Democracy Against Itself: The Future of the Democratic Impulse

Jean-Francois Revel died recently. It was a tragic loss for critical political thought. Revel, long established as the senior statesman of French political commentary, has written many books, all of which are worth reading. "Democracy Against Itself" was written at an interesting time for the world: it was published in 1993, and had seen the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, yet did not have the advantage of seeing the subsequent outcomes of the fall of the Soviet Union. Interestingly, this thoughtful commentary has proven far more durable and accurate in it's predictions than most other books of the same era. The title of my review comes, of course, from the famous quote by Georg Cristoph Lichtenberg, and Revel accurately uses it as a metaphor for the hollow promises of communism and socialism. Perhaps better than any other author (perhaps excluding Solzhenitsyn) Revel analyzes not only the objective failures of communism and socialism, but the underlying reasons behind the failures, both from a historical and a human behavioral point of view. Unsurprisingly, Revel was generally unpopular in his native France, where he was an outspoken critic of socialism (and especially of the illegal activities of the Mitterrand government) and a proponent of representational democracy, with specific admiration for the US. This book not only is effective in defending democracy and capitalism, it is insightful into the parallels of socialism and third world politics (which very often are the same thing,) with special dislike for policies of the UN which have tended to impede development and human rights furtherance in the third world, especially in post-colonial Africa. Chapter twelve is devoted to the problems inherent in Islamic governments, and is especially noteworthy given subsequent events. The foreshadowing Revel provides in this chapter is not only visionary, but accurate. As far as I am concerned chapter twelve is the most important in the book and should be studied thoroughly by anyone with an interest in current world events. The book has a couple of trifling faults, however. The first is in the latter part of the book when Revel discusses "interventionism." I believe that he fails to make the case conclusively for the setting of interventionist policies, and leaves the issue at least partly unresolved. The second is a byproduct of his exceptional intellect: the book is very verbose, and in translation from the original French, is occasionally difficult to read. I am not arguing that a book of this complexity or stature should be light reading, only that some sentences are more convoluted than absolutely necessary, occasionally to the detraction of the underlying point of discussion. This is an important book. Despite the fact that it is now thirteen years old, it still contains utterly brilliant analysis of current and historical events, and is an excellent introductory course in the political analysis of communist and socialist governme

Much more hopeful and upbeat than How Democracies perish, Revel has had a Damascus Road experience. His concepts of Third Worldism and the cycle of dependency fostered by statist markets is clear and ineluctable, and can be seen still influencing the Africa of today. Yes he does forshadow the rise of Islamo-fascism well but makes a strong case throughout his book that there is a moral duty, of even petrhaps intervention for democractic nations when confronted by governments that oppress their consitutencies