Sustainability in Troubled Times

GLOBALIZATION
just the kids of Generation K – are experiencing the world
now as a period of great insecurity. Old certainties and social
partnerships between state, society, and economy are disappearing.
The dramatic effect: Democracy as a value is becoming
blurred. Only half of young Europeans regard democracy as
the best form of government, according to a recent YouGov
study. Young people see Europe as a mere economic area and
not as a community of values with common cultural threads.
It has not always been this way.
When Francis Fukuyama proclaimed the end of history with
the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in 1989, he struck a nerve: free
markets, open societies, no ideological competition – these
were the rules that would move our world for years and would
become known as “globalization.”
A quarter-century after Fukuyama, we look with apprehension
at the situation in many countries. Around the world, this
dull throb of nationalism and populism has begun thudding.
It is almost like a pendulum swinging back, a countermovement
following the auspicious opening of the world and its
markets in 1989. It has no control and no purpose. But we
can recognize common patterns.
Stress test for democracy
Has the promise of participation in the free markets really
been kept, or does the same group of people keep winning?
What about the promise of a free society? Some people feel
overwhelmed by so much freedom. Never has the longing
been greater for authoritarian leaders who say what’s what.
Not too long ago, the aggressiveness with which populists are
appearing would have been regarded with a certain equanimity:
the last gasp of the uneducated, the atavism of an eternal
yesterday. But there is no reason for equanimity. Parliamentary
elections today are also a vote on populism, democracy, and
globalization.
is often how they see themselves – are often not even those
who have been disadvantaged economically. Precarity is not
a prerequisite; the feeling of being unable to meet expectations
– for one’s family or oneself – is enough. Also, in
many jobs around the world, the gap between expectations
and opportunities is growing. This is why some see a threat
in open markets and the implied increase in competition.
Open societies and their wealth of possible lifestyles awaken
a desire for the world as it was: smaller, more manageable,
and more predictable.
The basis of all of these worries is the absence of a positive
concept of the future. Fukuyama’s “end of history” is being
experienced as the end of any sort of malleable future, if the
future is even something worth shaping anymore. The concept
of “mission accomplished” – the idea of the future as a task
to make society different, and better – has become outdated.
“There is no alternative” to this reality, a message popularized
by Margaret Thatcher, and now used by Angela Merkel.
Our children deserve better
How did we get to this point, anyway? Where does our response
even start? Perhaps with a diagnosis.
Our children deserve better: The sentence is probably as old
as humanity itself. It is at once a promise and an obligation.
The statement is normative and does not allow for exceptions.
This is exactly where our problem begins, says Parag
Khanna, an Indian-American political scientist, sought-after
strategy consultant, and CNN expert on globalization and
geopolitics. The future will not be as comfortable as before,
promises Khanna, and this is especially true for the children
of industrialized nations. France’s new president, Emmanuel
Macron, agrees: “Politics must think more radically,” he says
in an interview with Germany’s Die Zeit. “We live in a time
of great economic restructuring. We can no longer promise
our citizens that we can preserve our present standard of
Populism must be categorized. It is not the cause of the current
crisis, but a symptom: The trigger is more akin to a kind of
recession of democracy. Bad government creates self-service
mentalities, what Stanford sociologist Larry Diamond refers
to as “predatory societies.” The problem seems to be that the
success formula of recent decades – namely, linking our democracy
concept inseparably to market liberalism – is taking
its revenge: The crisis in one will inevitably lead to a crisis in
the other, taking us into a downward spiral.
Globalization as a substitute for discomfort with modernity
But why do so many people feel like they have been downgraded?
How is it that fears of globalization are becoming fears
of homogenization? Where is this yearning for the “good old
days” coming from? The losers in globalization – and this
Global Compact International Yearbook 2017 9