Book Review: The Fourth Revolution, The Global Race to
reinvent the State by John Micklethwait
& Adrian Wooldridge.
“What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the Sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
Or
does it explode?” – Langston Hughes
The famous poem of Langston Hughes, once
became a refrain of the US civil rights movement is typifying the current
situation of Israel. The Palestine dream shown by Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu to win the latest election has dried up like a raisin. Netanyahu has
also renounced any possibility under his government for a two-state solution to
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The assassination of the Russian politician
Boris Nemtsov in Moscow, reminds us the fall of the Berlin Wall. Russian
President Vladimir Putin’s action towards Ukraine depicts the tragedy of Russia
that it poses as great a threat to itself as it does to its neighbors.
Venezuela’s crisis characterized by wasteful government spending, rampant
corruption, growing authoritarianism, relentless human-rights violations, and
economic collapse has become a threat to the national security and foreign
policy of the United States.
These geopolitics or the conflict between
the states shows that we still don’t know what is good governance or what
ideology a state should adopt in order to bring peace and prosperity in the
society. In the book, The Fourth Revolution by the Editor-in-chief of The Economist John Micklethwait and Schumpeter columnist & Management
Editor Adrian Wooldridge, the authors attempts to raise a need for a revolution
for how the states are run in this global village of rapidly changing
technology.
The book starts with introduction of the
leadership camp China Executive Leadership Academy in Pudong. The camp has
become the critical training center for the future leaders of the potential
world power country. It is no longer western countries such as United States(US) who are leading the
world, the emerging countries like China has not only gained economic power,
but has also gained a substantial power in the world institutions like World
Bank, IMF, G-7, and G-20.
The falling power of US shows that there is
an immense need to refurbish the policies and ideologies of how the states are
run. It is no longer liberal Democracy that defines the success of a state.
Benign Authoritarian rule in Singapore by Lee Kuan Yew, and Communist rule in
China has reaped par excellence benefits. The authors are not suggesting that a
state should adopt authoritarian or communist rule over democracy, but they are
suggesting that there is a scope of improvement in how the democratic
governments are run.
The authors have tried to divide the
history of state revolution for last 500 years into three and half parts as per
the rights the society has gained. The first revolution occurred during the 17th
Century when the great philosopher Thomas Hobbes came up with the book Leviathan, which gave birth to the
modern concept of the nation-state. Many 18th and 19th
century thinker through the liberty of individual caused the second revolution;
here the contribution of John Stuart Mill deserves a special mention.
Beatrice
Webb, a believer in constitution, described her self as “The cleverest
member of one of the cleverest families of the cleverest class of the cleverest
nation.”, was the pioneer of the third revolution of welfare state, and personified the top-down social reforms. Towards the end
of the first part of book the authors gave credit to the prime minister of
Britain Margaret Thatcher, and the president of USA Ronald Regan for there
contribution to uphold states, improving economic conditions, and sailing
through the domestic civil crisis. This defined an unfinished half revolution
where the states where run with a partial authoritarian ideology.
In the second part, the authors does a
detailed study of California government, they comes up with seven deadly sins,
which have hampered the growth of the government. With the help of these sins the authors
narrates the loopholes of Democratic government at a micro level. The aging
population of the country has became a matter of concern for the United States,
the government has accumulated a huge burden of social security and is likely
to fail to fulfill the fiscal deficit. The Democracy has lost its charm, in the
words of Nicolas Berggruen and Nathan Gardels “Democracy is a vote for the past
because it is a vote for the vested interests of the present.”
Followed by the deadly sins was other
ruling or governance options the authors are looking. They see Asian
Alternative as the suitable option for chaining the democratic ideology. The
founding father of Asian Alternative Lee Kuan Yew, took inspiration from George
Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison to make Singapore a world-class
country. But he has friendly authoritarian attitude, rather than the democratic
attitude where the people run the state.
The authors do not imply that The Asian
Alternative is the only solution but it is one of the ways. In the last part
the authors identifies the key problem with how the west governs its countries,
and try to give a fix with some suggestions. They are very skeptical about how
the governments who have made huge promises of social security will meet their
obligations. Many governments have come up with solutions for reducing their
burden, like many countries in Europe have increased the retirement age to
sixty-seven. The authors also talks about increasing efficiency of health care
institutions, they accolades Dr. Devi Shetty for his low cost heart surgery
hospital Narayan Hrudalaya, which provides global standard medical facilities
at an astonishing low cost.
To conclude, we don’t know when this
geopolitical turmoil will end, but we for sure know that there is a revolution
the states across the world are undergoing. A multi polar world with no more
western dominance is waiting and it is a prime time for them to look beyond DEMOCRACY.
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