Joshua Kurlantzick examines the bourgeois revolution — against democracy:
But the difference is that the protesters in the 1990s were fighting for democracy against a coup that had toppled an elected government [in Thailand]. Despite its name, the People’s Alliance is explicitly antidemocratic. In its platform, the group seeks election reform measures that are basically meant to slash the power of the rural poor, who comprise the majority of Thais. In the minds of the Thai middle class, poor voters only vote for politicians like the populist Thaksin because they’re offered incentives such as a few baht on voting day. One former U.S. ambassador to Thailand puts it bluntly: The middle class “disdain[s] the rural masses and see[s] them as willing pawns to the corrupt vote buyers.” Instead of fighting for democratic rights, in other words, the People’s Alliance is protesting against them.
The movement goes well beyond Thailand:
This shift from a reformist middle class to a reactionary one over a mere two decades should be surprising. But, unfortunately, Thailand is not alone. Across the developing world, from Russia to Venezuela to Mexico, as democracy faces new threats — elected leaders who disdain its institutions, rising corruption, and nationalistic economic plans — middle classes, once the vanguard of democracy, have increasingly turned against it. For the first time in decades, democracy activists are beginning to wonder whether building a strong middle class solidifies or threatens freedom’s global spread. Yet because the middle-class-equals-democracy theory has become so entrenched, if it is proven wrong, activists, democracy-promotion groups, and world leaders will not know how to replace it. In other words, they won’t have a clue about how to actually build democracy.
If the middle-class-equals-democracy theory is entrenched, what do we call the democracy-equal-freedom theory? Fortified?
The middle class’s newfound disdain for democracy is counterintuitive. After all, as political and economic freedoms increase, its members often prosper because they are allowed more freedom to do business. But, paradoxically, as democracy gets stronger and the middle class grows richer, it can realize it has more to lose than gain from a real enfranchisement of society.Soon after acquiring democracy, urban middle classes often grasp the frustrating reality that political change costs them power. Outnumbered at the ballot box, the middle class cannot stop populists such as Thaksin or Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Once the middle class realizes it cannot stop the elected tyrants, it also comes to another, shattering realization: If urban elites can no longer control elections, all of their privileges — social, economic, cultural — could be threatened.
Are the urban elites concerned about social, economic, and cultural privileges, or are they concerned about rule of law — and keeping their own property?
(Hat tip to Bryan Caplan.)