Dani Rodrik's pessimism on democracy: let the debate begin!
Dani has been dropping tantalizing hints about his forthcoming book. One of his arguments, as judging by the preview in his column on the Greek crisis, is the political trilemma: Democracy, globalization, the nation state are not mutually compatible, you can only pick 2 out of 3.
I look forward to the book for the detailed logic and evidence. Of course, skepticism is allowed already, since Dani's already put it out there and since the burden of proof is on the proponent of a new hypothesis. So far I have 2 big reasons for skepticism:
(1) exaggerating the constraints of globalization.
Dani has a much more respectable version of this than Tom Friedman's ridiculous "golden strait jacket," but the reason for doubt are the same: we do observe a lot of diversity of policies in the rich globalized economies, and they became rich all the same.
(2) over-predicting the demise of either democracy or good economics
There's a long history of arguments about why democracy is incompatible with good economics that benefits everyone. Either the masses will vote to expropriate the capitalists, or the capitalists will use their wealth to buy votes to get power to exploit the masses. Neither happened in capitalist democracies (maybe the two threats cancel each other out).
So I am skeptical about the Rodrik Trilemma, but maybe the book will provide some convincing arguments. Can't wait!