Political Default

Between Oct. 1 and 17 — the dates of the crisis which the U.S. has suffered in two stages: the problems of the budget extension and the authorized increase in the public debt ceiling — President Obama was supposed to have been visiting various countries and re-establishing what was a geopolitical priority for him when he entered the White House: Asia.

The world’s most powerful man was unable to attend the Asia-Pacific and Southeast Asian Summits because of the internal problems in the U.S., which left the starring roles to his Russian and Chinese counterparts (and main rivals in the fight for influence in Asia), Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping respectively. The U.S. government closure and the possibility of the world’s largest economy defaulting on its debts — which would, according to many experts, have caused a “Lehman Brothers moment” similar to what happened in autumn 2008 — meant that President Obama was not present in Bali, Brunei, Malaysia or the Philippines. This calls into question the efficacy of democracy in the U.S., with its counterbalances and divisions of power (which, despite everything, are often more agile than their European equivalents) compared to decision-making systems such as, for example, the Chinese Mandarinate.

Beyond the agreement, reached in extremis between Democrats and Republicans to put the problem off until next January and February, what has been transmitted live from the U.S. over the past few days is the public expression of an inadequacy that is limiting this country as a world leader and secondly (but no less importantly), a massive polarization of the political class characterized not by a Democratic swing to the left but by the brutal contortion of a section of the Republican party toward the extreme right. This faction of the extreme right enjoys the rhetorical support of certain think tanks and the financial backing of some partisan business leaders who want permanent tax cuts, a block to any expansion of the regulatory system (to avoid a repeat of what has happened over the last five years) and, most of all, to prevent the implementation of the proposed health care reforms which were the original cause of the conflict. This polarization has yet to bear its worst fruits. It is, as Obama put it, an “ideological crusade” for which some are willing to sacrifice the normal functioning of the country.

The main difference between the potential disaster of the last few days, which may still happen at the beginning of 2014, and the collapse of Lehman Brothers half a decade ago is that what is happening now is self-inflicted, a deliberate sacrifice of the U.S. economy that has the potential to infect the rest of the world; playing with fire for strictly ideological reasons. This is a voluntary weakening of the economy, which in the process causes political and psychological damage to the whole concept of democracy as the best way of making decisions.