we're very far away from 'presidential election' discussion here, but seeing as bf2s now resembles a series of boorish, not to say boring, continuing conversations that one circles and joins and leaves at a dinner party, as is one's whim, i'll put it here anyway.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr … 1577809553
here's to the new decade!
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr … 1577809553
the west wasn't ruined by overweening elites, liberal arts types too interested in Lucan and Pliny to have any forethought; it was brought to its knees by bankers, chancers and frauds, and the selfish plutocrats they cozied up to. wall street was deregulated and left to become its own sovereign power. the financial crash started all of this current decline and pessimistic frenzy: the populism, the lurch to the right, the anger and bitterness, debasing our public discourse; and the bailout cemented widespread disillusion and resentment as the dominant mood of the decade, even if not always aimed at the right targets. useful idiots like jay, claiming that the market can fix all things, whilst communities have been wiped away and lives discounted to 'save' the 'too big to fail' corporations and banks. the west's brand of neoliberal capitalism has made a mockery of the nation states of the west. we have nothing in answer to china's alternative model, except right-wing bullshit and a retreat to the politics of petty grievance and fear.By 2010, China was beginning to have an impact on the global consciousness in a new way. Prior to the western financial crisis, it had been seen as the new but very junior kid on the block. The financial crash changed all that. Before 2008 the conventional western wisdom had been that sooner or later China would suffer a big economic meltdown. It never did. Instead, the crisis happened in the west, with huge consequences for the latter’s stability and self-confidence.
Every year for the past decade, China, not the US, has been the main source of global economic growth. In 2014, according to the World Bank’s international comparison program, the Chinese economy overtook that of the US to become the world’s largest, measured by purchasing power parity. Although China’s growth rate over the past decade has declined to its present 6.2%, it is still one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. Today its economy is more than twice as big as it was in 2010.
This is the story, as pertaining to the past decade, of the most remarkable economic transformation in human history. Unsurprisingly the west is finding the phenomenon difficult to come to terms with, displaying a kaleidoscope of emotions from denial, dismissal and condemnation to respect, appreciation and admiration; though there is presently much more of the former than the latter. The rise of China has provoked an existential crisis in the US and Europe that will last for the rest of this century. The west is in the process of being displaced and, beyond a point, it can do nothing about it. China’s rise is one of those world-transforming changes that occur very rarely in history. And only during this past decade has the west begun to realise that China’s rise will, indeed, change the world.
here's to the new decade!
Last edited by uziq (2019-12-31 10:19:35)
