Prosperity without Western Values

“From now on, Asia will rule the world, and that changes everything because in Asia, we have civilizations rather than nations.”

Bruno Maçães, who was Portugal’s secretary of state for European affairs from 2013 to 2015, analyses the wrong assumption, that European values paired with economic growth would eventually become universal, like a virus of enlightenment:

»The shift now taking place is arguably deeper and more radical. By accusing Western political ideas of being a sham, of masking their origin under the veneer of supposedly neutral principles, the defenders of the civilization-state are saying that the search for universal values is over, that all of us must accept that we speak only for ourselves and our societies.«

and

»But lately, doubts have been growing about whether it is really necessary to imitate Western nations in order to acquire all the benefits of modern society.«

However, people in non-Western nations did not necessarily see it like that. They judge the European/American model as just one option among many, and figured out that you can have economic growth and a better life without necessarily subscribing to the European model. This certainly came as a surprise to many intellectuals in the West.

“Europe may have been convinced that it was building a universal civilization. As it turned out, it was merely building its own.”   

John Gray (2015)

But this is certainly nothing that was not forseen. John Gray wrote in False Dawn 1998, that is, nearly 25 years ago:

»Globalisation is often equated with a trend towards homogeneity. That, again, is just what globalisation is not. Global markets in which capital and production moves freely across frontiers work precisely because of the differences between localities, nations and regions.«

and

»The dogma that free markets are the most effective means of wealth creation touches the world's actually existing capitalisms at virtually no point. In the world's most successful emerging economies modernisation has not meant adopting American-style free markets. It has meant continuous state intervention on a large scale.«

and finally

»The belief that prosperity drags liberal democracy in its wake is an article of faith, not a result of disciplined inquiry.«

All of this also lead to a vastly distorted self-perspective in the West, as Douglas Murray writes in The Strange Death of Europe in 2017:

»At the same time the only culture that couldn’t be celebrated was the culture that had allowed all these other cultures to be celebrated in the first place. In order to become multicultural, countries found that they had to do themselves down, particularly focusing on their negatives.«

Is there a reason to believe, that Western values will inspire other civilisation in the near future? It does not look like it:

»A culture of self-doubt and self-distrust is uniquely unlikely to persuade others to adopt its own stance.«