Quo Vadis?
The old EM (EuroModernist) template is fading.
The world has moved on.
The West* flouted every precept of it, since the last quarter of the 20th century onwards , and it is now seen as a travesty, by the (newly) enlightened in the emergent world.
That is , perhaps, another kind of ‘woke’ ?
So , the ‘liberal-capitalist’ paradigm is moribund.
Fukayama(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man) was, straight-up, and flat out, wrong.
So what can we expect, realistically?
*
The West will turn to , as is already becoming apparent , to some , or other, unstable, uninspiring, form of “Neo-Fascist/ Neo-Feudal” (I use the terms very loosely) melange.: an angry polity , in combo with a torpid economy, and a divided society.
The Rest will gravitate to sort of a ‘China Model’: a market economy governed strictly by a paternalist state (a ‘Confucian’ Model?) pledged to collective welfare – as deemed by their governors.
These latter will thrive.
*
Why?
All the glitz of the West stemmed from Empire (and NOT merely the hyped-up force of ‘capitalism’, as runs the official Narrative).
And that empire is on the wane.
*
There is only One other, alternate, possibility.
That the West will end the world , rather than accept decline.
*
So, that’s what’s on the cards.
As the old adage goes, time will tell?
* btw The term ‘West’ , in my usage, always applies to the governors, not the hoi polloi:the ‘people’ , regrettably, have very little to do with Policy , despite the benumbing political rhetoric of ‘democracy’. Also, I am merely reading tea leaves here, in these prognostications – I take no sides.
[© R.Kanth 2023]
Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (A Novel), A Day in the Life (Novel), and Expiations (Verse), and Farewell to Modernism (Political Economy Tract).
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