Weekly Blog - 12 December 2022 - The Decline of the West?
The Decline of the West?
Many people living in western countries could be excused for feeling like they are living through the last days of decline of the Roman empire. Over the last fifteen years the west appears to be in decline, lurching from one crisis to another. The fifteen years before that, from the collapse of Communism and the end of the Cold War in 1991, saw the west riding high, and liberal free market democracies in an unchallenged position of global supremacy. However, from a high point in 2007, the west was badly hit by the global financial crisis of 2008-9, which was much better weathered by Asian economies than those in the west, which had become fuelled on huge amounts of debt.
Whilst the economies of many western nations have since seemed stagnant, the economies of many middle income countries like Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, Mauritius, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam have grown dramatically in recent decades. Global power and influence has correspondingly begun to shift significantly. A telling moment came in 2008-9 when it was clear that the G8 of mainly western nations alone could not address the global financial crisis, and instead a new G20 of both western and major emerging middle income countries was needed.
The years that followed the financial crisis saw austerity policies and huge cuts in public services in many western countries, significantly reducing their quality, to the worst it has been in decades. Both the financial crisis and the austerity which followed (and more recently Covid and inflation), hit the poorest hardest, whilst those at the top in western societies fared much better. As a result, inequality has been growing massively in western countries, leading to social division, and a large, dissatisfied working class that feels they have lost out in the modern world to a liberal establishment which favours globalisation and the shifting of many manufacturing roles from western to Asian economies.
This in turn has proved fertile ground for the rise of right-wing popularist leaders with authoritarian tendencies in western countries, who have promised easy answers and whipped up division, blaming migrants, foreign countries, and ‘liberal elites’ for all the nation’s ills. We see ever more divisive and toxic politics in many western countries. In many countries, democracy itself has been challenged, with events like the January 2021 storming of the capitol in the US, and elections in Austria. In other countries like the UK there has been political turmoil with the 2016 Brexit vote and the short-lived and economically disastrous administration of Prime Minister Liz Truss.
In foreign policy the west has been humiliated in what have largely come to be seen as military misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a failure to intervene in Syria, which left the field open for Russia to intervene brutally and with perceived effectiveness when the west was unable to do so. The Russian invasion of a peaceful neighbouring country in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine in 2014 with seeming impunity, further added to this impression, and resulted in Russia’s wider (though much less successful) invasion of the rest of Ukraine in 2022. This in turn has played a role in huge increases in fossil fuel energy prices, driving massive inflation. This has triggered a wave of strikes in multiple western countries, by workers desperately needing pay increases to cope with the spiralling cost of living.
Why is this happening?
To a large extent, what is happening is a natural process of rebalancing of economic and political power in the world, as a result of more and more nations developing. The world before 1800 was more balanced. The vast majority of people were poor in all countries, with a very small wealthy ruling aristocracy. The industrial revolution that took off in Britain from the late eighteenth century, and then spread to Europe, North America and Australasia, significantly propelled the west ahead of other nations developmentally, economically and militarily. This power was often used brutally and with gross injustice through conquest and colonialism.
However, in the years after the end of the Second World War, the benefits of the industrial revolution begun to be spread more widely, as newly independent former colonies across Asia and Africa pursued economic policies that had previously been used successfully by western countries to grow and diversify their economies, from agriculture to manufacturing, to services and the knowledge economy. This has lifted billions of people out of extreme poverty in recent decades. Of course there is still a long way to go. Tens of millions still suffer in absolute poverty. Furthermore, the economic success of all nations, western or otherwise, is still much too dependent on polluting fossil fuels that cause climate change, and the overconsumption of limited natural resources, both of which dangerously degrade the natural environment and are ultimately unsustainable. There must be a transformation in all countries to green and fair economics.
Nevertheless, there is a clear positive trend around the world. The last two hundred years of western global dominance have in fact been an aberration. Now that other countries are catching up, the world is rebalancing and returning to its pre 1800 historic norm. Other regions of the world, especially India, China, South East Asia, but also increasingly Latin America and Africa, are on an increasingly more equal footing with western countries. The ability of western nations to dominate the international community is significantly reduced, and the ability of other nations to trade and engage with western countries on terms which work best for them is continually increasing. Naturally this process feels uncomfortable to many in the west as they adjust to this change.
Why does this matter to us as Christians?
This process should be celebrated by us as Christians. We know that God loves all people of every nation equally. All are precious, made in his image, and of equal worth. The lifting of billions out of poverty around the world, and the reduction of the ability of one region to dominate others should be celebrated. This absolutely need not, and should not, mean a corresponding descent into autocracy and poverty in western countries. God wants all nations to enjoy good standards of social justice and development and live in environmental balance with his creation.
Where we should be concerned is that the crucial Biblical values of social justice, human rights and good governance, together with democracy itself, have often been strongest in many western countries. Many of the middle income countries now rising to a much stronger place of global power are authoritarian regimes. They like to portray democracy, human rights and good governance as western ideas foisted on an unwilling world. But this is not true. Such values are not just western; they are truly universal. Most of the ordinary citizens of all countries, especially minorities, the poorest, young people, women and many others, absolutely hold to these universal values. They are so often engaged in courageously struggling for them, at huge personal risk, as we have seen this year in protests in Iran, China, Russia and many other countries. The tragedy we must avoid then, is that as the west becomes less dominant and powerful, in itself not a bad thing, the values of democracy, human rights and good governance globally also become less dominant, to be replaced by more autocratic and abusive regimes and ideologies. This would be a huge tragedy for the entire world.
What can be done about this?
So what can western nations do to help ensure the universal values of social justice are widely held, both at home and by all nations in a swiftly changing world? Arise’s report, The Arise Manifesto, looks in detail at what the Bible has to say, and what history and the world’s leading academic experts have to teach us, about the practical ways we can improve democracy, human rights and good governance in our world. Drawing from this, we see there are essentially four things western nations should be doing now.
Firstly, they can lead by example. As we have seen, there has been an extremely worrying drift towards authoritarianism and the breaking of democratic norms in multiple western countries in recent years. This must stop. Transparent, democratic, accountable governance and the rule of law must be reaffirmed and strengthened. Successful, professional, just, stable and smooth governance in this area sends a clear signal and can be a great model for other governments and reformers to aspire to in their own nations.
Secondly, western nations need to reform their own economies to address the genuine economic hardship their citizens are experiencing. As we have seen, western countries are still far too dependent on the polluting fossil fuels that cause climate change and on overconsumption of limited natural resources. Furthermore, most western economies are relatively moribund, and where they do work, increasingly they work only for the richest in society, leaving an ever growing number of low paid people who can’t afford their rent or mortgages, and are dependent on benefits and food banks to help them get by. This has to change. Arise’s 4 Shifts Campaign seeks to tackle these issues by addressing the four shifts needed to reboot our economies so they create the jobs and wealth that benefits everyone, but do so without destroying the planet. This requires two shifts to secure a safe environmental ceiling: from fossil fuels to 100% clean renewable energy, and from our current wasteful extract-consume-dispose economic model to a circular economy where materials are reused in a sustainable way and nothing is wasted. It then couples these with the two shifts needed to secure a good developmental social floor: national industrial and economic development strategies to revitalise strong and fair economies, coupled with progressive tax and social spending to ensure much of the wealth generated by such economies is redistributed through public services like healthcare, education and social protection, to benefit all. Such actions both hugely benefit their own citizens, but also again act as a model and inspiration that other nations can follow. Western governments should pursue the policies that support these four shifts, like those set out in Arise’s 4 Shifts Report.
Thirdly, in their international policies and diplomatic relations, western governments should act with integrity, generosity and humility. This can be done in multiple ways including prioritising regular and cordial diplomatic communication, relations and dialogue; providing overseas aid of at least the internationally agreed level of 0.7% of Gross National Income; or cancelling unpayable developing country debts. Western countries should also play a constructive and generous role in international talks on climate change, biodiversity, trade and other areas; support international institutions like the UN; and reform the rules of other institutions like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organisation to be fairer to developing countries. Western countries should also provide generous humanitarian relief in the context of disasters, and significant climate finance. Foreign policies like these would go a long way towards resetting the relationship of the west to other countries, and have a hugely positive influence for social justice, development and the environment for the whole world.
Finally, western nations should get behind and support bottom-up reform movements that are seeking to improve social justice standards in their countries, like those we have seen in Iran and China in recent weeks. Bottom-up popular peaceful reform movements have again and again proved to be the most successful method of dramatically improving democracy, human rights and good governance. We have seen such movements in Serbia, Madagascar, Georgia, Ukraine, Lebanon, Nepal, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, East Germany, Slovenia, Mali, Bolivia, the Philippines, Zambia, South Korea, Chile, Argentina, Haiti, Brazil, Uruguay, Malawi, Thailand, Bulgaria, Hungary, Nigeria, and many other countries. Such movements require great courage and perseverance from those involved, and all our support. However, western nations should be fully guided by the national citizens who are leading such movements, and only give support in ways that they want, to avoid inadvertently allowing such movements to be portrayed as stooges of the west, and thus undermining them.
Conclusion
So in conclusion, we are living through a natural rebalancing on the geopolitical landscape of our world. Western nations will become proportionately less dominant and powerful in the international community, as other nations develop economically, more of their populations are lifted out of poverty, and they become more powerful. This is a good thing and should be celebrated. It is development working. It does not mean that western nations need automatically decline economically or in living standards themselves. Neither does it mean that the values of democracy, human rights and good governance that have often shone strongest in the west, must decline as well. There is much western nations can do to reform their own politics and economies at home, and to be a positive force promoting international generosity, cooperation and solidarity overseas. Such an approach would promote social justice, democracy, human rights, good governance, and the reduction of poverty for everyone, everywhere in the world.
Find out more
Find out more in the Arise Manifesto, Arise’s big picture, researched, Biblical, holistic and practical vision for a better world. It looks at what the Bible says, and what we can learn from the best data and the world’s leading experts on the five major areas of evangelism, discipleship, social justice, development and the environment. It then draws these lessons together into a practical road map for the changes we need to see in our world, which the Arise movement campaigns to achieve.
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