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The old mantra "Ouside of Liberalism, there will be no prosperity" showing its crack. Western Liberal world order is not invincible anymore.

by eunos 4y ago

andybak 4y ago
Are you referring to economic Liberalism (classic or otherwise) or something else?
- eunos 4y ago
  Not economic liberalism, more political liberalism.
  - andybak 4y ago
    The period it seemed invincible was fairly brief. During the cold war, the West wasn't especially "liberal" in it's interactions with the rest of the world. Post cold-war there was maybe a few years or less of Fukuyama-esque optimism. The Arab Spring looked positive and ended with most places worse than they started. So - not sure there was much of a window of invincibility. Unless of course you want to hark back to the Fin de siècle period. Imperialism was in full swing so that's controversial.
andreiii 4y ago
All the prosperity in the non-liberal World is just a gift from the Western Liberal world. There would be not much prosperity in India or China w/o Western companies outsourcing operations over there. Once a middle class is built things start rolling by themselves but til then let's not kid ourselves that the prosperity in these iliberal countries was home-built.
- trasz3 4y ago
  Yeah, look at all the prosperity the liberal East India Company brought there.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > the liberal East India Company What liberal East India Company? There were a number of EICs, but all of them I can think of (certainly most especially the British) were mercantilist and parts of mercantilist national policies, not liberal. The mercantilism of British policy and the British EIC were, actually, a quite important factor in both the US push for independence and its ideological connection with liberalism. While liberalism might eventually have become a nearly consensus ideology in the West, but it certainly wasn’t in the late 18th Century and it certainly wasn’t the ideology of or behind colonialism.
    - trasz3 4y ago
      It wasn’t the ideology behind, sure, but the end result was the same.
      - dragonwriter 4y ago
        > It wasn’t the ideology behind, sure, but the end result was the same. That’s unsupportable with evidence because we don’t have a world to test the effects of liberalism in an environment where it isn’t a reaction against established mercanitilism in a number of empires, one of which alone controls a sizable fraction of the globe, but I’m going to say, no, its not. (I will admit that one problem with economic liberalism is that it tends to entrench existing inequalities, including those produced by pre-existing mercantilist arrangements, but that’s very different than producing the same results.)

The old mantra "Ouside of Liberalism, there will be no prosperity" showing its crack. Western Liberal world order is not invincible anymore.

by eunos 4y ago

The old mantra "Ouside of Liberalism, there will be no prosperity" showing its crack. Western Liberal world order is not invincible anymore.

andybak 4y ago

Are you referring to economic Liberalism (classic or otherwise) or something else?

eunos 4y ago
Not economic liberalism, more political liberalism.
- andybak 4y ago
  The period it seemed invincible was fairly brief. During the cold war, the West wasn't especially "liberal" in it's interactions with the rest of the world. Post cold-war there was maybe a few years or less of Fukuyama-esque optimism. The Arab Spring looked positive and ended with most places worse than they started. So - not sure there was much of a window of invincibility. Unless of course you want to hark back to the Fin de siècle period. Imperialism was in full swing so that's controversial.

andreiii 4y ago

All the prosperity in the non-liberal World is just a gift from the Western Liberal world. There would be not much prosperity in India or China w/o Western companies outsourcing operations over there. Once a middle class is built things start rolling by themselves but til then let's not kid ourselves that the prosperity in these iliberal countries was home-built.

trasz3 4y ago
Yeah, look at all the prosperity the liberal East India Company brought there.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > the liberal East India Company What liberal East India Company? There were a number of EICs, but all of them I can think of (certainly most especially the British) were mercantilist and parts of mercantilist national policies, not liberal. The mercantilism of British policy and the British EIC were, actually, a quite important factor in both the US push for independence and its ideological connection with liberalism. While liberalism might eventually have become a nearly consensus ideology in the West, but it certainly wasn’t in the late 18th Century and it certainly wasn’t the ideology of or behind colonialism.
  - trasz3 4y ago
    It wasn’t the ideology behind, sure, but the end result was the same.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > It wasn’t the ideology behind, sure, but the end result was the same. That’s unsupportable with evidence because we don’t have a world to test the effects of liberalism in an environment where it isn’t a reaction against established mercanitilism in a number of empires, one of which alone controls a sizable fraction of the globe, but I’m going to say, no, its not. (I will admit that one problem with economic liberalism is that it tends to entrench existing inequalities, including those produced by pre-existing mercantilist arrangements, but that’s very different than producing the same results.)