Rumors of Democracy’s Death Are Greatly Exaggerated – Twin Cities

The obituary of Alberto Fujimori, the former president of Peru and an old college friend of mine, published last week in the same newspaper that reported Donald Trump’s intemperate claims, raised two important questions for me.

First, is it possible to have democracy without a free market? Second, is it possible to have a free market without democracy?

These questions, and the policies of these two political leaders, lead to deeper and broader issues. How—and why—are some nations more resilient than others in confronting threats to successfully established orders? What happens to fundamental rights when resilience fails? What happens to economic efficiency and economic justice?

Let us begin by ensuring that our nation possesses both the culture and institutions that are strongly conducive to the survival of our system of government and our economy.

But in answering the first question asked, it is also important to note that “democracy” and “free market” are not binary “yes”/“no” distinctions.

You can find fair and well-functioning democracies and economies across a wide range of political and legal specificities. No country has an unfettered free market, which would satisfy the ideals of strict libertarians. Still, many “mixed economies” transform resources into goods and services to meet people’s needs with both efficiency and acceptable fairness.

What brings you to these considerations?

On one hand, there is my dear relative’s claim that Kamala Harris will impose communism on our country. On the other hand, there are Trump’s promises of harsh punishment for political opponents, including “military tribunals” and long prison sentences. And there is his description of the police officers defending our nation’s Capitol on January 6, 2021, as “the other side.”

People on both sides of the political spectrum should remain calm. Harris is not going to impose communism. A re-elected Trump will not institute military tribunals or send Liz Cheney to Leavenworth for 30 years. We are not Russia, China, Sudan, or Myanmar. We are not the Philippines or Peru.

Now consider Fujimori, who died in Lima last week at the age of 86. In a few short years, he had gone from an unknown mathematics professor at Peru’s National Agricultural University to the country’s elected president. He was praised for his management of the economy and restoring public safety. But then his administration quickly veered toward dictatorship, brutal repression and corruption, as so often happens.

I knew Fujimori only in the sense that we often greeted each other in the mailroom of his university, where I was a visiting professor from 1980 to 1982, working on a U.S. foreign aid project in agriculture. He was not gregarious. Our exchanges never extended beyond comments on the weather.

But I saw the steely determination that would take him, in eight years, from calculus teacher to department head to university president to informal advisor to the president, and then catapult him to the presidency. And yet, from hero to international fugitive.

Some of Fujimori’s American obituaries compared him to Trump. Both used populist appeals when running for office and in office. Both openly called for authoritarian measures that violated both the laws and constitutions of their countries. Neither represents the milk of human kindness.

Given such similarities, how can we be sure that Trump, if reelected, would not emulate Fujimori’s 1992 “self-coup,” in which Fujimori dramatically expanded his powers and became a quasi-dictator? Citing the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity and invoking “Project 2025,” the warning “Trump without guardrails” has become both a meme and a Harris campaign theme.

Trump may want to become America’s Fujimori, but since independence our nation has had 248 years of uninterrupted democratic rule, 236 of which have been under the U.S. Constitution. There has never been an extra-constitutional change of government. Constitutional rights have been violated only in two wars, and only to an unfortunate but limited extent.

Since Peru gained independence in 1826, there has been a dizzying array of military, authoritarian, and democratic regimes. All have been civilian since 1980, but Fujimori ruled as a dictator with military support from 1992 to 2000. Three elected presidents have completed five-year terms, but since 2016 there has been a steady crisis with six presidents in eight years. Over two centuries, Peru has had countless constitutions and revisions to its basic legal code.

Without stable government, you can’t have stable rules about property or normal economic exchanges. So economic justice and efficiency decline.

Peru’s history is one that is, to some extent, common to all of South America, Africa, and much of Asia. European colonialism in these regions was a plague that exploited resources, fueled ethnic rivalries to rule by division, and imposed artificial boundaries that did not conform to ethnic, linguistic, and religious patterns or to coherent sets of economic resources for the nation.

Moreover, although overt colonial rule largely disappeared by the 1960s, the Cold War imposed another set of dependencies. China is now actively pursuing spheres of influence, and Russia is seeking allies.

Yes, many countries, like Uruguay and Chile, are strengthening institutions even as countries like Venezuela descend into kleptocracy. And yes, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea have solid constitutional governments and thriving market economies on strong foundations. But democracy has waned in Turkey and is in crisis in India.

So, while there are historical examples of rapid economic growth under authoritarianism, almost all have chapters in which institutional fragility turns a boom into years or decades of stagnation. Remember that Iran had explosive growth in the 1960s, far beyond that brought by oil. Brazil had a boom for decades, but then decades of underperformance.

China boomed after Mao Zedong died, and its explosive growth from 1980 to 2020 was probably the most important economic phenomenon in modern history. It showed how a government that was still communist in structure could allow markets to flourish. But it lacked solid legal institutions and financial market oversight. It had no working constitution or rule of law. So now Premier Xi Jinping is returning to central control and restricting market freedoms as the population ages rapidly.

What does any of this have to do with Trump and Harris? Despite the troubling ethics of the Supreme Court, it and all other federal and state courts remain steadfast in the rule of law. As are most members of Congress. The Justice Department, the FBI, and the military are steadfast in their constitutional roles.

We have countless private “mediation structures,” including associations, nonprofits, and movements, that act as gatekeepers. The planners of Project 2025 and those who fear it may be delusional, but Trump’s inauguration in January will not trigger a coup.

What about Harris and Tim Walz pushing socialism? While Senator Bernie Sanders might have admired Soviet communism as an inexperienced youth, there are few socialists in American politics. Neither Harris nor Walz falls into that category, which focuses on government ownership of key “means of production.”

Walz would certainly be considered a social democrat in Europe, as Harris is, but not a socialist. Her call for anti-extortion measures may be bad economics, but it is not Marxist. Moreover, she does not intend to develop quasi-state enterprises like the Tennessee Valley or Bonneville Power Authority, or to merge Union Pacific and BNSF with Amtrak.

Democracy is like marriage. It requires trust, communication, agreement on goals, and a lot of hard work. There are disagreements, perhaps deep ones, but those that succeed resolve them without breaking up.

It may be a blessing or a curse that we, as voters, conspire to keep big issues off our radars, and sometimes we focus on funny rumors. But even as we face a looming fiscal crisis, caused in part by the retirement of baby boomers and a rapidly aging population, these are not fundamental institutional problems. And even if our democratic culture has weaknesses, our institutions and our market economy combine to protect each other. And both are strong.