The last decade epitomized nothing in a more pronounced manner than the retreat of US-led liberal order. Liberal minimalism [laissez fair] under globalization met with creeping maximalism – the rise of populism and return of state in political spectrum.
Hedley Bull, a distinguished International Relations scholar, defined political order as, ‘a pattern [in the relations human, individuals, or groups] that leads to particular result, an arrangement of social life such that it promotes certain goals or values.’ By that definition, US-led liberal order promoted democracy and capitalism in socio-economic life of the world. Communist totalitarianism succumbed to liberal appeal in the second half of the twentieth century; however, when encountered by its own promises, it utterly failed to deliver for the ordinary people. As a result, Edward Luce writes, people lost confidence in pluralism and openness; therefore, it is safe to conclude that, in the absence of antagonist ideology, it was liberal democracy that defeated the liberal order.
The liberal ideology that established the Western dominance, was the result of age old philosophical and political evolution in the West – from renaissance, reformation, enlightenment, to the individualism. But today the very ideology is facing the threat of illiberal populism at home. And in economic sphere, China, India, and ASEAN are the new engines of globalization and multilateralism.
One must not forget that for the last two hundred years, it has all been the West, from socio-economic ideologies to scientific technologies and shifting from nationalism to the multilateralism – League of Nations, United Nations, and numerous international regimes/institutions are the result of.
What went wrong? After having awakened and getting the rest of the world believe in Western thinking of progress, West itself seems to be on the path of regression. Francis Fukuyama is to be blamed for his famous ‘End of History’ that philosophically declared, ‘not we but, rest of the world to adopt.’ This opium pushed the West into a sleeping mode. The rest, Asia in particular, did adopt everything that once was the Western monopoly, and today, Asia has returned in global politics after two centuries dominance of the West.
For economic reasons, yes! neoliberals did incredibly well, concentrated global wealth into their own hands and left nothing for the bottom 90% of the populace.
In 1990s, under the cover of globalization, ignoring the socio-economic disparities, West promoted liberalization; that brought nothing into Asian markets (in most cases), but helped the rich plunder national resources and transfer them to the European banks.
Liberal order proved elitist: it kept the elite in power in the name of democracy and made them filthy rich in economic terms; and bottom 90 percent voted ‘for the one from the elite’ and received nothing in return but illusionary promises of growth
This rise of neoliberalism fractured the monopoly of the state over politics and got the politics into the hands of rich individuals, corporations, and businesses. It works in collusion with the state officials: bureaucrats are paid by state; but their loyalties are with market magnets. Hence, they act as power brokers in the capitalist patron/client system. This system is more responsive to the capitalist policies in favor of people with resources and turns a blind eye and deaf ear to the issues related to the ordinary masses. Reaction to which is populism that responds to popular appeals of those who have been left behind in all these years.
Populism further fuels the fire of identity politics on the basis of race, religion, and economic grievances. That too, many believes, is more communitarian than economically driven individualist capitalism – a race that divides people into the winners and the losers.
Another interpretation of the rise of identitarian symptoms accuses globalization for weakening state and state-bound identities that triggers the upsurge of identity formation on tribalistic lines – ‘us’ versus ‘them’.
During 1990s and 2000s, neoliberal economics commodified the people and society, human emotions lost into the sands of profit maximization, even values like health and education had taken the shape of industries, where patients and students were treated as inhuman commodities for money making.
Karl Polanyi, in his book, the great transformation, interpreted this theology, ‘this system instead of inserting economy in social relations, embeds social relations in the economic system’ where businesses seek to shape society in its own matching with winners and losers.
Economic growth holds liberal democracies together. Once the growth stops, things take a dark turn, and illiberalism crawls into the mainstream. Liberal order proved elitist: it kept the elite in power in the name of democracy and made them filthy rich in economic terms; and bottom 90 percent voted ‘for the one from the elite’ and received nothing in return but illusionary promises of growth.
Political orders and ideologies that don’t deliver, cease to exist. The rise of Trump, Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orban, Erdogan, Imran Khan, Boris Johnson, and Frauke Petry reflect the symptoms of the rapidly decaying liberal order.
It becomes even worse, when the authoritarian Chinese model, claims to have pulled 750 million Chinese from extreme poverty to a dignified lifestyle. Not far ago, on the victory of Cold War over communism, neoliberal ideologues argued that, ideologies governed the material world; however, it has proved otherwise. Economic dimension of liberalism failed to deliver and caused the retreat of liberal order as a whole: on the other hand, Chinese model’s astonishing economic performance made it the ready political temptation for the world.
The writer is a PhD candidate at National Defence University Islamabad