IDEAS TO SHAPE THE FUTURE

Over the next 10 years, the reigning oligarchs of the global order – the United States and its allies in Europe – are going to have to make their peace with a relative decline in stature and clout. But this decline has a corollary that is worth celebrating from a global perspective: the rise of other parts of the world that have long been deprived and marginalized.

From Asia to South America, the nations of the so-called Global South have begun to climb the pot-holed path to greater wealth and clout, a process that will be accelerated in the near-mid future. The great “divergence,” whereby the living standards of a few countries in the West pulled ahead of most others following the Industrial Revolution, will be replaced by a “convergence,” as the rest of the world catches up with the developed world. Put simply, prosperity will spread across the globe, and at an accelerating pace, although from the point of view of those at the top of the current world order, it will be perceived as a loss, a “crisis.”

Demographics is one of the reasons for this shift. Take for instance, Brazil. With a 214 million-strong population, it has more than three times as many people as France. But Brazil itself is a population pygmy when compared to India, a behemoth that accounts for almost 18% of people on Earth.

As disparate and lacking in coherence as the diverse countries of the developing world can seem, they are where the world’s economic dynamism is moving to. Morgan Stanley estimates that India’s GDP is likely to more than double from current levels by 2031, which would make it the world’s third-largest economy. In a long-term economic forecast covering 65 economies, Tokyo-based think tank Japan Center for Economic Research has predicted that China and India will account for 35% of the world’s GDP in 2060, nearing the U.S. and European nations’ combined share.

We are going to see the emergence of a truly multipolar global landscape: not only a contestation of different political centers of power, but also of ideas and values. Only 30 years after Francis Fukuyama proclaimed the “End of History” we are entering an epoch where any certainties that were considered settled – from democracy to economic liberalism and secularism – will be opened to dispute. “Like-mindedness” is going to be a strategic luxury rather than a taken-for-granted fact. And terms like the “civilized world,” which make universalist claims but in fact refer to the rich countries of the West, will be relegated to the dustbin of history.

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