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V O LU M E 1 N U M B E R 4
Catos
Letter
A Q U A R T E R LY M E S S A G E O N L I B E R T Y
I
d like to talk about the themes of my book,
The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at
Home and Abroad, and try to apply them to the
case of our 51st state. You may not realize that
we have a 51st state, but we do. It is called Iraq.
We acquired it on the lofty principle of interna-
tional relations that Thomas Friedman calls the
Pottery Barn principle: You break it, you buy
it. And so now that we possess it, we have to
figure out just how much it costs and how to fix it.
This involves getting to know a part of the world
that we are not as familiar with as we should be.
Ambrose Bierce, in his wonderful book The Devils
Dictionary, defines war
as Gods way of teach-
ing Americans geography.
We now have taken on a
very ambitious agenda for
Iraq. Bringing democracy to
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C A T O S L E T T E R
V O LU M E 1 N U M B E R 4
Nazis, fascism, and populist national- There is only one problem with this
ism rose throughout Europe on the theory. Of all the oil-rich countries in
back of fairly popular movements and the world, only Norway is a function-
often through elections. ing capitalist economy with a liberal
We are not just trying to bring pop- democratic polity. And Norway got its
ular participationthe process of democracy long before it discovered
selecting a governmentto Iraq, but its oil. In my book I call states with
the whole long tradition of Western easy access to oil revenue trust fund
constitutionalism and liberalism. Any- states. Such states never go through
4 one can hold an election, but it will be the hard work of modernizing their
far more difficult to create the rule of societies, modernizing their laws, and
law; the institution of property rights; building a market economy. Minus oil,
and responsive, transparent, and clean the merchandise exports of the entire
governmental authority. It will be dif- Arab world290 million people
ficult because Iraq faces two or three equal those of Finland, with 11 million
obstacles along the way. people. The reason is that the region
has too easy access to unearned income.
THE CURSE OF OIL
First is the problem of oil. I call it a A NATION DIVIDED
problem, yet many in the U.S. govern- This is not just an economic prob-
ment seem to see it as a solution. Be- lem, its also a political problem,
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V O LU M E 1 N U M B E R 4
Leave a
when their people look at them
they see tyranny and repres- 5
Legacy of sion.
These rulers put into
V O LU M E 1 N U M B E R 4
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