Are We Standing On The Threshold of Post-Americanism?

One of America’s greatest paradoxes is the divergence between a commonly shared opinion, which does not like to ask itself too many questions, and an intelligentsia that is more and better at self-reflection than anywhere else. While the savage marketing of the election campaigns and the jousting for power between Democrats and Republicans in their quest for the White House continue, an abstract feeling prevails all around that American leading dominance in the world cannot be and some very serious deliberation is needed upon the fate of its superpower status in an environment of progressive globalization. Whichever will be the American people’s final decision, Barack Obama or John McCain, each of these candidates will face the end of the Pax Americana era, an economic depression, and most significantly, the obvious emergence of the “rest of the world”. This does not necessarily spell out a catastrophe for the country of Jefferson and Washington. Leave it to a brilliant intellectual like Fareed Zakaria, a graduate of Yale and Harvard of an Indian-Muslim background, to deem this new situation as an opportunity to be seized.

In his new and important book, The Post-American World, Zakaria persuasively develops the idea that the “world has moved on from anti-Americanism to post Americanism”. This is a world in which the United States still largely matters, but where much of the global actions and enterprises can be carried out independently of it. Here is an informative catalogue. The largest building of the world is in Taipei (Taiwan) and will be soon dethroned by the giant tower of Dubai. The greatest public company sits in Beijing. The world’s largest refinery is being constructed in India. The largest airliner is now European. The chief investment funds are concentrated in Abu Dhabi. The number one movie industry is located at Bollywood, not in Hollywood. If one believes Zakaria’s theory, the opening of the “rest of the world” ushers in the third fundamental change of the modern period. The first took place around the fifteenth century, leading the way with technological advance to the industrial revolution and capitalism. The second, which occurred at the nineteenth century, marked the apex of the United States, domination without any equivalent in History. If this reasoning is sound, then America is now poised to enter the era of the partnership with the “rest of the world”.

Ladies and gentlemen, lay your wagers.