Their share of the United States’ gross national product has risen from 34 to 47 percent since 1980. The tremendous wealth gains that the innovation boom of the digital age has generated found their way almost exclusively to the bank accounts of the top 10 percent. Seventeen years later, a typical family had just $374 more at its disposal, again adjusted for inflation. In 1999, the median family income in the United States was at $ 59,039. Adjusted for inflation, incomes of full-time employees have not increased since 1980. 4 In several regions, this has led to the loss of well-paid jobs and to long-term unemployment.Įspecially in the United States, income distribution is significantly more unequal today than several decades ago. These countries’ industrial production has been exported to China on a broad scale. For France, the United Kingdom, and particularly the United States, the economic thesis can help to explain what happened. However, their mix varies from country to country. These explanations are not mutually exclusive. This development has ultimately resulted a kind of political revolt. 3 As this narrative goes, globalization has made borders porous or even eliminated them, and has created uncontrolled migration, thereby undermining the status of the nation state and its middle classes. 2 The other interpretation sees a cultural backlash against a one-world movement at work. Income stagnation is deemed to be the cause of the feeling of being left behind, which, in turn, has caused anti-elite and anti-internationalist sentiment. Globalization has made borders porous or even eliminated them, and has created uncontrolled migration, thereby undermining the status of the nation state and its middle classes.Īccording to the economic thesis, an ever-increasing global division of labor has, over decades, prevented middle class incomes in many Western nations from rising. They offer two related explanations, an economic one and a cultural one. The small cohort of “populism experts” have placed the sources of the crisis in the domestic domain of Western democracies. What went wrong? What has led to the recession of democracy, the resurgence of authoritarianism, and ultimately the weakening of the liberal international order? As German historian Andreas Roedder writes, today we are confronted with “the ruins of our expectations.” 1 Its target is no less than the idea of an international cooperation that is built on norms, rules, and values. A new nationalism is tightening its grip on Western countries. Instead, the types of government that get by without too much liberal democracy have been making a comeback. In the rest of the world things do not look any more promising. Three decades later, Europeans are neither unified nor do they all live in peace and democracy. This was back when the nations of Europe and North America agreed on the Paris Charter and its fairy-tale ending, a “new age of democracy, freedom and unity” for Europe, and implicitly, for the entire world. When the Berlin Wall fell 30 years ago, many in the West dreamt of a Europe whole and free and at peace. Editor's Note: This piece is part of a full report, " Reassessing 1989," which looks at the major events of that year, including the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Tiananmen Square protests, and the breakup of Yugoslavia.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |