Sabtu, 19 Mei 2012

Penyakit Sosial Itu Keserakahan

Oleh Aloys Budi Purnomo

   Sesuatu yang ironis terjadi di negeri ini. Kian lantang disuarakan komitmen pemberantasan korupsi, kian banyak pula korupsi yang tidak diselesaikan secara tuntas. Alih-alih memangkas nafsu serakah berkorupsi, yang terjadi justru regenerasi korupsi yang kian berjemaah.
   Kesenjangan antara huruf-huruf mati tentang perundang-undangan peraturan anti korupsi dengan semangat untuk memberantasnya tak terjembatani. Sudah begitu, sebagaimana dikiritisi Adi Andojo Soetjipto (Kompas, 24/4/2012) dan saya sepakat dengan pendapatnya, Komisi Pemberantas Korupsi alias KPK sebagai lembaga superbody untuk memberantas korupsi justru melempem: masuk angin!
   Gereget untuk memnberantas korupsi tanpa tebang pilih dan semangat menangkap koruptor kelas kakap di awal terpilihnya para pimpinan KPK tak lebih dari gertak sambal. Faktanya, hanya sedikit koruptor yang ditangani. Itupun tidak ditangani secara radikal (radix, bahasa Latin, seakar-akarnya), apalagi tuntas.

Elite yang rakus
   Bangsa ini penuh dengan ironi yang membuat rakyat kian muak terhadap elite politik dan pemerintah. Tanpa pernah mereka sadari, egoisme dan keserakahan mereka telah melahirkan penderitaan dalam diri rakyat yang dari hari ke hari menumpahkan air mata duka. Meminjam penuturan Sang Buddha Gautama, "Lebih banyak air mata duka tumpah di negeri ini dari pada samudra."
   Pangkal dari segala air mata duka rakyat di negeri ini adalah keserakahan elite politik dan penguasa, mulai dari pusat hingga daerah. Keserakahan mereka dalam rupa tindakan koruptif telah menghancurkan peradaban dan kemanusiaan di republik ini. Nafsu serakah akan kuasa dan harta telah mengamputasi hak-hak rakyat untuk hidup dalam keadilan dan kesejahteraan.
   Ironisnya, mereka yang dipilih oleh rakyat untuk mengelola bangsa ini dan menjadi penyalur suara rakyat justru terjebak dalam nafsu serakah memperjuangkan keuntungan pribadi. Akibatnya, dunia politik yang sejatinya bertujuan untuk mewujudkan kesejahteraan dan keadilan bagi rakyat tak lebih dari dunia niaga tempat mengeruk harta dan keuntungan.
   Hal itu tampak jelas dalam karut-marut problematik subsidi bahan bakar minyak (BBM). Pemerintah ataupun para wakil rakyat kita tidak menggunakan akal sehat untuk menginkorporasi elemen-elemen yang rasional, baik dan sehat untuk membangun visi tentang kesejahteraan rakyat. Dalih penyelamatan APBN demi perkembangan ekonomi nasional selaliu dikedepankan. Sementara pada saat yang bersamaan, mereka sendiri tetap rakus dan serakah dalam menghambur-hamburkan uang negara untuk urusan-urusan yang bersifat privat daripada kebijakan dan kebajikan publik.
   Keserakahan dan kerakusan akan harta dan kuasa kian tampak dalam berbagai inkonsistensi keputusan publik. Rencana kenaikan harga BBM yang tertunda tak lebih dari sebuah permainan bom waktu yang ujung-ujungnya menyengsarakan rakyat. Produk baru DPR berupa Undang-Undang Pemilu  pun penuh dengan ironi dan inkonsistensi. Itu semua berakar dari bawah sadar vested interest ataupun status quo kekuasaan yang tak laoin sebentuk nafsu kuasa dan keserakahan juga.

Kerakusan politik
   Dalam ironi dan inkonsistensi kebijakan dan kebajikan publik yang cenderung dilambari oleh nafsu serakah dan rakus kekuasaan itu, tercerminlah penyakit sosial politik di negara ini. Penyakit sosial itu kian kronis seiring dengan absennya tertib moral dan etika yang ambruk dalam bentuk pembohongan sistemik demi memuaskan ego serakah itu.
   Berbagai kekacauan sosial yang menyeruak di negeri ini sebetulnya merupakan dampak dari keserakahan dan kerakusan politik. Keserakahan dan kerakusan politik sebagai penyakit sosial hanya bisa disembuhkanoleh kejujuran dan kelurusan, bukan oleh pencitraan politik. Meminjam filosofi Wittgenstein (dalam Culture and Value, 1984:35), kejujuran adalah kebenaran dan kebenaran hanya dapat dikatakan oleh orang yang telah menghayatinya, bukan oleh orang yang masih hidup dalam kebohongan.
   Sayangnya, banyak elite politik dan penguasa di negeri ini yang tampaknya masih belum hidup dalam kebenaran. Kalaupun mereka tampaknya omong tentang kebenaran, tak lebih hanya untuk menutupi kebohongan dan kejahatan yang mereka lakukan terhadap rakyatnya sendiri. Itulah sebabnya, berbagai persoalan terkait dengan korupsi, kekerasan, ketidak-adilan dan kesejahteraan belum juga kunjung terselesaikan.

Aloys Budi Purnomo, Rohaniwan, tinggal di Semarang, Jawa Tengah
Sumber: Kompas, 19 Mei 2012, hal 6

Kerja Virtual

Bagi pekerja yang berkantor di Jakarta, bisa mencapai tempat kerja dalam waktu setengah jam menjadi hal yang semakin "luar biasa". Begitu meratanya kemacetan menjadikan kita terbiasa dengan satu atau dua jam (bahkan lebih) untuk sampai ke tempat kerja. Ini tentu melelahkan, baik fisik maupun semosi. Di banyak negara maju, sejak beberapa dekade yang lalu semakin banyak perusahaan yang menerapkan pengaturan waktu kerja jarak jauh ataupun waktu kerja fleksibel. Mungkinkah kita berdiam diri dan tidak memikirkan alternatif lain dalam pengaturan tempat dan waktu kerja? Mengapa masih banyak perusahaan yang ragu untuk menerapakan kerja jarak jauh ini? Pertimbangan apa yang perlu kita pikirkan dan matangkan?

   Sebuah perusahaan telekomunikasi terkemuka mengupayakan percobaan bekerja dari rumah. Alasan pimpinan perusahaan adalah bahwa di kantor pun sudah banyak menggunakan intranet, sementara banyak kemudahan y6ang bisa didapat bisa kita membudayakan "work from home" ini. Seperti banyak orang yang mengatakan, "Kita sudah bisa meninggalkan kerja dengan baju seragam ataupun setelan jas, dan sebaliknya, bisa bekerja produktif dengan kaos oblong, bahkan piyama dan daster." Kemudahan laptop, iPad, kekuatan broadband dan kemajuan perangkat lunak untuk bekerja, membuat kita benar-benar merasa bahwa datang ke kantor bisa dialternatifkan dengan bekerja di rumah saja. "Toh, ke kantor mengetik-ngetik juga." Kita lihat bahwa jenis pekerjaan yang tidak menuntut tatap muka yang intensif memiliki peluang untuk bisa dilakukan secara fleksibel dan virtual, bukan? Namun, apa yang perlu dipikirkan terkait dampak dari penerapan kerja virtual ini?
   Sebaliknya, sebuah perusahaan yang tampaknya sangat global selalu terdepan dalam pemilihan produk dan pembelian perangkat kerja di kantor, merasa belum bisa beranjak dari cara kerja "tradisional" yaitu absensi ketat, nametag harus terpasang, dan dresscode sesuai dengan peraturan. Derap kerja dan spirit untuk bresprestasi terasa ektika jam kerja dimulai sampai nberakhir pada sore hari. Kita memang jadi lebih mudah memantau pergerakan, biasa lebih kuta dalam komunikasi tatap muka saat ada masalah. Namun, sampai kapan kita bisa mengabaikan kebutuhan para orang tua untuk bisa lebih memperhatikanpendidkikan anak? Bagaimana dengan kebutuhan para customer service dan batriusan sales untuk menjangkau tempat pelanggan tanpa mondar-mandir menceklok mesin absen dan berdispilin waktu? Bisakah kita menjamin happiness dan engagement individu bila kebutuhan pribadi, fisik, dan emosinya sulit terpenuhi?

Kendalikan efektivitas kerja
   Di sebuah perusahaan yang sudah lama menerapkan fleksibilitas kerja ini, para karyawan memang merasa lebih happy karena mereka bisa mengerkan banyak hal sambil bekerja di rumah. Seorang karyawan mengatakan bahwa dia bisa mengantar-jemput anak-anak dan bisa bekerja intensif pada sela waktu tersebut. Individu lain menceritakan tentang quality time yang didapatkan dari kebersamaan dengan balitanya, di samping penghematan energi bahan bakat, tenaga mondar-mandir dan emosi kalau menghadapi kemacetan lalu-lintas. Kita lihat bahwa ada "win-win solution," baik bagi perusahaan maupun karyawan dengan penerapan kerja virtual.
   Seorang pemimpin perusahaan yang berani keluar dari perangkap gaya kerja ini mengatakan bahwa yang paling penting adalah kekuatan pengukuran kinerja yang diukur dari setiap karyawan. "Untuk melepas keseragaman dan disiplin kerja, kita perlu mempunyai kekuatan pengukuran kinerja yang tidak hanya berorientasi pada hasil akhir saja tetapi juga menjamin berjalannya "coaching", pengembangan sistem, pencanangan prioritas, dan manajemen waktu. Perubahan gaya kerja bisa dibuat 'step by step" dengan menerapkan pengukuran kerja alternatif di luar kedisiplinan dan kehadiran fisik. Baru nanti, setelah tiap karyawan terbiasa untuk mengukur kinerja gaya baru ini, perusahaan bisa beranjak ke gaya kerja yang lebih virtual.

Bahaya alinenasi
   Salah satu musuh besar dari bekerja "on line" adalah komunikasi. Kita bisa berkomunikasi dengan cara "conference", menggunakan group, audiovisual, tetapi kita akui bahawa "feel" kebersamaan pasrti berkurang. Hubungan on line, tetap hanya menstransfer hal-hal yang "kering" saja, seperti data, informasi, laporan, walaupun sudah dibumbui dengan "emoticon", yang beraneka ragam dan warna. Seorang teman yang pernah mengalami suasana kerja "on line" saat ditempatkan di negara lain. mengatakan setiap hari yang dia hadapi adalah punggung teman kerja. Saat menyalakan komputer. ia akan segera memulai komunikasinya melalui sistem messenger dengan teman kerjanya di belahan bumi lain. Ia yakin bahwa teman yang memunggunginya juga melakukan hal yang sma. Ini tanda bahwa kebutuhan komunikasi sebetulnya sangat kuat dan perlu diakomodasi sehingga sistem untuk menjaga komunikasi senantiasa harus dibangun dan dievaluasi.
   "Walaupun perusahaan-perusahaan besar seperti Apple dan Cisco sudah melaksanakan pelatihan salesmanship secara full on line dengan mengupayakan agar imajinasi para peserta pelatihan benar-benar ril seperti dibuatnya gerbang ruang pelatihan ketika baru memasuki situs pelatihan, menyajikan rekaman-rekaman seolah-olah kita berada di ruang auditorium, mendengarkan para pakar melakukan "webinar", bahkan disediakan pula chat room bagi para peserta sebagai ajang "networking" tetapi hampir semua ahli mengatakan "You can't replace face to face situations". Kita tidak bisa mentransfer motivasi, inspirasi seratus persen. Kita tetap harus memikirkan bahaya alienasi bila seseorang sudah meninggalkan suasana kantor.

Hidupkan kualitas tatap muka
   Banjir gadget akhir-akhir ini sangat membuat kita terjebak menjadi "korban teknologi". Kita bisa kehilangan kedalaman cara pikir, kekuatan berfokus dan berkonsentrasi pada hal yang sedang ditekuni. Baru ingin berkonsentrasi, ada pesan muncul di sistem messenger kita, belum lagi bila ada anggota group mengirimkan pesan bersamaan dengan panggilan untuk berkomunikasi audiovisual dengan orang lain. "Cognitive load" yang menhujani treservoir ingatan kita yang ada batasnya, sering menyebabkan kita sering lupa dan tidak tanggap terhadap persoalan yang muncul.
   Manusia adalah mahluk yang paling canggih di dunia ini. Manusia justru menjadi hebat karena kapasitas refleksi, berkreasi, berempati, berhati nurani, dan bahkan bisa menjangkau "meta-qualities" yang tidak bisa dijangkau mesin manapun. Satu-satunya sikap yang harus kita pelihara di tengah kebutuhan kerja virtual adalah dengan tetap menghargai dan menghidupkan kualitas tatap muka, yang kedalaman "rasa" tetap terjaga, sambil mengambil manfaat sebanyak-banyaknya dari kehidupan "on line".

Eileen Rachman & Sylvina Savitri
EXPERD, Culure Internalization Program

Kompas, 19 Mei 2012, hal 33

Senin, 14 Mei 2012

Pancasila Versus Liberalisme

Oleh Kiki Syahnakri
   Pembicaraan tentang liberalisme (tepatnya kelemahan dan keruntuhan liberalisme) tambah hari tambah ramai dan meluas, terutama setelah keruntuhan ekonomi Amerika Serikat dan beberapa negara Eropa.
   Kritik bahkan cercaan, terhadap liberalisme dan kapitalisme sebagai anak kandungnya pun kian santer dan menjagat karena dilambungkan oleh peristiwa pendudukan Wall Street, simbol kedigjayaan kapitalisme, di AS yang nota bene merupakan sarang utama liberalisme.
   Sejak Revolusi Perancis, liberalisme-kapitalisme telah menguasai dunia selama beberapa abad. Ideologi ini menjadi penguasa tunggal dunia menyusul keruntuhan komunisme pada awal 1980-an. Virus liberalisme kian perkasa dan merambah kemana-mana, termasuk Indonesia.
   Pascareformasi 1998, kehidupan berbangsa-bernegara di Indonesia praktis dikuasai oleh liberalisme. Liberalisme berhasil mengerdilkan dan mengalienasikan Pancasila. Roh Pancasila pun kian lama kian pupus dalam dada anak-anak bangsa, terlebih setelah pelajaran tentang Pancasila menghilang atau dihilangkan dari kurikulum pendidikan. Konon, matakuliah Sosiologi pun telah dihilangkan dari kurikulum fakultas ekonomi se-Indonesia. Jelas ini merupakan upaya kaum liberal untuk tak mengaitkan liberalisme dengan masalah sosial.
   Kini tampaknya keadaan sedang berbalik arah: liberalisme sedang meredup, kapitalisme dalam proses kejatuhan, termasuk di negara sumbernya, AS. Ternyata virus liberalisme-kapitalisme telah bergerak tanpa kendali dan menggerogoti tuannya sendiri sehingga terjadi kejatuhan ekonomi global. Mengapa? Ekonom senior AS, Joseph Stiglitz, dalam buku terlarisnya, Globalization and Its Discontents, secara telak menyalahkan teori ekonomi liberal sebagai penyebabnya.

Liberalisme
   Karakteristik lineralisme adalah: kompetisi, kebebasan, mekanisme pasar, yang terkuat (baca "kepentingan" yang terkuat) sebagai pemenang, sangat mengagungkan hak individu (individualisme) sehingga voting mutlak sebagai cara pengambilan keputusan. Oleh sebab itu, sistem ini memerlukan aturan main dan hukum yang lengkap dan jelas, penegakan hukum yang kuat, disiplin, serta sportivitas yang tinggi.
   Apabila syarat atau sebagian dari syarat itu tak terpenuhi, yang akan muncul adalah distorsi sosial yang kerap diwarnai anarkisme, mencederai rasa kemanusiaan, dan memakan banyak korban jiwa. Pengalaman pahit tersebut terjadi di banyak negara, terutama di Afrika dan Asia, termasuk Indonesia, seperti yang sedang kita alami sekarang ini.
   Bebarapa pakar politik mengatakan bahwa penyimpangan dan kekacauan itu merupakan hal wajar dalam demokratisasi. Ada yang mengatakan diperlukan setidaknya tujuh kali pemilu untuk sampai pada tingkat kematangan berdemokrasi. Pertanyaannya, dapatkah dijamin eksistensi negara dan bangsa ini masih tyetap bertahan selama periode pematangan yang cukup panjang itu? Sulit dapat dijamin! Kebalikannya, kegagalan negara memenuhi hak dasar warga negaranya (seperti hak mendapat sandang pangan, papan yang memadai, hak mendapat pendidikan dannkesehatan dengan mudah dan murah, serta hak melaksanakan ibadah) dapat menimbulkan turbulensi sosial yang potensial bermuara pada perpecahan.

Pancasila
   Kebalikan dari liberalisme yang berbicara tentang kompetisi adalah Pancasila yang berbicara tentang kooperasi, kerjasama, jiwa, kekeluargaan, dan kolektivisme. Pengambilan keputusan dilakukan dengan mengutamakan musyawarah mufakat, mengedepankan kualitas, ide, mengapresiasi hikmah kebijaksanaan dalam musyawarah. "Rasionalitas"-lah pemenang.
   Prinsip demokrasi Pancasila adalah "keterwakilan" dengan mengedepankan egalitarianisme, bukan "keterpilihan". Semua terwakili: berbagai kelompok etnis, termasuk minoritas, seperti suku-suku di Papua, Dayak, Badui, Anak Dalam; serta berbagai golongan dan kelompokprofesi harus terwakili di parlemen agar kepentingan mereka dapat diperjuangkan.Maka diperlukan sistem penunjukan agar berbagai kelompok minoritas sampai masyarakat tradisional pun terwakili. Tidak mungkin mereka terwakili dengan cara pemilihan langsung melalui sistem kompetisi bebas. Keterwakilan juga merupakan perekat bagi masyarakat/bangsa yang serba majemuk seperti Indonesia.
   Basis kulturalis bangsa Indonesia adalah kekeluargaan, kolektivisme. Karena itu, liberalisme tidak cocok diterapkan di Indonesia. Di samping itu, tingkat pendidikan dan kesejahteraan mayoritas rakyat juga masih berada di bawah sehingga seperti yang dikatakan oleh Prof Daoed Joesoef, "rakyat pemilih kita adalah rakyat yang pikirannya belum bebas untuk menentukan pendapat atau pilihan masih harus tanya kiri-kanan atau akan terbukan jalannya oleh uang."
   Sebenarnya keadaan jauh lebih buruk karena latar uang dalam menentukan pilihan politik tak hanya menghinggapi masyarakat bawah, tetapi juga sudah nerambah luas di kalangan yang maju dalam pendidikan serta mapan secara ekonomi. Maka, pemaksaan sistem liberalisme di Indonesia niscaya akan membuahkan kekacauan berkepanjangan dan dapat berujung pada disintegrasi.
   Kini, liberalisme-kapitalisme sedang limbung. Saatnya bangsa Indonesia melaksanaan perubahan, meluruskan kembali jalannya reformasi. Pemimpin MPR, presiden, dan elite politik sudah saatnya menginisiasi perubahan tanpa ragu-ragu. Kembali pada jiwa Pancasila, roh pembukaan UUD 1945. Tak hanya bicara sloganistik, menyosialisasikan Pancasila lewat ceramah tanpa perubahan sistemik.


Kiki Syahnakri, Ketua Dewan Pengkajian Persatuan Purnawirawan Angkatan Darat (PPAD).
Sumber: Kompas, 23 April 2012

Minggu, 13 Mei 2012

Paradoks Superioritas Barat

Oleh Rahman Andi Mangussara. Resensi buku Asia Hemisfer Baru Dunia (Kishore Mahbubani)

   "Selama hampir tiga abad terakhir, rakyat Asia, Afrika dan Amerika Latin menjadi obyek sejarah dunia. Keputusan-keputusan penting yang menentukan arah sejarah dibuat oleh segelintir ibu kota kunci di Barat: London, Paris, Berlin, dan Washington DC. Dewasa ini, 5,6 miliar penduduk dunia yang hidup di luar Barat tidak mau lagi menerima keputusan-keputusan yang dibuat atas nama mereka di kota-kota kunci Barat itu."
   Kutipan kalimat yang tertera pada halaman enam buku ini sungguh provokatif. Ini adalah pernyataan Kishore Mahbubani dalam Asia Hemisfer Baru Dunia: Pergeseran Kekuatan Global ke Timur yang Tak Terelakkan, yang menggambarkan dengan kalimat-kalimat keras dan tana tedeng aling-aling bagaimana Barat mendiktekan kehendaknya kepada 5,6 miliar penduduk dunia. Buku ini menyebutnya sebagai paradoks besar abad ke-21.
   Tak heran, pernyataan yang begitu keras itu dicap oleh The Economist sebagai anti-Barat. Mahbubani menyebut reaksi majalah yang menjadi corong ideologi Barat itu sebagai pembuktian atas tesisnya, yaitu bahwa masyarakat Barat memiliki sistem politik terbuka, tapi berpikiran tertutup.
   Namun, penguasa dunia itu mulai oleng. Krisis ekonomi di Amerika Serikta dan Eropa saat ini, serta ketidak mampuan mereka mengatasinya tanpa bantuan negara-negara lain, mengonfirmasikan bahwa Barat sudah tak setangguh seperti seperti periode sebelumnya.Sekaligus, pada saat yang sama, menjelaskan bahwa negara-negara lain, terutama Asia, sudah memiliki kemampuan nyaris setara dengan Barat. Langkah Amerika memanggil G-20 ketika negara ini pada 2008 terkena krisis finansial, dan bukannya negara-negara industri G-8, tulis Mahbubani, membuktikan bahwa "klub eksklusif" tak lagi relevan untuk mengatasi tantangan global.


Keberhasilan Asia
   Mahbubanimenggambarkan secara rinci kebangkitan Asia, tepatnya China dan India, sejak 30 tahun terakhir yang dimulai dari reformasi ekonomi di bawah kepemimpinan Deng Xiaoping. Kebangkitan ekonomi China dalam waktu kurang dari setengah abad memang membuat decak kagum banyak negara, bahkan oleh pengkritiknya yang paling sinis sekalipun. Tahun lalu, ekonomi China sudah menyalip Jepang di posisi kedua, membayang-bayangi Amerika. Bukan hanya Mahbubani yang memperkirakan  negara ini akan mengambil alih kepemimpinan Amerika. Menurut bank investasi Goldman Sachs, ekonomi China akan menjadi terbesar di dunia mengalahkan Amerika sekitar 16 tahun ke depan. Ini bukan waktu yang lama.
   Menurut penulis, semua keberhasilan Asia, khususnya China dan India, didapat setelah mengadopsi pikiran-pikiran dan jalan yang ditempuh Barat, yang selama ratusan tahun memang dipromosikan dengan gencar kepada negara-negara non-Barat. Semisal, bagaimana India mengambil jalan reformasi ekonomi dengan menerapkan pragmatisme. Negara berdimensi benua ini diperkirakan akan menjadi kekuatan ekonomi nomor tiga di Asia setekah China dan Jepang.
   Namun, apa yang terjadi sekarang? Setelah negara-negara Asia itu berhasil, dan bahkan melampaui Barat, sang guru ternayat tak rela. Banyak kalangan Barat tidak bisa membayangkan ada dunia lain yang akan muncul dan mengambil alih supremasi. Mereka masih menganggap Barat-lah yang terunggul dan paling beradab, selebihnya adalah bangsa barbar yang nasibnya ditentukan di Barat. Kepercayaan akan superioritas moral dan peradaban itu masih mereka pertahankan.
   Mahbubani memberi contoh betapa lembaga-lembaga internasional yang dibentuk seusai Perang Dunia II, seperti IMF dan Bank Dunia, masih memberi hak istimewa kepada Eropa dan Amerika, yaitu hanya Amerika yang bisa memimpin Bank Dunia, sedangkan orang Eropa memimpin IMF. "Pergeseran terbesarnya adalah 89 persen penduduk dunia yang hidup di luar Barat telah memutuskan untuk berhenti menjadi obyek sejarah dan mau menjadi subyek sejarah. Mereka telah memutuskan untuk mengambil kontrol atas nasib mereka dan tak lagi membiarkan nasib mereka ditentukan oleh lembaga-lembaga global yang didominasi Barat." (hlm 148).

Dewesternisasi
   Jika Barat ngotot meneruskan sikap tak demokratis dan mencoba menafikan keberhasilan Asia, menurut Mahbubani, sebuah pukulan balik akan menghantamnya. Dalam jangka pendek, sikap penolakan Barat itu akan melahirkan delegitimasi yang dibarengi oleh serangan balik kultural. "Kita telah memasuki era pergolakan, era turbulensi de-Westernisisasi" (hal 149).
   Mungkin banyak yang menyebut fase dewesternisasi ini sebagai terlalu berlebihan. Namun, satu yang pasti bahwa model pembangunan China memang telah melahirkan gugatan akan kesimpulan Fukuyama, bahwa model Barat dan demokrasi plus demokratisme sebagai akhir dari sejarah dan puncak pencapaian umat manusia. Jauh sebelum Uni Soviet hancur, yang membuat Fukuyama menarik kesimpulan tadi, memang Barat telah rajin memproduksi mitos bahwa Barat-lah yang unggul, sedangkan di luar itu barbar.
   Mahbubani tak lupa memasukkan peran media massa Barat yang getol menyebarluaskan sekaligus ikut memproduksi mitos itu. Media-media Barat  gemar menulis frase ini: pandangan komunitas internasional atau dunia beradab yang semuanya merujuk pada negara-negara Barat, dan bukan negara lain. Jadi, kalau mereka menulis: menurut pandangan komunitas internasional, maka yang dimaksud adalah Barat. Pun, jika tulisannya: menurut pandangan dunia beradab, yang dimaksud adalah juga dunia Barat.
   Buku ini, sekalipun judulnya memakai kata "Asia", sesungguhnya yang dimaksud adalah China dan India. Dua negara inilah yang dibahas. Negara-negara Asia lainnya hanya disinggung selintas, tak terkecuali Indonesia. Sama seperti sejumlah publikasi lain.yang mebahas kebangkitan China, buku ini sangat percaya bahwa China, kelak pada waktunya, akan mengambil alih dan duduk di hierarki kepemimpinan global. Siapa yang bisa menebak arah sejarah?

Rahman Andi Mangussara, penggagas Buku KITA, peulis resensi buku dan film)

Minggu, 06 Mei 2012

Bersiap Menghadapi Model Kerja Sama Gabungan

Oleh: Rene Pattiradjawane, Kompas, Sabtu. 5 Mei 2012, hal 10

   Hari Buruh pada awal bulan Mei diperingati di berbagai negara di dunia, diikuti oleh ratusan ribu orang di masing-masing negara, mulai dari Indonesia sampai Kuba. Di daratan China, Hari Buruh adalah hari libur nasional masuk kategori "minggu emas" karena libur selama seminggu sama halnya dengan libur Tahun Baru Imlek.

   Sejak Revolusi Industri yang berlangsung 100 tahun sejak tahun 1750, posisi kaum buruh terombang antara bentrokan ideologi dan adu kekuatan politik, menempatkan kaum pekerja pada lapisan terbawah di dalam kemajuan industri yang mengubah tatanan pertanian, manufaktur, pertambangan, transportasi dan teknologi.
   Celakanya, perjuangan kelas yang dimulai sejak diterbitkannya "Manifesto Komunis" tahun 1949 oleh Karl Marx ternyata tidak menghasilkan kemenangan kaum proletariat yang memiliki lambang palu arit untk menggulingkan kelompok borjuasi yang menguasai dan memiliki alat-alat produksi.
   Revolusi yang selalu muncul dalam sejareah perjuangan kelas, menurut Marx, selalu menyebabkan terjadinya  restrukturisasi masyarakat, dan terus berputar karena kaum borjuasi selalu secara konstan melakukan  eskploitasi melalui berbagai revolusi produksi menciptakan gangguan-gangguan terus-menerus terhadap kondisi sosial.
   Francis Fukuyama, pemulis buku terkenal The End of History and the Last Man (1992), dalam tulisannya "The Future of History: Can Liberal Democracy Survive the Decline of the Middle Class?" di jurnal Foreign Affairs (Januari/Februari 2012) menyebutkan, yang terjadi adalah kompetisi yang berlangsung lebih dari satu abad.
   Persaingan dimulai antara kepemimpinan gerakan demokrasi melalui komunisme yang mau melepaskan diri dari demokrasi prosedural (pemilu multipartai) untuk digantikan dengan demokrasi substantif (redistribusi ekonomi) berhadapan dengan kelompok demokrat liberal yang percaya untuk memperluas partisipasi politik dengan tetap mempertahankan penegakan hukum melindungi hak individu, termasuk hak kepemilikan.

Mencegah kontaminasi
   Persoalan yang kita hadapi sekarang kaum buruh juga berkembang menjadi sebuah kelas yang terpecah antara pekerja kerah putih dan kerah biru yang bekerja dalam perusahaan multinasional yang sudah tidak lagi mengenal batas-batas nasionalisme beroperasi di lebih dari 30 negara di seluruh dunia.
   Para pekerja inipun berkembang pesat menjadi bagian dari masyarakat dunia akibat kemajuan teknologi komunikasi informasi, memberikan peluang dan kesempatan yang seluas-luasnya kepada siapa saja. Partisipasi politik dalam globalisasi sekarang ini menjadi tidak relevan, apalgi ketika muncul "model China" yang menjadi pilihan alternatif dalam menghadapi gagasan demokrasi liberal.
   Perdebatan ini dalam konteks krisis zona euro sebenarnya kembali menekankan persoalan penguasaan alat produksi, termasuk modal yang mekanisme finansialnya menjadi taruhan antara para politisi serakah serta mereka yang khawatir program pengetatan menyebabkan kesengsaraan dan pemulihan ekonomi tidak terjadi.
   Pilihannya adalah menaikkan pajak kelompok borjuasi yang di Perancis dipikirkan untuk dinaikkan sampai 75% bagi para jutawan. Dan para pekerja kerah putih yang bekerja di lembaga-lembaga keuangan dunia menjadi momok bagi siapa saja di seluruh dunia karena ulah dan tindakan mereka mampu memaksa pemerintahan di mana saja melakukan privatisasi usaha-usaha milik negara.
   Bagai kelas buruh dan pekerja di Eropa, kebijakan pengetatan anggaran di negara-negara anggota Uni Eropa sepertinya tidak memiliki visi tentang kapitalisme dan globalisasi yang terus-menerus didesak oleh AS sebagai upaya untuk mencegah terkontaminasinya kembali perekonomian mereka akibat terpuruknya benua Eropa.

Produk bersama
   Dari situasi kawasan Eropa, jelas program pengetatan keuangan Uni Eropa (UE) tidak banyak membantu perkembangan dan pertumbuhan kelas pekerja dan buruh di dun Semangat UE untuk memimpin jalan ketiga global antara kapitalisme laissez-faire dan sosialisme yang terkendalikan kandas. Perkembangan globalisasi dunia pada dua dekade terkahir ternayat memang menghadirkan beragam bentuk kapitalisme yang memiliki derajat, bahkan taruhan yang berbeda satu sama lain yang tidak bisa diselaraskan oleh masyarakat.
   Yang menarik dari berbagai perkembangan ini sebenarnya usulan yang disampaikann oleh Wakil PM China Li Keqiang dalam artikelnya berjudul "China Has High Hopes for European Ties" yang dimuat harian Financial Time tanggal 1 Mei 2012. Menurut Li, yang menjadi bagian penting dalam regenerasi Partai Komunis China (PKC), China berharap ada keterbukaan dan kerja sama yang lebih luas di Eropa.
   "Secara ekonomi, kedua kawasan memiliki keuntungan dari masing-masing kekuatan yang ada, dan ini fitur dalam menentukan hubungan China-Uni Eropa," tulis Li Keqiang. Ditambahkan, "Ketika 'dirancang di Eropa' dikombinasikan dengan 'dibuat di China' dan ketika berbagai teknologi Eropa diejawantahkan ke pasaran China hasilnya akan luar biasa.
   Li Keqiang percaya China dan Eropa bisa mencapai keberhasilan untuk mengembangkan model pembangunan sesuai kondisi masing-masing.
   Gagasan untuk menciptakan produk bersama memang menjadi pilihan menarik, dan perlu dicermati dan dipertimbangkan secara sedrius bagi kelangsungan masa depan bersama.
   Jika ini terjadi, pertanyaan berikut adalah dimana posisi kita di Asia Tenggara dan benua Afrika yangselama ini menyediakan berbagai sumber bahan mentah bagi pertumbuhan ekonomi mereka?

Fukuyama on Socialism

Francis Fukuyama became very famous (some might say notorious) with reviving of the old Hegelian thesis of the End of History via the interpretation of the prominent Hegelian scholar Alexandre Kojeve. Fukuyama's chief work The End of History and the Last Man (1992)restates and advances his views that democracy has proved to be the best regime in an article by the same name which was written for the journal National Interest in 1989 and can be found here.

With the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 has become the most significant symbol that Liberal democracy prevailed in the Cold War against its archrival ideology - Soviet socialism, thus making it the supreme political ideology and ultimately ending the historical debate."The triumph of the West, of the Western idea, is evident first of all in the total exhaustion of viable systematic alternatives to Western liberalism." (Fukuyama 1989:1) On the other hand no substantially better political organisation could be conceived. Historically liberal democracy has its little room for improvement. While it is true that in the earlier years of democracy women and workers were not allowed to vote this was an imperfection that could and eventually was readjusted.

Following this line of reasoning one should detect the end of history earlier. Fukuyama-Kojeve go back to the battle of Jena of 1806 pinpointing that event as the official watershed when history was decided. In this battle the victorious armies of Napoleon bringing the ideas of the French revolution defeat the monarchical Prussian forces which are an allegory of the old regime.

In his book Fukuyama advances also another idea. Following Hegel and contra Marx he gives precedence of ideas over materialism. Furthermore Fukuyama emphasizes on the role of what he interprets to be the Platonic "thymos" or the Hegelian search for recognition. Humans are not driven by mere animal instincts or search for material riches. There is something more. Human beings are driven by the desire to be recognized by others. Only humans could enter into battles of life and death merely for the sake to be recognized. The quest for recognition is at the heart of Hegelian Master-slave dialectic.

In this short blogpost I wanted however to share Fukuyama's views on socialism in a short excerpt from the chapter named "A vacation in Bulgaria" pp 168-9:


As Havel puts it,

The essential aims of life are present naturally in every person. In everyone there is some longing for humanity's rightful dignity, for moral integrity, for free expression of being and a sense of transcendence over the world of existences.

1 1
On the other hand, Havel notes that "each person is capable, to a greater or lesser degree, of coming to terms with living within the lie." His condemnation of the post-totalitarian communist state revolves around the damage that communism has done to people's moral character, to their belief in their capacity to act as
moral agents-the greengrocer's absent sense of dignity when he agrees to put up the sign "Workers of the World, Unite! " Dignity and its opposite, humiliation, are the two most common words used by Havel in describing life in communist Czechoslovakia.

1 2
Communism humiliated ordinary people by forcing them to make a myriad of petty, and sometimes not so petty, moral compromises with their better natures. These took the form of putting upa sign in one's store window, or signing a petition denouncing a colleague for doing something the state did not like, or simply
remaining silent when that colleague was unjustly persecuted. The seedy post-totalitarian states of the Brezhnev era tried to make everybody morally complicit not through terror but, ironically
enough, by dangling before them the fruits of modern consumer culture. These were not the spectacular baubles that fueled the greed of the American investment banker of the 1980s, but small things like a refrigerator, a bigger apartment, or a vacation in Bulgaria, which loomed large to people with few material possessions.
Communism, in a much more thoroughgoing way than "bourgeois" liberalism, fortified the desiring part of the soul against the thymotic part. Havel's charge against communism is not at all that it failed in its promise to deliver the material plenty of industrial efficiency, or that it disappointed the hopes of the working class or the poor for a better life. On the contrary, it did offer them these things in a Faustian bargain, requiring them to
compromise their moral worth in return. And in making this bargain, the victims of the system became its perpetuators, while the system itself took on a life of its own independently of anyone's desire to participate in it.

Fukuyama (1992: 168-9)

Bibliography:
Fukuyama. F., 1989. “The End of History?” The National Interest, Summer 1989 http://www.kropfpolisci.com/exceptionalism.fukuyama.pdf

Fukuyama. F., 1992. The End of History and the Last Man New York: The Free Press.

The Future of History.

By: Fukuyama, Francis, Foreign Affairs, 00157120, Jan/Feb2012, Vol. 91, Issue 1

Can Liberal Democracy Survive the Decline of the Middle Class?
   Something strange is going on in the world today. The global financial crisis that began in 2008 and the ongoing crisis of the euro are both products of the model of lightly regulated financial capitalism that emerged over the past three decades. Yet despite widespread anger at Wall Street bailouts, there has been no great upsurge of left-wing American populism in response. It is conceivable that the Occupy Wall Street movement will gain traction, but the most dynamic recent populist movement to date has been the right-wing Tea Party, whose main target is the regulatory state that seeks to protect ordinary people from financial speculators. Something similar is true in Europe as well, where the left is anemic and right-wing populist parties are on the move.
   There are several reasons for this lack of left-wing mobilization, but chief among them is a failure in the realm of ideas. For the past generation, the ideological high ground on economic issues has been held by a libertarian right. The left has not been able to make a plausible case for an agenda other than a return to an unaffordable form of old-fashioned social democracy. This absence of a plausible progressive counter-narrative is unhealthy, because competition is good for intellectual debate just as it is for economic activity. And serious intellectual debate is urgently needed, since the current form of globalized capitalism is eroding the middle-class social base on which liberal democracy rests.

THE DEMOCRATIC WAVE
   Social forces and conditions do not simply "determine" ideologies, as Karl Marx once maintained, but ideas do not become powerful unless they speak to the concerns of large numbers of ordinary people. Liberal democracy is the default ideology around much of the world today in part because it responds to and is facilitated by certain socioeconomic structures. Changes in those structures may have ideological consequences, just as ideological changes may have socioeconomic consequences.
   Almost all the powerful ideas that shaped human societies up until the past 300 years were religious in nature, with the important exception of Confucianism in China. The first major secular ideology to have a lasting worldwide effect was liberalism, a doctrine associated with the rise of first a commercial and then an industrial middle class in certain parts of Europe in the seventeenth century. (By "middle class," I mean people who are neither at the top nor at the bottom of their societies in terms of income, who have received at least a secondary education, and who own either real property, durable goods, or their own businesses.)
   As enunciated by classic thinkers such as Locke, Montesquieu, and Mill, liberalism holds that the legitimacy of state authority ' derives from the state's ability to protect the individual rights of its citizens and that state power needs to be limited by the adherence to law. One of the fundamental rights to be protected is that of private property; England's Glorious Revolution of 1688-89 was critical to the development of modern liberalism because it first established the constitutional principle that the state could not legitimately tax its citizens without their consent.
   At first, liberalism did not necessarily imply democracy. The Whigs who supported the constitutional settlement of 1689 tended to be the wealthiest property owners in England; the parliament of that period represented less than ten percent of the whole population. Many classic liberals, including Mill, were highly skeptical of the virtues of democracy: they believed that responsible political participation required education and a stake in society--that is, property ownership. Up through the end of the nineteenth century, the franchise was limited by property and educational requirements in virtually all parts of Europe. Andrew Jackson's election as U.S. president in 1828 and his subsequent abolition of property requirements for voting, at least for white males, thus marked an important early victory for a more robust democratic principle.
   In Europe, the exclusion of the vast majority of the population from political power and the rise of an industrial working class paved the way for Marxism. The Communist Manifesto was published in 1848, the same year that revolutions spread to all the major European countries save the United Kingdom. And so began a century of competition for the leadership of the democratic movement between communists, who were willing to jettison procedural democracy (multiparty elections) in favor of what they believed was substantive democracy (economic redistribution), and liberal democrats, who believed in expanding political participation while maintaining a rule of law protecting individual rights, including property rights.
   At stake was the allegiance of the new industrial working class. Early Marxists believed they would win by sheer force of numbers: as the franchise was expanded in the late nineteenth century, parties such as the United Kingdom's Labour and Germany's Social Democrats grew by leaps and bounds and threatened the hegemony of both conservatives and traditional liberals. The rise of the working class was fiercely resisted, often by nondemocratic means; the communists and many socialists, in turn, abandoned formal democracy in favor of a direct seizure of power.
   Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, there was a strong consensus on the progressive left that some form of socialism--government control of the commanding heights of the economy in order to ensure an egalitarian distribution of wealth--was unavoidable for all advanced countries. Even a conservative economist such as Joseph Schumpeter could write in his 1942 book, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, that socialism would emerge victorious because capitalist society was culturally self-undermining.Socialism was believed to represent the will and interests of the vast majority of people in modern societies.
   Yet even as the great ideological conflicts of the twentieth century played themselves out on a political and military level, critical changes were happening on a social level that undermined the Marxist scenario. First, the real living standards of the industrial working class kept rising, to the point where many workers or their children were able to join the middle class. Second, the relative size of the working class stopped growing and actually began to decline, particularly in the second half of the twentieth century, when services began to displace manufacturing in what were labeled "postindustrial" economies. Finally, a new group of poor or disadvantaged people emerged below the industrial working class--a heterogeneous mixture of racial and ethnic minorities, recent immigrants, and socially excluded groups, such as women, gays, and the disabled. As a result of these changes, in most industrialized societies, the old working class has become just another domestic interest group, one using the political power of trade unions to protect the hard-won gains of an earlier era.
   Economic class, moreover, turned out not to be a great banner under which to mobilize populations in advanced industrial countries for political action. The Second International got a rude wake-up call in 1914, when the working classes of Europe abandoned calls for class warfare and lined up behind conservative leaders preaching nationalist slogans, a pattern that persists to the present day. Many Marxists tried to explain this, according to the scholar Ernest Gellner, by what he dubbed the "wrong address theory":
   Just as extreme Shi'ite Muslims hold that Archangel Gabriel made a mistake, delivering the Message to Mohamed when it was intended for Ali, so Marxists basically like to think that the spirit of history or human consciousness made a terrible boob. The awakening message was intended for classes, but by some terrible postal error was delivered to nations.
   Gellner went on to argue that religion serves a function similar to nationalism in the contemporary Middle East: it mobilizes people effectively because it has a spiritual and emotional content that class consciousness does not. Just as European nationalism was driven by the shift of Europeans from the countryside to cities in the late nineteenth century, so, too, Islamism is a reaction to the urbanization and displacement taking place in contemporary Middle Eastern societies. Marx's letter will never be delivered to the address marked "class."
   Marx believed that the middle class, or at least the capital-owning slice of it that he called the bourgeoisie, would always remain a small and privileged minority in modern societies.What happened instead was that the bourgeoisie and the middle class more generally ended up constituting the vast majority of the populations of most advanced countries, posing problems for socialism. From the days of Aristotle, thinkers have believed that stable democracy rests on a broad middle class and that societies with extremes of wealth and poverty are susceptible either to oligarchic domination or populist revolution. When much of the developed world succeeded in creating middle-class societies, the appeal of Marxism vanished.The only places where leftist radicalism persists as a powerful force are in highly unequal areas of the world, such as parts of Latin America, Nepal, and the impoverished regions of eastern India.
   What the political scientist Samuel Huntington labeled the "third wave" of global democratization, which began in southern Europe in the 1970s and culminated in the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989, increased the number of electoral democracies around the world from around 45 in 1970 to more than 120 by the late 1990s. Economic growth has led to the emergence of new middle classes in countries such as Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa, and Turkey. As the economist Moisés Naím has pointed out, these middle classes are relatively well educated, own property, and are technologically connected to the outside world. They are demanding of their governments and mobilize easily as a result of their access to technology. It should not be surprising that the chief instigators of the Arab Spring uprisings were well-educated Tunisians and Egyptians whose expectations for jobs and political participation were stymied by the dictatorships under which they lived.
   Middle-class people do not necessarily support democracy in principle: like everyone else, they are self-interested actors who want to protect their property and position. In countries such as China and Thailand, many middle-class people feel threatened by the redistributive demands of the poor and hence have lined up in support of authoritarian governments that protect their class interests. Nor is it the case that democracies necessarily meet the expectations of their own middle classes, and when they do not, the middle classes can become restive.

THE LEAST BAD ALTERNATIVE?
   There is today a broad global consensus about the legitimacy, at least in principle, of liberal democracy. In the words of the economist Amartya Sen, "While democracy is not yet universally practiced, nor indeed uniformly accepted, in the general climate of world opinion, democratic governance has now achieved the status of being taken to be generally right." It is most broadly accepted in countries that have reached a level of material prosperity sufficient to allow a majority of their citizens to think of themselves as middle class, which is why there tends to be a correlation between high levels of development and stable democracy.
   Some societies, such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, reject liberal democracy in favor of a form of Islamic theocracy. Yet these regimes are developmental dead ends, kept alive only because they sit atop vast pools of oil. There was at one time a large Arab exception to the third wave, but the Arab Spring has shown that Arab publics can be mobilized against dictatorship just as readily as those in Eastern Europe and Latin America were. This does not of course mean that the path to a well-functioning democracy will be easy or straightforward in Tunisia, Egypt, or Libya, but it does suggest that the desire for political freedom and participation is not a cultural peculiarity of Europeans and Americans.
   The single most serious challenge to liberal democracy in the world today comes from China, which has combined authoritarian government with a partially marketized economy. China is heir to a long and proud tradition of highquality bureaucratic government, one that stretches back over two millennia. Its leaders have managed a hugely complex transition from a centralized, Soviet-style planned economy to a dynamic open one and have done so with remarkable competence--more competence, frankly, than U.S. leaders have shown in the management of their own macroeconomic policy recently. Many people currently admire the Chinese system not just for its economic record but also because it can make large, complex decisions quickly, compared with the agonizing policy paralysis that has struck both the United States and Europe in the past few years. Especially since the recent financial crisis, the Chinese themselves have begun touting the "China model" as an alternative to liberal democracy.
   This model is unlikely to ever become a serious alternative to liberal democracy in regions outside East Asia, however. In the first place, the model is culturally specific: the Chinese government is built around a long tradition of meritocratic recruitment, civil service examinations, a high emphasis on education, and deference to technocratic authority. Few developing countries can hope to emulate this model; those that have, such as Singapore and South Korea (at least in an earlier period), were already within the Chinese cultural zone. The Chinese themselves are skeptical about whether their model can be exported; the so-called Beijing consensus is a Western invention, not a Chinese one.
   It is also unclear whether the model can be sustained. Neither export-driven growth nor the top-down approach to decision making will continue to yield good results forever. The fact that the Chinese government would not permit open discussion of the disastrous high-speed rail accident last summer and could not bring the Railway Ministry responsible for it to heel suggests that there are other time bombs hidden behind the facade of efficient decision making.
   Finally, China faces a great moral vulnerability down the road. The Chinese government does not force its officials to respect the basic dignity of its citizens. Every week, there are new protests about land seizures, environmental violations, or gross corruption on the part of some official. While the country is growing rapidly, these abuses can be swept under the carpet. But rapid growth will not continue forever, and the government will have to pay a price in pent-up anger. The regime no longer has any guiding ideal around which it is organized; it is run by a Communist Party supposedly committed to equality that presides over a society marked by dramatic and growing inequality.
   So the stability of the Chinese system can in no way be taken for granted. The Chinese government argues that its citizens are culturally different and will always prefer benevolent, growth-promoting dictatorship to a messy democracy that threatens social stability. But it is unlikely that a spreading middle class will behave all that differently in China from the way it has behaved in other parts of the world. Other authoritarian regimes may be trying to emulate China's success, but there is little chance that much of the world will look like today's China 50 years down the road.

DEMOCRACY'S FUTURE
   There is a broad correlation among economic growth, social change, and the hegemony of liberal democratic ideology in the world today. And at the moment, no plausible rival ideology looms. But some very troubling economic and social trends, if they continue, will both threaten the stability of contemporary liberal democracies and dethrone democratic ideology as it is now understood.
   The sociologist Barrington Moore once flatly asserted, "No bourgeois, no democracy." The Marxists didn't get their communist Utopia because mature capitalism generated middle-class societies, not working-class ones. But what if the further development of technology and globalization undermines the middle class and makes it impossible for more than a minority of citizens in an advanced society to achieve middle-class status?
   There are already abundant signs that such a phase of development has begun. Median incomes in the United States have been stagnating in real terms since the 1970s. The economic impact of this stagnation has been softened to some extent by the fact that most U.S. households have shifted to two income earners in the past generation. Moreover, as the economist Raghuram Rajan has persuasively argued, since Americans are reluctant to engage in straightforward redistribution, the United States has instead attempted a highly dangerous and inefficient form of redistribution over the past generation by subsidizing mortgages for low-income households. This trend, facilitated by a flood of liquidity pouring in from China and other countries, gave many ordinary Americans the illusion that their standards of living were rising steadily during the past decade. In this respect, the bursting of the housing bubble in 2008-9 was nothing more than a cruel reversion to the mean. Americans may today benefit from cheap cell phones, inexpensive clothing, and Facebook, but they increasingly cannot afford their own homes, or health insurance, or comfortable pensions when they retire.
   A more troubling phenomenon, identified by the venture capitalist Peter Thiel and the economist Tyler Cowen, is that the benefits of the most recent waves of technological innovation have accrued disproportionately to the most talented and well-educated members of society. This phenomenon helped cause the massive growth of inequality in the United States over the past generation. In 1974, the top one percent of families took home nine percent of GDP; by 2007, that share had increased to 23.5 percent.
Trade and tax policies may have accelerated this trend, but the real villain here is technology. In earlier phases of industrialization--the ages of textiles, coal, steel, and the internal combustion engine--the benefits of technological changes almost always flowed down in significant ways to the rest of society in terms of employment. But this is not a law of nature. We are today living in what the scholar Shoshana Zuboff has labeled "the age of the smart machine," in which technology is increasingly able to substitute for more and higher human functions. Every great advance for Silicon Valley likely means a loss of low-skill jobs elsewhere in the economy, a trend that is unlikely to end anytime soon.
   Inequality has always existed, as a result of natural differences in talent and character. But today's technological world vastly magnifies those differences. In a nineteenth-century agrarian society, people with strong math skills did not have that many opportunities to capitalize on their talent. Today, they can become financial wizards or software engineers and take home ever-larger proportions of the national wealth.
   The other factor undermining middle-class incomes in developed countries is globalization. With the lowering of transportation and communications costs and the entry into the global work force of hundreds of millions of new workers in developing countries, the kind of work done by the old middle class in the developed world can now be performed much more cheaply elsewhere. Under an economic model that prioritizes the maximization of aggregate income, it is inevitable that jobs will be outsourced.
   Smarter ideas and policies could have contained the damage. Germany has succeeded in protecting a significant part of its manufacturing base and industrial labor force even as its companies have remained globally competitive. The United States and the United Kingdom, on the other hand, happily embraced the transition to the postindustrial service economy. Free trade became less a theory than an ideology: when members of the U.S. Congress tried to retaliate with trade sanctions against China for keeping its currency undervalued, they were indignantly charged with protectionism, as if the playing field were already level.
   There was a lot of happy talk about the wonders of the knowledge economy, and how dirty, dangerous manufacturing jobs would inevitably be replaced by highly educated workers doing creative and interesting things. This was a gauzy veil placed over the hard facts of deindustrialization. It overlooked the fact that the benefits of the new order accrued disproportionately to a very small number of people in finance and high technology, interests that dominated the media and the general political conversation.

THE ABSENT LEFT

   One of the most puzzling features of the world in the aftermath of the financial crisis is that so far, populism has taken primarily a right-wing form, not a left-wing one.
   In the United States, for example, although the Tea Party is anti-elitist in its rhetoric, its members vote for
conservative politicians who serve the interests of precisely those financiers and corporate elites they claim to
despise. There are many explanations for this phenomenon. They include a deeply embedded belief in equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome and the fact that cultural issues, such as abortion and gun rights, crosscut economic ones.
   But the deeper reason a broad-based populist left has failed to materialize is an intellectual one. It has been several decades since anyone on the left has been able to articulate, first, a coherent analysis of what happens to the structure of advanced societies as they undergo economic change and, second, a realistic agenda that has any hope of protecting a middle-class society.
   The main trends in left-wing thought in the last two generations have been, frankly, disastrous as either conceptual frameworks or tools for mobilization. Marxism died many years ago, and the few old believers still around are ready for nursing homes. The academic left replaced it with postmodernism, multiculturalism, feminism, critical theory, and a host of other fragmented intellectual trends that are more cultural than economic in focus. Postmodernism begins with a denial of the possibility of any master narrative of history or society, undercutting its own authority as a voice for the majority of citizens who feel betrayed by their elites. Multiculturalism validates the victimhood of virtually every out-group. It is impossible to generate a mass progressive movement on the basis of such a motley coalition: most of the working- and lower-middle-class citizens victimized by the system are culturally conservative and would be embarrassed to be seen in the presence of allies like this.
   Whatever the theoretical justifications underlying the left's agenda, its biggest problem is a lack of credibility. Over the past two generations, the mainstream left has followed a social democratic program that centers on the state provision of a variety of services, such as pensions, health care, and education. That model is now exhausted: welfare states have become big, bureaucratic, and inflexible; they are often captured by the very organizations that administer them, through public-sector unions; and, most important, they are fiscally unsustainable given the aging of populations virtually everywhere in the developed world. Thus, when existing social democratic parties come to power, they no longer aspire to be more than custodians of a welfare state that was created decades ago; none has a new, exciting agenda around which to rally the masses.
\
AN IDEOLOGY OF THE FUTURE
   Imagine, for a moment, an obscure scribbler today in a garret somewhere trying to outline an ideology of the future that could provide a realistic path toward a world with healthy middle-class societies and robust democracies. What would that ideology look like?
   It would have to have at least two components, political and economic. Politically, the new ideology would need to reassert the supremacy of democratic politics over economics and legitimate anew government as an expression of the public interest. But the agenda it put forward to protect middle-class life could not simply rely on the existing mechanisms of the welfare state. The ideology would need to somehow redesign the public sector, freeing it from its dependence on existing stakeholders and using new, technology-empowered approaches to delivering services. It would have to argue forth-rightly for more redistribution and present a realistic route to ending interest groups' domination of politics.
   Economically, the ideology could not begin with a denunciation of capitalism as such, as if old-fashioned socialism were still a viable alternative. It is more the variety of capitalism that is at stake and the degree to which governments should help societies adjust to change. Globalization need be seen not as an inexorable fact of life but rather as a challenge and an opportunity that must be carefully controlled politically. The new ideology would not see markets as an end in themselves; instead, it would value global trade and investment to the extent that they contributed to a flourishing middle class, not just to greater aggregate national wealth.
It is not possible to get to that point, however, without providing a serious and sustained critique of much of the edifice of modern neoclassical economics, beginning with fundamental assumptions such as the sovereignty of individual preferences and that aggregate income is an accurate measure of national well-being. This critique would have to note that people's incomes do not necessarily represent their true contributions to society. It would have to go further, however, and recognize that even if labor markets were efficient, the natural distribution of talents is not necessarily fair and that individuals are not sovereign entities but beings heavily shaped by their surrounding societies.
   Most of these ideas have been around in bits and pieces for some time; the scribbler would have to put them into a coherent package. He or she would also have to avoid the "wrong address" problem. The critique of globalization, that is, would have to be tied to nationalism as a strategy for mobilization in a way that defined national interest in a more sophisticated way than, for example, the "Buy American" campaigns of unions in the United States. The product would be a synthesis of ideas from both the left and the right, detached from the agenda of the marginalized groups that constitute the existing progressive movement. The ideology would be populist; the message would begin with a critique of the elites that allowed the benefit of the many to be sacrificed to that of the few and a critique of the money politics, especially in Washington, that overwhelmingly benefits the wealthy.
   The dangers inherent in such a movement are obvious: a pullback by the United States, in particular, from itsadvocacy of a more open global system could set off protectionist responses elsewhere. In many respects, the Reagan-Thatcher revolution succeeded just as its proponents hoped, bringing about an increasingly competitive, globalized, friction-free world. Along the way, it generated tremendous wealth and created rising middle classes all over the developing world, and the spread of democracy in their wake. It is possible that the developed world is on the cusp of a series of technological breakthroughs that will not only increase productivity but also provide meaningful employment to large numbers of middle-class people.
   But that is more a matter of faith than a reflection of the empirical reality of the last 30 years, which points in the opposite direction. Indeed, there are a lot of reasons to think that inequality will continue to worsen.    The current concentration of wealth in the United States has already become self-reinforcing: as the economist Simon Johnson has argued, the financial sector has used its lobbying clout to avoid more onerous forms of regulation. Schools for the well-off are better than ever; those for everyone else continue to deteriorate.Elites in all societies use their superior access to the political system to protect their interests, absent a countervailing democratic mobilization to rectify the situation. American elites are no exception to the rule.
   That mobilization will not happen, however, as long as the middle classes of the developed world remain enthralled by the narrative of the past generation: that their interests will be best served by ever-freer markets and smaller states. The alternative narrative is out there, waiting to be born.
~~~~~~~~
By Francis Fukuyama
FRANCIS FUKUYAMA is a Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University and the author, most recently, of The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution.