THINKING THE REVOLUTIONS OF 1989

The revolutions of 1989 have been, above all, revolutions for liberty (from the yoke of the State). The question raised here is whether they are likely to achieve their main objective. Since 1789, there have been many such revolutions, but very few have achieved regimes of genuine self-government. What little social theory we have on this subject (mostly from de Tocqueville) suggests that societies under totalitarian regimes are even less likely than other authoritarian regimes to spawn the kind of social and cultural infrastructures necessary for self-government to function on a self-sustaining basis. So the prospects of libertarian regimes emerging from these revolutions seem slim at best. A more likely outcome is for them to replace the old totalitarian regimes with 'state-dominated' regimes, characterized by powerful centralized states, significant domains of functional autonomy (economy, cultural production, etc.), and relatively extensive individual freedoms. Such regimes come in two types - or go through two phases - 'hegemonic' and 'domineering', depending on how effectively the State controls non-State formations.