An American academic says that the “long” twentieth century is over, and with it the era of progress that was never dreamed of by human beings, and Professor of Economics at the University of California Brad DeLong warns - in his book “Low-stepping towards an ideal utopian society.. an economic history of the twentieth century” - of That the next will not impress anyone.
In his book, excerpts of which were reviewed by Foreign Policy, the author points out that the history of the twentieth century from 1870 to 2010 was characterized by 4 things: technology-driven growth, globalization, America's exceptionalism, and confidence that humanity is capable of It is moving - albeit at a slow pace - towards the ideal of a society in which governments can solve political and economic problems.
And only the most optimistic people before 1870 were the ones who were confident in the ability of humanity to follow a path towards reaching the utopia, despite the bumpy road that requires massive transformations in human societies and psychology.
The German philosopher Karl Marx and his close colleague Friedrich Engels had assumed in 1848 that the world was then living in what they called the "bourgeois age", where private ownership and the exchange of goods and products were the basic principles regulating the movement of human society, which led to the creation of strong incentives for scientific research and engineering development. And stimulating commercial investment to spread technological innovations with the aim of increasing productivity at rates that exceed previous expectations.
Marx and Engels saw the interrelated phenomena that defined the age of the bourgeoisie as both 'saviour and the devil'.
Those phenomena were the savior insofar as they created the possibility of creating a affluent society in which people, if they cooperated, could do whatever they wanted in order to live a full life, but at the same time people's "diabolical" actions caused impoverishment of the vast majority of human beings, and even increased them in poverty, and will make them in In the end, they languish in slavery even more bitter than before, says DeLong.
However, Marx believes that the path to an ideal society necessitates the fall of humanity into an industrial hell, because only that can bring back to its memory the story of the descent from Heaven, in the form of a communist revolution that overthrows the existing social order and its abolition.
As for the English philosopher and economic thinker John Stuart Mill, he predicted that humanity would reach a less ideal society without this entailing a complete overthrow of what exists.
Scientific inventions and technology dissemination;
They may bring wealth to the rich, and increase the comforts of the middle class, but the great mass of men will remain the working class, and will continue to live a life of toil and servitude.
DeLong says that the road leads to abundance of materials and to an ideal society, visible and passable, and as soon as the year 1914 came, the pessimism that prevailed in 1870 seemed obsolete, if not completely harmful.
Then came the First World War, and then it became clear that what the optimists considered "abnormal and shameful" was the rule, and that deep problems could not be avoided.
People were not satisfied with what the market economy offered them, and governments proved incapable of managing economies to maintain stability and ensure growth from year to year.
DeLong believes that technology and regulation have empowered tyrants and tyranny on an unprecedented scale, and exacerbated economic disparities.
Meanwhile, the countries of the global south were steadily declining, while the countries of the north were fortunate enough to rediscover, after World War II, what was believed to be the path towards an ideal society.
Developments at the end of the twentieth century
The professor of economics explains in his book that 4 developments that occurred in the decades that followed the year 2000 marked the end of the "long" twentieth century, and heralded the end of the era of "lax" humanity towards financial idealism.
The first of these developments came in 1990, when the highly innovative and productive industries of Germany and Japan successfully challenged the technological supremacy of the United States;
This undermined the foundations of American exceptionalism.
The second development occurred in 2001, when "extremist religious violence that we believed for centuries had been hidden" erupted.
The third development was the Great Depression, which began in 2008. The fourth development was the failure of the world - during the period from roughly 1989 to the present day - to act decisively to combat global warming.
The long twentieth century has passed by 2010, and it will not be revived again, and this was confirmed after the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential elections in 2016 and the rift that caused in the country.
At that time - according to the article - it became clear that it was impossible to restore any of the four specific developments of the long twentieth century, economic growth had deteriorated significantly, globalization had declined, and confidence in the future had greatly diminished.
In addition, people elsewhere rightly no longer see the United States as an exceptional nation or its government as a trustworthy leader on the world stage.
The writer goes on to say that the cadres of the Chinese Communist Party are the only ones whose confidence in the future was strong, and who saw themselves leading humanity forward, holding high the banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics and being guided by the thought of Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and their current president, Xi Jinping.
But to non-Chinese, it looked more like "corrupt, tyrannical state-controlled capitalism with Chinese characteristics".
So it seemed that China's potential rise was not likely to advance the ideal;
On the contrary, it seemed to indicate a return to the cycle of rulers and the ruled, in which the strong do what they want, and the weak suffer from what they must do.