I remember a time not so long ago — the 1990s — when Western democracies were convinced that the model they embodied would spread throughout the world. The Berlin Wall had just fallen, the countries of the Soviet bloc were turning their backs on communism and dictatorship, everywhere democracy and the free market seemed to flourish, including in Russia, where Bill Clinton frequently visited his friend Boris Yeltsin.
The “free world”, as it was then called, was at its zenith and its advance seemed irresistible. To the point where many believed that the era of major ideological clashes between competing models was over, that we had arrived at “the end of history”, to use the famous phrase of the economist Francis Fukuyama.
I remember Jean Chrétien, at the turn of the 2000s, jogging on the Great Wall of China and launching into an improvised game of basketball with young Chinese under the gaze of journalists.
At that time, Western countries were engaged in a veritable enterprise of seduction. If the Soviet empire had finally given in, there was no reason to think that communist China would not do the same.
The argument put forward was the following: it was enough to intensify trade with China, to integrate its economy with that of the rest of the world, for the country to finally open up to democracy. In a speech delivered in Cairo in 2009, Barack Obama extended the invitation to Muslim countries: “It’s not just about American ideals, it’s about human rights and that’s why we will encourage them in the whole world.1 The following year, the Arab Spring revolutions seemed to prove him right. From Tunisia to Yemen, passing through Syria, Libya and Egypt, the peoples were waking up and demanding that we hear them.
However, we must now recognize that we were wrong. Not only has the model of liberal democracy not spread to the rest of the world, but it is now in decline. Under Vladimir Putin, Russia returned to authoritarianism and embarked on a war of attrition with the West in Ukraine. The Arab countries which had made the revolution returned to the dictatorship. The oil monarchies, completely backward in terms of rights and freedoms, have become allies of the West, attracting major events in exchange for capital (the World Cup in Qatar, F1 in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates , in Bahrain). China has established itself as an essential global player without giving up anything in terms of freedoms and democracy. It is even quite the opposite: the recent appointment of President Xi Jinping for a third term, with the possibility of a renewal for life, confirms the hold of man on the cogs of the State and suggests the worst. .
The temptation to authoritarianism is not just an external problem: it resurfaces within liberal democracies themselves, like a bad dream that comes back to haunt them. From Hungary to Italy to Brazil to the United States, populist leaders are gaining popular support by claiming to regain lost pride. These “strong men” cultivate resentment towards the elite (and the media), while hiding the fact that they themselves come from this elite and aspire to serve it. And it turns out that the major economic players are adapting very well to this development.
When giants like Apple, Tesla, Microsoft or Volkswagen invest in China, they give the impression that democracy and freedoms ultimately matter little, that only the smooth running of their business interests them.
Two weeks ago, Klaus Schwab, president of the World Economic Forum, which brings together more than 3,000 large multinationals from around the world, said on Chinese television: “I think China is a model for several countries. […] We must let each country choose the system it wants to adopt. I think we have to be very careful in imposing a system. But the Chinese model is certainly very attractive for several countries.2 Schwab did not specify which aspects of the Chinese model were attractive, or for which countries. But such remarks lead one to think that certain economic actors have more affinity with authoritarian leaders than with democratically elected leaders. Are we not witnessing, within large corporations themselves, an unprecedented rise in inequalities, both between bosses and employees and between senior executives and shareholders, who see an ever-increasing proportion of profits escape them to be paid in bonuses and salaries? Moreover, nothing today seems more alien to democracy than a meeting of shareholders: you have to vote “for” or else abstain and keep quiet.
We believed that liberal democracies would serve as models for authoritarian regimes. Perhaps we should now consider the opposite possibility. History has failed, and a new chapter has just begun.