A fantasy called democracy.

Prof Nouriel Roubini is worried that the Great Recession following the global financial crisis of 2008 is leading to economic nationalism all over the world, leading to " trade barriers, asset protection, reaction against foreign direct investment, policies favoring domestic workers and firms, anti-immigration measures, state capitalism, and resource nationalism." A weak recovery of the global economy coupled with increasing wealth inequality in every country has given rise to the perception of politicians in bed with the rich, leading to a rise of nationalism. Except in Tunisia the Arab Spring has failed, the UK might leave the EU, Scotland may become independent of the UK and Spain and Belgium may break up. A similar nationalism after the Great Depression led to World War II and his gloomy conclusion is that the Great Recession is following the same trajectory. Prof Roubini does not address the question of whether global growth is possible without producing a resource crunch, which will act as a brake, and the unrestrained population growth in developing countries which is suppressing wages of workers, not just in their home countries but in rich countries as well, leading to income inequality. Prof Francis Fukuyama, on the other hand, is very optimistic while recognising that he was hasty when he predicted the end of history in 1989 at the fall of the Soviet Union. At the time he had argued that," History appeared to culminate in liberty: elected governments, individual rights, an economic system in which capital and labor circulated with relatively modest state oversight." In 1974, there were only 35 electoral democracies, representing less than 30% of countries while in 2013 there were 120 representing 60% of countries. He concedes that some governments have become more authoritarian and that inequality of wealth means that the rich control political systems to their benefit but he is certain that the desire for individual freedom will prevail. Sadly, he seems to have a simplistic Hollywood view of the world in which the US is good and Russia is bad. Thus what Russia is doing in Ukraine is wrong while the repeated genocides committed by the US in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq find no mention. One of the reasons why there were so few democracies in 1974 was the CIA support of despots around the world. All politicians aspire to have absolute power: the Chinese Communist tries to control the internet while the NSA in the US monitors all phone calls and internet activity. Just casting a ballot every few years is not democracy. We need a balance of power between politicians and citizens. Perhaps wars are inevitable.