More on the Arab Spring and the Holy Roman Empire

I had hoped the Arab Spring would lead to Western-style democracy, and I am indeed concerned with Mohammed Morsi’s grab for dictatorial powers in Egypt.

On the other hand, here is one Arab perspective, courtesy of my office mate: the problem is corruption. People hope that the Muslim Brotherhood, because of their religious underpinnings, will introduce a more honest government.

Of course, they may be wrong. The same appeal once brought the Communists and the Nazis to power; in power, they proved over time as corrupt as a government could ever be.

It is well to remember, though, that the point is not democracy. The point is honest, competent government, and democracy is of value only to the extent that it produces this result. In fact, a good argument can be made for monarchy as a promising alternative. Consider the monarchies of the Middle East: they are consistently less corrupt than the supposed Republics.

There is a reason for this, of course. If you have one person in power, he has every incentive to rob the state blind before he loses the ability to do so. But then too, if you have one party in power, they have the same incentive, and so do the individuals within it. They may be inclined to take what they can while they can. If, on the other hand, the government is not a personal, but a family, possession, the current ruler has a good incentive to preserve and foster the prosperity of the state, without looting it. After all, it is a family heirloom, and he will naturally want to leave it to his children in as good a condition as possible, if he only has normal parental instincts.



Lacking, then, a sophisticated electorate, monarchy may be the best choice. And, of course, monarchy is perfectly compatible with the highest form of democracy as well, as England, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, and many others demonstrate. Arguably a more stable and secure democracy than a republic can muster.

I think the common people are also perfectly right, as well, to hold corruption to be the main issue here. And they do—I can vouch for it personally from many conversations with taxi drivers throughout the region. In fact, corruption is by far the main reason poor countries are poor. Ruling classes try to obscure the truth with talk about colonialism, overpopulation, alcoholism and a lazy populace, or exploitative multinational corporations. The alibis seem to work well enough with elites elsewhere, who share in the end a common interest. But they often do not confuse the common people.

It also makes sense that a strong unifying ideology with a strong moral component is an obvious antidote to official corruption. Good government almost requires a code of chivalry, a high moral code to which the ruling elite sincerely subscribes. Cultures rise and fall on the strength of such ruling ideologies.

In the world today, there are really only three such plausible ruling ideologies still standing: liberal democracy, as found for example in the US Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence; Christianity; and Islam. Marxism is dead outside the academy, and can no longer check corruption in China. Buddhism lacks an obvious political message, and Confucianism, Judaism, and Hinduism are culture-specific.

That the USA seems to currently be the leading proponent of two of these three ideologies, liberal democracy and political Christianity, makes me think it is the likely dominant world power for some time to come.

However, I could also see some other jurisdiction picking up the idea of political Christianity, based in part on the model of Islamism, and running with it. Hence, conceivably, with a breakup of the EU, we might, might, might, see something like a resurrected Holy Roman Empire; or something equivalent in South America; or in Eastern Europe, on the foundation of Orthodoxy.