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Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Unlimited Freedom Leads to Unlimited Despotism

The intellectuals and politicians who propose that the western countries should use their military power to force countries in the Middle East to accept a liberal form of governance are like the deluded revolutionaries that Fyodor Dostoevsky has described in his book The Possessed. These revolutionaries think that they can establish a paradise after overthrowing the existing regime through a violent revolution. Shigalyov, the intellectual character in The Possessed, who is a historian and social theorist, and a key thinker for the revolutionaries, has developed a plan for post-revolution reorganization of mankind. But the realization dawns on him that the reorganization of mankind will entail a huge cost—more than 100 million people will be killed and many more will be enslaved in the attempt to create a paradise. He confesses, "My conclusion stands in direct contradiction to the idea from which I started. Proceeding from unlimited freedom, I end with unlimited despotism.” This has an important lesson for the Middle East: Political liberty and free market cannot be established in most countries in this region. Here the choice is between secular despotism and theocratic regime.

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