Parsing through the Al Jazeera website (exceptional organisation by the way), I stumbled upon this rather interesting discussion with Slavoj Zizek about the future of capitalism and the world.
(If you’ve never actually seen the man, as I had not, you may be surprised to learn that on first appearance, he struck me, and maybe you too as perhaps a close cousin of Mankind.)
Although the whole discussion is well worth your time, it was when the conversation turned to the future of the capitalist economic model that I took some notice. Much of what you hear (and indeed, see) nowadays about the hyper-capitalist world we inhabit is by now old hat, but one thing we rarely talk about much anymore, and something I think many of us simply take for granted, is the relationship between capitalism and democracy. 
And yet this link Zizek reminds us, however tentative it may have been, is being increasingly called into question by China – capitalism with Chinese characteristics if you will.
Where once we could at least console ourselves that despite the negative effects of capitalism it would – inevitably we had assured ourselves – eventually give rise to democracy, now we cannot be so certain.
Doug Saunders, a Globe & Mail reporter and commenter, in his Saturday piece made precisely the same observation and stepped it up a notch. Reporting on a huge investment gap in Africa by western (read: democratic) nations over the past decade or two – our short-sighted investment model being a prime culprit for this deficiency – in favour of China, Saunders warns:
If China and other non-democratic states are left to fill this huge investment gap, it could come at a political cost. This week, we saw a warning written by Medard Mulangala Lwakabwanga, an MP from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who is watching his government turn to China for investment – in large part because they see Western countries as more interested in war-crimes tribunals and truth and reconciliation commissions than in building road links and irrigation networks. The Chinese don’t care if Congo’s government contains war criminals.
“China does not call on anyone to be sent to The Hague – it is not a signatory to the ICC treaty,” Mr. Lwakabwanga wrote. “Nor does it call on African nations to respect international conventions on corporate contracts, rights for workers, defend free speech or hold free and fair elections. So many African nations now have a choice: Why listen to the West, with its rules and regulations and demands, if you don’t have to?”
Mr. Lwakabwanga, like many freedom-seeking Africans, does not want growth at the price of tyranny. “The West can raise its game in the continent,” he writes, “meet the Chinese challenge and help to build a more transparent and content Africa.” If we want to do good on the continent, we’re going to have to start doing more business.
This is a troubling trend indeed.
