The Lost Decade: What the World Can Learn from 10 Years of Excesses

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The Singapore-based intellectual Kishore Mahbubani recently wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times titled "End of Whose History?" He discusses Fukuyama's famous thesis with his characteristic self-confidence. History, he writes, has returned -- to the delight of Asians. "The only question is: Will the West join them in these celebrations, or will they keep waiting for the end to come?"

The West's interpretation of Fukuyama was that the Western model would dominate the world in the future. Mahbubani calls this "Western hubris." But, he adds, things did not turn out as the West had expected. "One prediction I can make confidently is that the Western footprint on the world, which was hugely oversized in the 19th and 20th centuries, will retreat significantly."

Is this truly the lesson to be learned at the beginning of the 21st century, that the West is losing some of its significance? The 2000s confirm this. The Western way of life is coming under pressure from two sides at once, Islam and climate change. In Guantanamo, the United States betrayed its own basic principles. The fear of terrorist attacks is eating away at civil liberties, while an unbridled free market has perverted many players in the financial system. And for many citizens, democracy is no longer sufficiently important to warrant spending one or two days a year going to the polls. This is an exceedingly sad state of affairs.

The situation is reflected in the growing importance of an authoritarian country like China. The G-8 has served its time as a global forum. Now the G-20, with China as one of its key players, is in charge. All of this supports Mahbubani's theories.

But there are many arguments to refute what he has to say. In addition to its many weaknesses, the West displayed astonishing strength in the 2000s.

The iPhone, Google and YouTube could only have been invented by people who believe in unfettered communication, and who believe that it makes sense for everyone to be able to gain access to information and for everyone to communicate his or her opinions to the rest of the world. In other words, the most important inventions of recent years are based on a deeply Western idea, an idea they broadcast to the entire world.

The first countries that took climate protection seriously were the members of the European Union. They too were hopelessly late in recognizing the problem, but they became pioneers. This means that a significant portion of the Western world has the power of insight and the ability to correct its mistakes.

That decision was also based on the realization that combating climate change, though it may initially appear to be an obstacle to economic development, in fact secures our prosperity for the coming decades. If the West can put its inventive spirit to use in developing renewable sources of energy and other green technologies, it will preserve its economic power.

No Mechanism to Keep the Peace

The first decade of the 21st century has shown that the world is growing together and becoming more interdependent, but that it still lacks the necessary political structures. There is no effective mechanism to keep the peace. There is no global financial supervision authority. There is no international governing body that can permanently address climate change. The G-20 is merely a beginning.

The European Union is often derided for reaching consensus at such a slow and cumbersome pace, and for being organized along such bureaucratic lines. But at least a political community of nations is gradually taking shape in Europe. Europe can be a model for the rest of the world. For this reason, the situation at the end of the 2000s, though gloomy, is not hopeless. The West has done many things wrong, but it has also sent a few signals of hope.

It now comes down to drawing the right conclusions. The West can still be strong, provided it remains true to itself, its concept of humanity, which is based on Christian ideas, and democracy. The first decade is a lost decade, because it was a decade of excesses, exaggerations and overreactions.

If the West finds a happy medium, it will once again be in a position to play a leading role in the return of history and the search for a global governing structure.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

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• Part 1: What the World Can Learn from 10 Years of Excesses
• Part 2: The 9/11 Crisis
• Part 3: The Financial Crisis
• Part 4: The Climate Crisis
• Part 5: The Democracy Crisis
• Part 6: Internet Euphoria
• Part 7: Return of History