There’s been a lot of wringing of hands lately about how broken the American political system is, and the decline of the objective ideal of the media, and whether democracy even still makes sense anymore. All of which, I think, are important and thought-provoking things for us to be wringing our hands over. Let’s wring those hands for all they’re worth.
But we Americans are bush leaguers. I’m in Argentina right now , where political fatalism is a kind of national pastime. The president continues consolidating power and muzzling or coopting the press, while she coasts to victory after victory on a wave of welfare and patronage. People are so inured to bad behavior in government that their default assumption is that every candidate is corrupt, and in a country where voting is mandatory, this indifference translates into a benefit for the incumbent -- the devil we know over the devil we don’t. Corruption and disrespect for the rule of law raise the cost of transactions, hampering the healthy function of the market and inhibiting a more equitable distribution of the wealth that, despite it all, continues pouring into the country. The popular conception (and here I’m just repeating what I’ve heard a lot of people say) is that the money the government raises from agricultural export taxes goes into welfare programs for poor but able-bodied people, discouraging them from seeking employment and making them into loyal supporters (and, according to some, thugs and goons) of the government. Thus the government continues to win elections without doing anything to substantially improve the lot of its citizens. An Argentine friend of mine averred to me last week his sincere belief that “This country will never change.” Nor is he by any means alone.
But I’m an American, dammit, and an insistence on always seeing a glimmer of hope in everything has been pounded into me from all sides since birth. For one thing, Argentina’s growth has averaged something like 8% over the last decade, as the government will be proud to tell you. (I happen to be of the opinion that this growth has happened largely in spite of, and not because of, many of the government’s policies, and is precariously dependent on China’s voracious demand for Argentine soybeans. But that’s another post.) If nothing else, this is a good sign for those who believe that economic well-being often brings with it cleaner democracy.
I’m probably one of those people, and I’ll tell you why. Because when people are richer, they tend to consume more of everything, including education and news, and a more informed and engaged electorate is bound to make better decisions. A brilliant paper by Claudio Ferraz and Frederico Finan of Berkeley found that in an election coming shortly after a national audit of local government performance in Brazil, towns with a radio station were more likely to vote corrupt politicians out of office. Hooray for media! An even higher-tech (but unproven) idea comes from India, where the New York Times reports that the chief minister of Kerala state installed a webcam in his office, broadcasting to the internet 24/7. Is it going to eradicate corruption? No. Is it a political gimmick? Almost certainly. But in a certain sense it sets the bar a bit higher for everyone else, and more immediately, it reflects the potential for technology to make government more transparent.
I know, I know. We’re also concerned, like I mentioned at the beginning, that we’ve become too saturated in media, that the signal-to-noise ratio has become imperceptibly weak, that the deafening barrage of ideological voices of every timbre allows us each to retreat into our own echo chamber and bark all the more loudly from the comfort of our detachment from reality. I recognize that these are legitimate concerns, and I’m not blind to them. But back to the Indian governor’s camera stunt -- to me it points up the consistent ability of individual human ingenuity to adapt existing resources to new problems. Everyone, not just collectively but individually, wants to live in a country that is governed cleanly, that gives them the opportunity to learn and work and be safe and full. And I think we’re making progress toward that goal, not just in America but in the world, and I think the difficulties associated with all the world’s information being at everyone’s fingertips all the time are outweighed by the opportunities, because we will take that raw material in our hands and make it into something not only useful but beautiful. Maybe this is just because I’m from a country whose pedigree of irrational hopers far outclasses that of its international footballers. I’m convinced the end of the world is still a ways off -- the Argentines still have a long time to polish their political fatalism. But with a little luck and maybe some webcams in high places, that national pastime might just get ever more challenging .
