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

9/11 did not change the world – it was already on the path to decades of conflict
by Paul Rogers
Sep 11th 2021
EXTRACT: "That long path, though, has from the start had within it one fundamental flaw. If we are to make sense of wider global trends in insecurity, we have to recognise that in all the analysis around the 9/11 anniversary there lies the belief that the main security concern must be with an extreme version of Islam. It may seem a reasonable mistake, given the impact of the wars, but it still misses the point. The war on terror is better seen as one part of a global trend which goes well beyond a single religious tradition – a slow but steady move towards revolts from the margins."
Income Caps and Inequality
by Sam Ben-Meir
Sep 11th 2021
EXTRACTS: "Is it not extraordinary that in a country that claims to be as enlightened and advanced as ours, the combined wealth of three individuals – Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and investor Warren Buffett – exceeds the total wealth of the bottom half of Americans? One has to return to the days of the pharaohs of Egypt to find a parallel to the extreme wealth inequality that we see in in America today." ...... "The top tax rate remained above 90 percent through the 1950s and did not dip below 70 percent until 1981. At no point during the decades that saw America’s greatest economic growth did the tax on the wealthy drop below 70 percent. Today it is somewhere around 37 percent. President Biden’s American Families Plan would increase the top tax rate to 39.6 percent – a fairly modest alteration, albeit in the right direction. It is true that there was a time when the top marginal tax was even lower than it is today: in the years leading up to the Great Depression it hovered around 25 percent."
The Colonial Trap 
by Ian Buruma
Sep 7th 2021
EXTRACT: "But Biden can’t be blamed for the rise of the Taliban, or the fragile state of a country that has seen far too many wars and invasions. The US should not have been there in the first place, but that is a lesson that great powers never seem to learn."
The AI Revolution and Strategic Competition with China
by Eric Schmidt
Sep 4th 2021
EXTRACT: "The world is only starting to grapple with how profound the artificial-intelligence revolution will be. AI technologies will create waves of progress in critical infrastructure, commerce, transportation, health, education, financial markets, food production, and environmental sustainability. Successful adoption of AI will drive economies, reshape societies, and determine which countries set the rules for the coming century." ----- "AI will reorganize the world and change the course of human history. The democratic world must lead that process."
The Stagflation Threat Is Real 
by Nouriel Roubini
Sep 1st 2021
EXTRACT: "Although the Fed is considering tapering its quantitative easing (QE), it will likely remain dovish and behind the curve overall. Like most central banks, it has been lured into a “debt trap” by the surge in private and public liabilities (as a share of GDP) in recent years. Even if inflation stays higher than targeted, exiting QE too soon could cause bond, credit, and stock markets to crash. That would subject the economy to a hard landing, potentially forcing the Fed to reverse itself and resume QE." ---- "After all, that is what happened between the fourth quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019, following the Fed’s previous attempt to raise rates and roll back QE."
Back to the Seventies?
by Kenneth Rogoff
Sep 1st 2021
EXTRACT: "Today’s economic challenges are certainly solvable, and there is no reason why inflation should have to spike."
We Must Not Allow The Republicans To Destroy Our Basic Values
by Dr. Alon Ben-Meir and Dr. Sam Ben-Meir
Aug 27th 2021
EXTRACT: "To be sure, they have focused on their agenda, which is totally misguided—not by our own account but by the account of the majority of the American population, who view the Republican party as one that has lost its moral footing to the detriment of America’s future generations, who must now inherit the ugly consequences of a party that ran asunder."
Afghanistan Was Always About American Politics
by James K. Galbraith
Aug 21st 2021
EXTRACTS: "Now that so many sad truths about Afghanistan are being spoken aloud, even in the major media – let me add one more: The war, from start to finish, was about politics, not in Afghanistan but in the United States. Afghanistan was always a sideshow."--- "....the 2001 invasion was fast and apparently decisive. And so it rescued George W. Bush’s tainted presidency,..." --- "Bush’s approval shot up to 90% and then steadily declined,..."
Biden Was Right 
by Charles A. Kupchan
Aug 17th 2021
EXTRACT: "The Taliban’s virtually uncontested takeover over Afghanistan raises obvious questions about the wisdom of US President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw US and coalition forces from the country. Paradoxically, however, the rapidity and ease of the Taliban’s advance only reaffirms that Biden made the right decision – and that he should not reverse course. ...... The ineffectiveness and collapse of Afghanistan’s military and governing institutions largely substantiates Biden’s skepticism that US-led efforts to prop up the government in Kabul would ever enable it to stand on its own feet. The international community has spent nearly 20 years, many thousands of lives, and trillions of dollars to do good by Afghanistan – taking down al-Qaeda; beating back the Taliban; supporting, advising, training, and equipping the Afghan military; bolstering governing institutions; and investing in the country’s civil society. .... Significant progress was made, but not enough." ....... "That is because the mission was fatally flawed from the outset. It was a fool’s errand to try to turn Afghanistan into a centralized, unitary state. "
Banning Opinion 
by Ian Buruma
Aug 6th 2021
EXTRACT: "But even in the US, which is more lenient than most countries, the principle cannot be absolute. Inciting imminent violence is not permitted. Donald Trump’s speech on January 6, urging the mob to storm the US Capitol, certainly came close to overstepping this boundary. It was a clear demonstration that language can be dangerous. What the internet media has done is raise the stakes; “fighting words” are spread around much faster and more widely than ever before. This will require a great deal of vigilance, to protect our freedom to express ourselves, while observing the social and legal bounds that stop words from turning into actual fighting. "
China's Animal Spirits Deficit 
by Stephen S. Roach
Jul 27th 2021
EXTRACT: "When it comes to the Chinese economy, I have been a congenital optimist for over 25 years. But now I have serious doubts. The Chinese government has taken dead aim at its dynamic technology sector, the engine of China’s New Economy. Its recent actions are symptomatic of a deeper problem: the state’s efforts to control the energy of animal spirits." ---- "... the Chinese economy, no less than others, still requires a foundation of trust – trust in the consistency of leadership priorities, in transparent governance, and in wise regulatory oversight – to flourish. --- Modern China lacks this foundation of trust ."
Put Central Bankers in Their Place
by Howard Davies
Jul 25th 2021
EXTRACT: "It seems that they are, as the last 18 months have seen a remarkable expansion of the central banks’ fields of activity, largely driven by their own ambitions. So they have moved into the climate change arena, arguing that financial stability may be put at risk by rising temperatures, and that central banks, as bond purchasers and as banking supervisors, can and should be proactive in raising the cost of credit for corporations without a credible transition plan. That is a promising new line of business, which is likely to grow. ---- Central banks are also trying to move into social engineering, specifically the policy response to rising income and wealth inequality, another hot button topic with high political salience."
Europe’s Green Unilateralism 
by Hans-Werner Sinn
Jul 25th 2021
EXTRACT: "The EU’s ambitious unilateral climate strategy will transform Europe into a trade fortress, encourage green protectionism worldwide, and give other regions the opportunity to develop using cheaper energy. And without China, India, and the United States on board, other countries will be careful not to follow the EU in its self-appointed role as the world’s green guinea pig. If Europe is not careful, it will risk finding itself in a climate club of one. "
Beefatarians Not Wanted
by Peter Singer
Jul 9th 2021
EXTRACT: ".... ruminants belch and fart methane, an extremely potent greenhouse gas. As a result, rearing beef cattle brings about, on average, six times the contribution to global warming as non-ruminant animals (for example, pigs) producing the same quantity of protein. ..... if projected to 2050 [beef production], would use 87% of the total quantity of emissions that is compatible with the Paris climate agreement’s objective of staying below a 2° Celsius increase in temperature."
Joe Biden’s Nixon Strategy
by Melvyn B. Krauss
Jul 8th 2021
EXTRACT: " .... while China’s leaders never mention it, they are just as embittered over Russia’s theft of Chinese territory in the nineteenth century as they are over the West’s imperial predations. With Western imperialism having been largely rolled back, it is Russia’s continued occupation of historic Chinese territory that stands out the most to ordinary Chinese observers. For example, the city of Vladivostok, with its vast naval base, has been a part of Russia only since 1860, when the tsars built a military harbor there. Before that, the city was known by the Manchu name of Haishenwai." ---- "There is also a demographic argument for Putin to consider: the six million Russians spread along the Siberian border face 90 million Chinese on the other side. And many of these Chinese regularly cross the border into Russia to trade (and a good number to stay)."
After Afghanistan Falls
by Djoomart Otorbaev
Jul 7th 2021
EXTRACTS: "According to a new analysis by researchers at Brown University, America’s two-decade war in Afghanistan cost it nearly $2.3 trillion. Now, Afghanistan’s neighbors – Pakistan, Iran, China, India, and the Central Asian countries – are wondering just how much it will cost them to maintain security after the United States is gone." ----- "After clandestinely supporting the Taliban as a means to undermine the US war effort, Russia now fears broader destabilization in Central Asia and beyond." ---- "Similarly, after having made nice with the Taliban, China also now fears the greater regional instability that the US withdrawal may incite. In addition to disrupting Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Eurasia-spanning Belt and Road Initiative, a revitalized Taliban could re-energize the Islamist extremist threat in China’s western Xinjiang province."
The Looming Stagflationary Debt Crisis 
by Nouriel Roubini
Jul 1st 2021
EXTRACT: "When former Fed Chair Paul Volcker hiked rates to tackle inflation in 1980-82, the result was a severe double-dip recession in the United States and a debt crisis and lost decade for Latin America. But now that global debt ratios are almost three times higher than in the early 1970s, any anti-inflationary policy would lead to a depression, rather than a severe recession. ---- Under these conditions, central banks will be damned if they do and damned if they don’t, and many governments will be semi-insolvent and thus unable to bail out banks, corporations, and households. The doom loop of sovereigns and banks in the eurozone after the global financial crisis will be repeated worldwide, sucking in households, corporations, and shadow banks as well. ---- As matters stand, this slow-motion train wreck looks unavoidable."
China and the west: competing traditions make true friendship highly unlikely – here’s why
by Astrid H. M. Nordin and Graham M Smith
Jun 19th 2021
EXTRACT: "Xi Jinping’s call for friendship gives us an opportunity to examine Chinese politics on both the domestic and international stage. On the face of it, it suggests the possibility of rapprochement between the rich liberal democracies represented by the G7 and the authoritarian Chinese state. However, despite appearances of a call for a closer relationship, there is more than one way of being friends – and Xi’s idea might be somewhat different to what many in countries attending the G7 might expect."
The Upside of Population Decline
by Adair Turner
Jun 12th 2021
EXTRACT: "China’s recently published census, showing that its population has almost stopped growing, brought warnings of severe problems for the country. “Such numbers make grim reading for the party,” reported The Economist. This “could have a disastrous impact on the country,” wrote Huang Wenzheng, a fellow at the Center for China and Globalization in Beijing, in the Financial Times. But a comment posted on China’s Weibo was more insightful. “The declining fertility rate actually reflects the progress in the thinking of Chinese people – women are no longer a fertility tool.” "
Vaccines for All or Vaccine Apartheid?
by Gordon Brown
Jun 12th 2021
EXTRACT: " I remember recounting fellow leaders of the story of a Rwanda schoolboy caught up in the genocide of the 1990s and now immortalized in the Kigali Genocide Memorial museum, where, in a section devoted to children, one can find his photograph and a plaque that reads: ----- David, age 11 ...... Ambition: to be a doctor ...... Favorite sport: football ...... Favorite hobby: making people laugh ...... Death: by mutilation ...... Last words: the UN are coming to save us ----- In his idealism and innocence, David believed the international community would save him and his mother. We didn’t. "