Sep 26th 2008

Fareed Zakaria: The Post-American World – A Book Review

Above there is an interview with Fareed Zakaria by the New Perspectives Quarterly about his book "The Post-American World". Below there is a summary of the book as for a background for the interview.

Zakaria argues that America's relative weight in the world is in decline. It is not a question of America's decline as such, but about the rise of everybody else, which will end the Western world's hegemony in world affairs.

The rise of the West started in Italy in the fifteenth century during the period called, maybe misleadingly, the Renaissance. Men like Copernicus and Galileo gave birth to modern science. The years between 1450 and 1550 marked, according to Zakaria "the most significant break in human history - between faith, ritual, and dogma, on the one hand, and observation, experimentation, and critical thought, on the other"; and produced modernity in form of science and technology, commerce and capitalism. Europe was followed by the rise of the United States in the closing years of the nineteenth century, when the industrialized United Sates became the most powerful nation since the imperial Rome.

Zakaria argues that we are now living a power shift, which he calls "the rise of the rest", as countries all over the world have adopted originally Western modern thinking with the result that they are experiencing unprecedented economic growth. The growth has taken place almost throughout the world, i.e. not only in Asia. In 2006 and in 2007, 124 countries grew at a rate of 4% or more. The West's share of the total diminishes, while the less developed countries are catching up after having adopted Western economic principles. The West's relative decline is therefore a result of its success of having exported its thinking.

The developing countries' adoption of the Western model of modernity has led to almost one-fourth of the world's population (1.5 billion people), speaking some level of functional English. Companies are run according to "standard" Western practices, starting from double-entry bookkeeping, which is of Italian origin. Government institutions have become more alike, encompassing parliaments, regulatory agencies, and independent central banks. Clothing has become similar from blue jeans to Western business suits. Books, movies, and television shows are becoming more standardized in order to attract the largest possible audiences.

The financial force that has powered the new era is the free movement of capital. Most Western countries removed controls in the 1970s and 1980s. As a result, between 1990 and 2007, the global economy grew from 22.8 trillion to 53.3 trillion, and global trade increased 133 percent.

Zakaria sees many positive aspects in the rise of the rest, such as a decline in poverty and violence.

Poverty.During the past two decades, about two billion people have entered the world of markets and trade. This has reduced the number of poor dramatically. The share of people living on a dollar a day has decreased from 40% in 1981 to 18% in 2004 and is expected to decline to 12% by 2015.

Violence. Zakaria claims that war and organized violence has declined dramatically over the last two decades. We are today arguably living in the most peaceful time of the human history. The "war on terror" will persist, but it is the governments that have the upper hand. The Islamic terrorists do not, according to Zakaria, form a monolithic foe. Instead there are several terrorist groups with differing agendas, enemies, and friends. They are "small local gangs of misfits hoping to attract attention through nihilism and barbarism". They do not have the support of the main Islamic population. "On an ideological level, it presents no competition to the Western-originated model of modernity that countries across the world are embracing". (See also John Mueller's article "The US Terrorist Threat Is Overblown" on FACTS & ARTS.)

Global economic growth has produced its own problems, which Zakaria calls "the problems of plenty". Due to increased demand, the price of oil has risen. Commodity prices have been at a 200-year high. By 2015 the world population will be eight billion people, which will require crop yields to reach four tons per hectare, up from three today. There is also a scarcity of water. In the twentieth century, world population tripled, but the use of water increased sixfold. An average American uses 400 litres of water per day. In poor countries the figure is 40 litres per capita.

'Modernity' does not equal 'Western'. Zakaria quotes Samuel P. Huntington, who argues that becoming modern is about industrialization, urbanization, and rising levels of literacy, education, and wealth. The qualities for a Western society are, in contrast: classical legacy, Christianity, separation of church and state, the rule of law, civil society. Western civilization is not universal, it is unique. "The Rest" have different cultural backgrounds. The Rest are adopting modernity in ways that fit them and are adding their contribution to the concept of "modern". They are increasingly interested in themselves, their own economic development being their main goal. They form alliances that fit them and pay less attention to the only super power in the world the United States. The often-expressed hatred towards America is turning into indifference towards it. Thus the title of Zakaria's book "The post-American world".

State and the society. Economic development means also more pluralistic societies. The governments must yield part of the power to various players in a society, such as independent central banks, companies, multi-national companies, trade unions, various non-governmental organizations such as environmentalists; and in particular to the markets. The state and the society become distinctively separate concepts.

China. The central issue for the emerging new world order is how a stronger China will use its power. Zakaria searches for the answer in religious and philosophical backgrounds, which according to Zakaria have had implications for countries' foreign policies. "Historically, countries influenced by Christianity and Islam have developed an impulse to spread their views and convert people to their faith. That missionary spirit is evident in the foreign policy of countries as diverse as Britain, The United States, France, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. In case of Britain and the United States…. the Protestant sense of purpose at the core of their foreign policies has made a deep mark on global affairs."

China's cultural background is Confucianism. Confucius was a teacher, not a prophet. His writings are non-religious. He warns against thinking in divine terms and instead sets out rules for acquiring knowledge, behaving ethically, maintaining social stability, and creating a well-ordered civilization. Zakaria draws the bold conclusion that: "Simply being China, and becoming a world power, in a sense fulfils its historical purpose."

"Simply being China" might be smart for China, but challenging for the West. Zakaria: "Were China to push its weight around, anger its neighbours, and frighten the world, Washington would be able to respond with a set of effective policies" … "But … what if China gradually expands its economic ties, acts calmly and moderately, and slowly enlarges its sphere of influence, seeking only greater weight, friendship, and influence….. slowly pushing Washington onto the sidelines in Asia."

India. Zakaria, who was born in India and moved to the United States at the age of 18, sees India as America's natural ally in spite of their clear differences.

India's main religion is Hinduism, which according to Zakaria is not a "religion" in the Abrahamic sense, rather a loose philosophy that has no answers but merely questions. Its guiding principle is ambiguity. Zakaria quotes the "Creation Hymn" in Hinduism's most central text, the Rig Ved and compares it with the certainties of the Book of Genesis:

"Who really knows, and who can swear,

How creation came, when or where!

Even gods came after creation's day,

Who really knows, who can truly say

When and how did creation start?

Did He do it? Or did He not?

Only He, up there, knows, maybe;

Or perhaps, not even He."

Zakaria writes that in Hinduism there is no core set of beliefs, no doctrine, no commandments. Nothing is required, nothing is forbidden. You can respect some beliefs and not others. You can pray or not pray. You can be a vegetarian or eat meat. Zakaria adds that Hindus are deeply practical and their mind-set is to live and let live.

What makes India and the West similar is the English language. The British planted the language in India. It functions as the lingua franca of India, which has some 20 official languages. English is also the working language of the well educated. With the English language, India has the access to modernity.

Other similarities with the West are democracy, a genuine private sector, established rights of property and contract, independent courts, and the rule of law. Zakaria writes that "Indians are extremely comfortable with and well disposed toward America".

India's growth is taking place bottom-up rather than top-down - it is messy, chaotic, and largely unplanned. "It is as if hundreds of millions of people had suddenly discovered the keys to unlock their potential." The economic growth is taking place regardless of the government. There is, to a degree, a separation of the society and the state.

But the majority of Indians are still very poor and poorly educated. Female literacy, as an example, is only 48 percent. Corruption, India's main disease, is widespread.

Other countries. Zakaria does not write much about other countries. He seems to have a positive view about the European Union. Oil-based economies he considers to be artificial and unsustainable. South America, Africa and Russia he hardly mentions. This tells something about where he thinks the future will lies.

Below an interview of Zareed Zakaria by the BBC:


If you wish to comment on this article, you can do so on-line.

Should you wish to publish your own article on the Facts & Arts website, please contact us at info@factsandarts.com. Please note that Facts & Arts shares its advertising revenue with those who have contributed material and have signed an agreement with us.

Browse articles by author

More Current Affairs

Feb 18th 2022
EXTRACT: "........ Xi did what was needed to lock Russia into a vassal-like dependency on China. And Putin chose to walk straight into his trap, thinking that partnership with Xi would help him in his confrontation with the West. ---- What could be better for China than a Russian economy completely cut off from the West? All the natural gas that does not flow westward to Europe could flow eastward to an energy-hungry China. All Siberia’s mineral wealth, which Russia has required Western capital and expertise to exploit, would be available only to China, as would major new infrastructure projects in Russia." ---- "Putin seems to be ignoring that China’s leaders and people view Russia as a corrupt country which stole more Chinese territory in the nineteenth century than any other."
Feb 14th 2022
EXTRACT: "Russia’s large-scale military mobilization on Ukraine’s border has grim historic precedents. But should the Kremlin pull the trigger, it will encounter a hazard that no invading army has ever faced before: 15 nuclear power reactors, which generate roughly 50% of Ukraine’s energy needs at four sites. The reactors present a daunting specter. If struck, the installations could effectively become radiological mines. And Russia itself would be a victim of the ensuing wind-borne radioactive debris. Given the vulnerability of Ukraine’s nuclear reactors and the human and environmental devastation that would follow if combat were to damage them, Russian President Vladimir Putin should think again about whether Ukraine is worth a war."
Feb 11th 2022
EXTRACT: "Yet Putin gives Xi precisely what he wants: a partner who can destabilize the Western alliance and deflect America’s strategic focus away from its China containment strategy. From Xi’s perspective, that leaves the door wide open for China’s ascendancy to great-power status, realizing the promise of national rejuvenation set forth in Xi’s cherished “China Dream.” "
Feb 10th 2022
EXTRACTS: "It has become abundantly clear that the United States has an inflation problem. What is not yet clear is how big the problem will turn out to be and how long it will last. ---- "Alarmed observers point to parallels with the 1970s, when commodity prices shot up,..." ------ "Today, in contrast, inflation expectations remain firmly anchored. The Michigan Survey of Consumers shows that respondents expect inflation to approach 5% over the coming year, before falling back to just above 2% in the subsequent four years. The inflation rate implicit in the price of five-year inflation-indexed Treasury securities shows basically the same thing: inflation averaging 2.8% over the next five years."
Jan 26th 2022
EXTRACT: "Over the past three decades, bonds have offered a negative overall yearly return only a few times. The decline of inflation rates from double-digit levels to very low single digits produced a long bull market in bonds; yields fell and returns on bonds were highly positive as their price rose. The past 30 years thus have contrasted sharply with the stagflationary 1970s, when bond yields skyrocketed alongside higher inflation, leading to massive market losses for bonds."
Jan 26th 2022
EXTRACT: "The idea of a conventional force attack by Russia on Poland, the Baltic or Black Sea states is fanciful. But it is rendered near impossible in the minds of the Kremlin leadership by the sure knowledge that Nato would take a stand. In response to events around Ukraine, the credibility of the alliance is being affirmed through a set of coordinated measures...." ---- "The forces Moscow has assembled on Ukraine’s borders are clearly intended to intimidate the government in Kyiv. But as the weeks drag on Russia may be losing the military advantage. It has already forfeited the element of surprise essential for a swift land grab (as was used during the seizure of Crimea in 2014)."
Jan 25th 2022
EXTRACT: "By now, it is passé to warn that the Fed is “behind the curve.” In fact, the Fed is so far behind that it can’t even see the curve. Its dot plots, not only for this year but also for 2023 and 2024, don’t do justice to the extent of monetary tightening that most likely will be required as the Fed scrambles to bring inflation back under control. In the meantime, financial markets are in for a very rude awakening."
Jan 25th 2022
EXTRACT: "As it is, Germany has made strides in getting off coal. Coal provided half of power production in 2000, and is now down to about a little over a quarter. And Germany has done more to put in renewables, with its “Energiewende” or Energy Switch, than any other large industrialized nation. The new Social Democratic government, which is in coalition with the Greens, plans to put enormous amounts of new renewables in every year until 2030, projecting that by that date, 80 percent of Germany’s power will come from renewables."
Jan 21st 2022
EXTRACTS: "The fear is that Moscow is backing itself into a diplomatic corner where the use of force is its only way to remain credible." ----- "The Ukrainian population has also been mobilizing in support of the troops since the seizure of Crimea and the war in Donbas. And according to a poll taken in December 2021 by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, 58% of Ukrainian men and almost 13% of women declared that they are ready to take up arms. A further 17% and 25% more said they would resist through other means. In what would be a classic case of asymmetrical warfare, resistance from Ukraine’s population could therefore prove a serious thorn in Moscow’s side."
Jan 12th 2022
EXTRACTS: "While at the time of writing, the outcome of Djokovic’s visa troubles was uncertain, the double standard of rules raises a much bigger question about the philosophy of law: can the application of a rule be so unfair that we have no valid reason to follow it?" ------ "......a rule that doesn’t treat like cases alike can’t be a law at all. This is because a key requirement of a legal system is that it needs to be stable, which means that people need to know what the law is and when it applies. If a rule doesn’t treat everyone equally, then it does the opposite and increases doubt and uncertainty about what the law even is. And if enough rules exist that create uncertainty about what the law is and when it applies, the system will collapse. A rule that undermines a legal system in this way can’t really be law at all, and legal officials shouldn’t create or uphold them."
Jan 9th 2022
EXTRACT: "Novak Djokovic, the world’s top-ranking tennis player, has just been granted a medical exemption to take part in the Australian Open. Djokovic, who has won the event nine times (one more victory would give him a record-breaking 21 major titles), refused to show proof of vaccination, which is required to enter Australia. “I will not reveal my status whether I have been vaccinated or not,” he told Blic, a Serbian daily, calling it “a private matter and an inappropriate inquiry.” The family of Dale Weeks, who died last month at the age of 78, would disagree. Weeks was a patient at a small hospital in rural Iowa, being treated for sepsis. The hospital sought to transfer him to a larger hospital where he could have surgery, but a surge in COVID-19 patients, almost all of them unvaccinated, meant that there were no spare beds. It took 15 days for Weeks to obtain a transfer, and by then, it was too late."
Jan 9th 2022
EXTRACT: "The protests that erupted across Kazakhstan on January 2 quickly turned into riots in all of the country’s major cities. What do the protesters want, and what will be the outcome of the country’s most severe civil unrest since independence in 1991? "
Jan 7th 2022
EXTRACT: ".....one wonders how Chinese President Xi Jinping views Russia’s intervention in Kazakhstan, which shares a nearly 1,800-kilometer (1,120-mile) border with China, especially in light of Putin’s earlier comments diminishing the history of Kazakhstan’s independent statehood. (He has shown similar contempt for the independence of Belarus, the Baltic states, and Ukraine.)"
Jan 7th 2022
EXTRACT: "The problem with history as propaganda is not that it makes people feel good or bad, but that it creates perpetual enemies – and thus the perpetual risk of wars."
Jan 5th 2022
EXTRACT: ".....a scenario in which Trump (or one of his allies) is designated president by the House of Representatives after the 2024 election probably belongs in the realm of political-thriller fiction.  Now consider the unlikely event that Trump were nominated and won a clear Electoral College or popular-vote majority in 2024. Rather than establish the white-nationalist dictatorship of progressive nightmares, an elderly second-term Trump would most likely be an even more ineffectual figurehead in a party dominated by conventional Republicans than he was in his first four years. If Italian democracy could survive three terms of Silvio Berlusconi as prime minister, American democracy can survive two terms of Trump. None of this is to suggest that American democracy is not under threat. Populist demagogues like Trump are symptoms of a disease in the body politic. The real threat to American democracy is the disconnect between what the bipartisan US political establishment promises and what it delivers. This problem predates Trump by decades and helps to explain his rise. "
Jan 4th 2022
EXTRACT: "This month, the world’s major central banks shifted gears and announced plans to tighten monetary policy. But there was one notable exception: the European Central Bank, which says it does not intend to raise interest rates in 2022, even though it is well aware of today’s inflation risks." ----- "Does this mean that the ECB is “soft on inflation,” occupying a dovish outlier position among the world’s major central banks? Is Germany’s bestselling tabloid, Bild, justified in bestowing on ECB President Christine Lagarde the mocking sobriquet “Madame Inflation”? No and no.
Dec 21st 2021
EXTRACTS: "By the grim metric of fatalities in the first 10 years of a dictator’s rule, Kim Jong Un has yet to match the records set by his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, or father, Kim Jong Il – the two tyrants who reigned by terror in North Korea before him. For now, the number of people Kim Jong Un has personally ordered killed – such as his uncle in 2013 and half-brother in 2017 – is likely to number in the hundreds." ---- "Concrete numbers of how many have died from starvation and malnourishment-related conditions such as diarrhea and pneumonia under Kim are difficult to come by. But as a scholar of Korean history, I believe the young dictator – who turns 38 next January – has the capacity to surpass even the ghastly death tolls of his two familial predecessors."
Dec 19th 2021
EXTRACTS: "But have enough Conservative backbenchers reached the conclusion that Johnson should be removed as party leader? There is a historical precedent which throws light on the present situation. This was when Margaret Thatcher was sacked as leader of her party – and consequently lost her job as prime minister – in 1990. She had a loyal following in the party and had won three elections in a row, but even that couldn’t save her when polling showed that the Conservatives were heading for a serious defeat under her leadership. ---- "That said, if Thatcher’s experience is anything to go by, at present the Conservatives are not going to sack Johnson. It took 18 months of seriously deteriorating polling for a revolt over Thatcher’s leadership to finally succeed – and she almost survived the leadership challenge. The present hope among Conservative backbenchers will be that the party can recover next year."
Dec 11th 2021
EXTRACT: "Although Johnson has a well-deserved reputation for maintaining an arm’s-length relationship with the truth, many voters seem to have priced this in to how they perceive him. Moreover, Conservative Party insiders, and those who previously worked with Johnson in journalism (his career before politics), have always known that he was unlikely to follow any rules that did not suit him. This rather large personal failing was apparent even in his boyhood, as a remarkably prescient school report by his Eton College housemaster noted. “I think,” Johnson’s teacher wrote, “he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.” "
Dec 8th 2021
EXTRACT: "This puts US Democrats in a difficult position. What is a political party to do when the other main party has been taken over by self-appointed holy warriors? To treat them as a loyal opposition worthy of engagement in a spirit of compromise and respect becomes almost impossible. Democrats like Hillary Clinton, Barrack Obama, and Joe Biden have sometimes been criticized by their own supporters for not fighting dirty and giving Republican fanatics a dose of their own foul medicine.  That would be a mistake. All legal means should be used to stop extremists from wrecking democratic institutions, but those institutions won’t survive if all parties turn politics into a matter of life and death. In a quasi-religious war, the far right will almost certainly win; they have more fanatics and, in the US, many more guns."