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Remembering Tony Judt on Democracy Now!
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By: Kevin Man

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Remembering Tony Judt on Democracy Now! - Video

By William C. Hubbard

Published: November 10, 2014

When the Berlin Wall fell on Nov. 9, 1989 25 years ago liberal democracy appeared triumphant over authoritarianism, and the West poured resources into Eastern Europe to speed what seemed an inevitable process toward democratization and the development of market economies.

The road to reform was difficult, with such major obstacles along the way as the Balkan conflicts. For the most part, though, progress remained the pervasive narrative, marked not only by successive states joining NATO, the Council of Europe and the European Union, but also by the promising color revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. Democracy also started to gain a foothold in other regions, from Brazil to Indonesia, and the Arab Spring brought hope that the Middle East would follow suit.

The American Bar Association proudly joined these reform efforts, launching its Rule of Law Initiative and marshaling scores of volunteer lawyers to advise on new laws and constitutions in Eastern and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Today, however, as democratic progress is tested by Russias rollback of hard-won freedoms and as conflicts flare up from Donetsk to Damascus, the worlds 25-year democratization effort is under siege. Critics question what impact the assistance has had and whether it was folly in the first place. Policymakers divert resources to the urgent challenges posed by the Islamic State and the Ebola epidemic, which seem to demand military and medical responses rather than governance interventions. Reflecting the mounting democratization fatigue, the United States Agency for International Developments funding for efforts to promote democracy, human rights and good governance has plummeted 38 percent in the past five years.

Syndicated columnist Richard Cohen has argued that the charming U.S. belief in democracy and our efforts to promote it abroad have landed us in no end of trouble. A better approach, he urges, is a realists vigilant cynicism, or an appreciation that what works for us may not work for others and that in many parts of the world, democratization risks unleashing forces we do not like and cannot control.

The Nov. 9 anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall demands sober reflection about our democratization efforts what works, what doesnt and why. In democratization assistance, as in all other endeavors, we can always get smarter. And indeed, we have seen the assistance community respond to its critics by developing more effective strategies that emphasize bottom-up approaches, local buy-in and sustainability of reforms. We need to continue to evolve in our approach, to better understand the drivers of reform and the role that international assistance can play.

That said, lets not confuse fatalism with realism. Just because something is hard and may take a long time doesnt mean its not worth doing, nor does it mean that the efforts of individual reformers are not critical and worth supporting. Any student of the United States own slow and uneven democratic evolution can appreciate that perspective.

A clear-eyed realist knows that bringing about democracy, rule of law and respect for human rights is both a long-term endeavor and profoundly in our interests. A full 225 years after our Bill of Rights was adopted, our work to secure these principles in the United States is far from done. On issues ranging from domestic violence to excessive police practices, we need only read recent headlines to know that persistent challenges remain.

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Democracy is a winding road, but its worth the trip

Communism (Original Mix)
Communism Original Mix Arent Raxell DMA, Russia Released on: 2013-03-07 Artist: Arent Artist: Raxell Composer: Konstantin Arent Composer: Nikolai Balenkov Music Publisher: Label Control...

By: Arent Raxell - Topic

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Communism (Original Mix) - Video

Today is the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. What I wrote on the 20th anniversary in 2009 is still very much relevant today:

In several ways, the Wall and its collapse are fitting symbols of communism. They demonstrate several truths about that system that we would be wise not to lose sight of.

First and foremost, Cold War-era Berlin was the most visible demonstration of the superiority of capitalism and democracy over communism and dictatorship. Despite the fact that East Germany had one of the highest standards of living in the Soviet bloc, it had to build a wall to keep its people from fleeing to the capitalist West. By contrast, West Germans and other westerners were free to move to the communist world anytime they wanted. Yet only a tiny handful ever did so. Decisions to vote with your feet are often even better indicators of peoples true preferences than ballot box voting, since foot voters have better incentives to become well-informed about the alternatives before them. Even more powerful evidence is the reality that many East Germans and others fled from communism even when doing so meant risking their lives.

Second, the Berlin Wall was an important symbol of the way in which communist governments violated the human right to freedom of movement, one of the most important attributes of a free society. If people are forcibly trapped under the rule of the government in whose territory they happen to be born, they are not truly free; rather, they are hostages of their rulers.

Finally, the sudden collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 vividly demonstrated the extent to which communist totalitarianism relied on coercion to maintain its rule. Some Western scholars and leftists contended that most Russians and Eastern Europeans actually supported communism or at least preferred it to the available alternatives. The events of 1989 gave the lie to this notion Once the Soviet government and its puppet states in Eastern Europe signalled that they would no longer suppress opposition by force, the Berlin Wall was quickly torn down, and communist governments throughout Eastern Europe collapsed within months.

Despite all of the above, I am somewhat conflicted about the status of the Berlin Wall as the symbol of communist oppression in the popular imagination. My reservations have to do with the underappreciated fact that the Wall was actually one of communisms smaller crimes. Between 1961 and 1989, about 100 East Germans were killed trying to escape to the West through Wall. The Wall also trapped several million more Germans in a repressive totalitarian society. These are grave atrocities. But they pale in comparison to the millions slaughtered in gulags, deliberately created famines in the USSR, China, and Ethiopia, and mass executions of kulaks and class enemies. The Berlin Wall wasnt even the worst communist atrocity in East Germany.

In 2014, as in 2009, we still have a long way to go before we have fully rectified our relative neglect of the history of communist crimes. The issue is even more significant now than it was five years ago, because the Putin regime in Russia has ramped upits efforts to whitewash the communist past.

Ilya Somin is Professor of Law at George Mason University. His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, and popular political participation. He is the author of "The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain" (forthcoming) and "Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter."

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Volokh Conspiracy: The 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall

How the capitalism solve economy problem and 3 advantage of socialism and market economy (IF81A)

By: nur farzana

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How the capitalism solve economy problem and 3 advantage of socialism and market economy (IF81A) - Video