A Better World – for Americans and Europeans

All these recommendations are based on a fundamental assumption that Western minds need to understand that, for over two centuries, they have been aggressive and interventionist. Now it is in their strategic interests to be prudent and non-interventionist. This will benefit the world, as outlined above. It will also benefit Western populations.

The West was the first civilization to break out of the clutches of superstition and ignorance that dominated the feudal eras of human history. The West also deserves the credit for carrying humanity to our current era of unprecedented peace and prosperity. Yet instead of celebrating these achievements, Western populations are pessimistic and despondent. According to the 2017 Deloitte Millennial Survey, ‘Millennials in emerging markets generally expect to be both financially (71 per cent) and emotionally (62 per cent) better off than their parents. This is in stark contrast to mature markets, where only 36 per cent of millennials predict they will be financially better off than their parents and 31 per cent say they’ll be happier.’85 Similarly, according to the 2014 Pew Global Attitudes Survey, ‘Most of those surveyed in richer nations think children in their country will be worse off financially than their parents. In contrast, emerging and developing nations are more optimistic that the next generation will have a higher standard of living.’86

A less adversarial relationship between the West and the Rest will help to dispel the clouds of pessimism that now envelop Western societies. Erstwhile adversaries, like China and the Islamic world, will be seen as strong potential economic partners, not threats. When the global middle-class population explodes from 1.8 billion in 2009 to 4.9 billion in 2030,⁸⁷ it will present new opportunities for the competitive Western economies.

There is no doubt that the Western elites failed to prepare their populations for the inevitable ‘creative destruction’ that flowed from China’s admission into the WTO in 2001. As a result, the elites have lost the trust of their populations. Martin Wolf described it well: ‘The elites – the policy-making, business and financial elites – are increasingly disliked. You need to make policy which brings people to think again that their societies are run in a decent and civilized way.’⁸⁸

Fortunately, this problem can be solved. Many societies, from Sweden to Singapore, have devised various social safety nets to help the working classes handle the disruptions of globalization. The solution is not to close the doors to free trade. The theory of comparative advantage still holds true. Asia is rising because it remains committed to this theory. The Western elites need to regain their intellectual confidence and explain again to the masses how it works. To do so, however, they have to overcome their current bitter divisiveness.

Unfortunately, the current political environments in both America and Europe are not conducive to deep, long-term reflection. In theory, this reflection should come easily to the liberal and open-minded elites. However, on both sides of the Atlantic, they are now consumed by different kinds of civil wars.

America has never been as deeply divided as it has become since Trump’s election. Trump is clearly ignorant about the world. His constant emphasis on ‘America first’ is alienating. However, the liberal opposition is not making matters any better. None of the liberal bastions of thought are prepared to contemplate the possibility that they, too, may have been part of the problem.

The New York Times, for example, remains unrepentant. It takes no responsibility for failing to explain why so many working-class – especially white – Americans had become so disconnected with the messianic worldview of American elites. The elites clearly enjoyed the rich pickings they got from surfing on the globalization that America launched. They refused to see the pain that the same massive change had wrought upon the masses. There is one glaring statistic to sum this up: 63 per cent of Americans don’t have enough savings to cover a $500 emergency.89 In short, while America is wasting trillions fighting unnecessary wars and deploying unnecessary aircraft carriers, 200 million Americans live on the edge. This defies common sense.

Trump was not wrong when he advocated the goal of ‘America first’. This is what his people want. However, his methods of achieving this are totally flawed. If he cuts off America from global trade flows, he will deliver an ‘America last’. What America needs is a strong degree of bipartisan consensus on how to engage the world intelligently so that all Americans, especially working-class Americans, are better off. Instead, at a time when the country should come together, it has never been more divided, and it is badly divided because both sides are being ideological. If both sides were to become more Machiavellian in their calculations, they would agree on some obvious and fundamental things that America needs to do. However, to reach any such agreement, they have to understand the Rest better.

Unfortunately, any such understanding is undermined by American insularity. Every fortnight, my home in Singapore receives, by mail, a copy of the New York Review of Books (NYRB). It is probably the best-written magazine in the world. It is such a joy to read. But every time I pick it up, I wince when I look at the table of contents. Almost all the writers are Western. There are 4.43 billion Asians out of a global population of 7.12 billion people, and the NYRB apparently can’t find any Asian writers. Perhaps it cannot find ones who reinforce the Western Weltanschauung (‘worldview’). One of Asia’s best novelists is Amitav Ghosh. He told me that his relationship with the New Yorker, another great magazine, came to an end when he resisted their attempts to get his writing to fit into their traditional worldview.90

As long as liberal Americans believe that they have the most liberal minds in the world, they will never wake up and understand the closed mental universes they have boxed themselves into. Liberalism has created an attitude of intellectual superiority, especially towards the rest of the world. Most European intellectuals, who are more aware of their own troubled history and the damage that European colonization did to the world, do not share the messianic impulse of American intellectuals. Nonetheless, there is a similar reluctance to accept the new reality that Europe must also make structural adjustments to cope with a resurgent Rest.