changing the rules he can change our minds. He believes his propaganda is more effective than 240 years of living in a democracy. Americans have no experience living in an autocratic state. Even if he wins one, it might be hard to keep it. How will it feel if he actually sends troops out to round up immigrants (both legal and illegal) and spends our tax dollars to deport them or puts them in “camps” which are nothing like sports camps or computer camps but more like the Japanese Internment camps.
China, Applebaum says, wants to change the language, to throw out “political rights” or “human rights” and replace it with squishy language like “win-win cooperation” and “mutual respect.” (pp. 102-3)”
When I read the book To Paradise by Hana Yanagihara (which was not an easy book because of the way it skipped around in place and time while focusing on one family and its descendants) the book offered glimpses of an America under the thumb of the Chinese government (the UK was still a free nation). The America she depicts bears little resemblance to our beloved democracy/republic. Applebaum’s careful discussion and her evidence for a future united autocratic institution (the anti-UN) is a warning that we are in danger of losing our access to whatever human rights we still treasure and that many nations around the world will rejoice if we choose autocracy, if we replace “the rule of law” with “rule by law” (or whatever the leader says).
“A world in which autocracies work together to stay in power, work together to promote their system, and work together to damage democracies is not some distant dystopia. That world is the one we are living in right now,” says Anne Applebaum. (p. 121)
