----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Treanor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2000 11:45 AM Subject: [STOPNATO] Democracy shortens life and increases inequality STOP NATO: NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.COM This is a recent addition to the anti-democracy web page Why Democracy is wrong. The full text, later additions, and links, are at http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/dem.wrong.html --------------- The costs of transition to market and democracy --------------- The post-1989 transition in central and eastern Europe has provided, for the first time in history, an indication of the negative effects of democracy. (At least, of liberal democracy in combination with the free market, which is certainly what western media and governments mean when they talk of democracy in eastern Europe). In the older democratic states, the present model of democracy was formed over 100 or 200 years. Britain in 1800 can not be compared with Britain in 2000 anyway: the huge differences are not simply 'the result of democracy'. In eastern Europe, modern states acquired a new political and economic system within a few years - with a complete statistical record. Russia in 1985 can be compared with Russia in 1995: the difference is largely due to the economic and political transition. The effects of both aspects are difficult to separate, but the UN Development Program has listed 7 social-economic costs of the process. Here are the main points of the list: --- The process of transition in the region has had huge human development costs, many of which still continue unabated.... - The biggest single 'cost of transition' has undoubtedly been the loss of lives represented by the decline in life expectancy in several major countries of the region, most notably in the Russian Federation, and most strikingly among young and middle-aged men....Most regrettably, the trends in life expectancy have meant that several million people have not survived the 1990s who would have done so if the life expectancy levels achieved in the 1990s had been maintained.... - The second cost of transition has been the rise and persistently high level of morbidity, characterized by higher incidence of common illnesses and by the spread of such diseases as tuberculosis that had been reduced to marginal health threats in the past.... - A third cost of transition has been the extraordinary rise in poverty - both income and human poverty.... - A major contributor to the increase in poverty - along with falling incomes and rising inflation - has been the rise in income and wealth inequality, and this has been a fourth cost of transition.... - A fifth cost of transition has been rising gender inequalities. During the Soviet era, quotas for women helped to incorporate them into positions of economic and political decision-making and authority, but the advent of more democratic regimes has led paradoxically to lower percentages of women in such positions. Women have found themselves progressively pushed out of public life. Simultaneously, their access to paid employment has declined and their total work burden both within the household and outside it has increased.... - A sixth cost of transition has been the considerable deterioration of education.... - A seventh cost of transition has been the rise in unemployment, underemployment and informalization of employment.... Summing up the seven costs of transition across the whole region underscores the dramatic and widespread deterioration of human security.... ---------- http://www.undp.org/rbec/pubs/hdr99/ TRANSITION 1999: Human Development Report for Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS</a>, UNDP (Chapter 1). ---------- The report itself has more detail on all of these aspects, and especially on poverty. In historical perspective, this is clearly not indicative of a voluntary choice for emancipation and progress. Instead these characteristics are consistent with the traditional historical pattern of expansion by conquest: more on this 'democratic conquest' below. So, on the evidence from eastern Europe, what would happen if the existing market democracy was abolished , in an older liberal-democracy such as Britain? The effects on this model are that... - life expectancy would rise - public health would improve: the incidence of infectious diseases would fall - poverty would decline sharply, although the mean income would probably also fall - income inequalities would fall - women would have higher social status, more access to political-administrative structures, and more access to employment - there would be more resources for education, and access to education would improve - unemployment would fall: there would be fewer people in insecure jobs, and possibly also fewer in low-productivity 'junk jobs' (also a form of underemployment) These are only expectations. Since the comparison is with eastern Europe in the 1980's, an exact equivalence would mean recreating those 1980's 'Soviet-bloc' societies, in present Britain - which is impossible. But supporters of democracy themselves use social and political comparisons between very different societies - for instance between Soviet Russia under Stalin's Russia (or Hitler's Germany) and the present USA. The western lobby in favour of the transition process in eastern Europe also quote its successes, again using longitudinal comparisons of non-comparable societies. It would be inconsistent, in the face of this use of cross-generational, cross-cultural, cross-societal comparisons, not to use the material on the transition - to assess the possible benefits of a reverse transition in western market democracies. -- Paul Treanor ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement: 15% off Ashford Collection jewelry for Mother's Day! 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