We Had Better Get Used To It

The Egyptian revolution is a victory for political freedom, and a sign that the ideals of democracy still have a strong, global appeal. Peter Kuttner, however, sees signs that the legacy of the western Enlightenment is waning.

Nothing lasts. Intellectually I knew that the centuries long global dominance of the west, which is the context for much of my life experience and from which I have derived immense benefit, was bound to decline. I never imagined I would see it begin in my lifetime.

Over the years, I recognised the record of capricious voting patterns on human rights issues in the UN as a telltale sign of a dent in western influence. At first glance, the allocation of the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups, with its dubious voting procedure and Qatar’s puzzling victory, could be regarded as a further instance. A fundamentalist led, revitalised Islam presents a challenge, though not only to the west. But it is the economic rise of China which provides incontrovertible proof of the west’s incipient decline.

Perhaps this is why I now have a bleak sense that for much of the world’s population, achieving prosperity may always have counted for more than achieving political freedom. That until the rise of China, the values associated with advanced democracies had a worldwide appeal because they were the wealthiest countries.

The fact that China acquired its economic strength without having democratic values is bound to diminish the appeal of those values. For a substantial part of the post war period, material wellbeing was identified with liberal democratic capitalism, rather than soviet communism. Chinese communism prevails thanks to Deng Xiaoping’s masterstroke of embracing economic freedom while shunning political freedom. For the past 30 years everyone who thought that economic freedom would inevitably lead to political freedom has been proved wrong.

When I was on holiday in China in October 2007, Hu Jintao, addressing the five yearly Communist Party Congress, stated that his government’s aim was for China to be a ‘moderately prosperous country by 2020.’ By this he meant that the per capita income would be at a tipping point guaranteeing the kind of prosperity now enjoyed by the world’s advanced economies in Europe, Asia, North America and Australasia.