Kishore Mahbubani - Has the West lost it?: a provocation

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Kishore Mahbubani

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HAS THE WEST LOST IT?

A Provocation

there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.

Niccol Machiavelli, The Prince, Chapter VI

UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia

India | New Zealand | South Africa

Allen Lane is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

First published 2018

Copyright Kishore Mahbubani, 2018

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Cover design: Tom Etherington

ISBN: 978-0-241-31294-0

Why is the West feeling lost? The answer is simple. In the early twenty-first century, history has turned a corner, perhaps the most significant corner humanity has ever turned yet the West refuses to accept or adapt to this new historical era.

What is this big turn that history has taken? A brief comparison of the past 200 years with the previous 1,800 years will provide the answer. From AD 1 to 1820, the two largest economies were always those of China and India. Only after that period did Europe take off, followed by America. Viewed against the backdrop of the past 1,800 years, the recent period of Western relative over-performance against other civilizations is a major historical aberration. All such aberrations come to a natural end, and that is happening now.

So what is the problem? It is important to understand the nature of our times. The strategist Machiavelli emphasized this when he said: The prince who relies entirely on fortune is lost when it changes. I believe also that he will be successful who directs his actions according to the spirit of the times, and that he whose actions do not accord with the times will not be successful.Yet, even though the spirit of the times has changed, and even though the West will inevitably have to make major adjustments to adapt to this new era, no major Western figure has had the courage to state the defining truth of our times: that a cycle of Western domination of the world is coming to a natural end. Their populations, on the other hand, can feel these large changes in their bones, and in the job markets. This, in part, explains supposedly politically aberrant to the elites at least events like Trump and Brexit.

To reveal to their people the scale and speed of the changes, Western leaders should show the two charts below simultaneously. The frequently cited McKinsey chart (), highlighted by commentator Martin Wolf, shows how China and India have regained their natural share as those of America and Europe have begun to shrink.

The Western share of the global economy will continue to shrink. This is inevitable and unstoppable, as other societies have learnt to emulate Western best practices. Does this mean that Western livelihoods are bound to get worse? The recent stagnation of incomes and rising job losses among the working classes in America and elsewhere seems to suggest that hard times are coming. R. W. Johnson describes well how wages have stagnated: