As 2011 opens, Geoffrey Wheatcroft offers a sombre assessment on the current political and economic malaise in the Guardian, contrasting the reality of the post-Cold War order with the euphoric claims made twenty years ago:

 

After the Berlin wall fell in November 1989, the Soviet Union imploded, eastern Europe was freed, Germany was reunited, and the west had won the cold war without a shot fired. Francis Fukuyama proclaimed The End of History: not only had communism been vanquished, liberal democracy and the market economy had triumphed throughout Europe, and were now bound to triumph throughout the world, from the Middle East to Africa to east Asia, or so we were told.

Twenty years on, the hubristic boastfulness of that moment seems revolting. What happened in the event? Yugoslavia was torn apart, in a way that brought great discredit to the European Union. More horrible wars across the world have killed huge numbers, from central Africa to western Asia and Sri Lanka.

……

Not everything was the direct responsibility of western governments, but some grave and unforgivable errors were. They ranged from the negligent failure to control a rampant financial sector to the doctrinaire insistence on imposing laissez-faire capitalism on Russia, which has turned the country into a brutal, despairing kleptocracy; from the thoroughly foolish expansion of Nato to a needless, criminal and abominably bloody invasion of Iraq.

Wheatcroft praises Perry Anderson, in particular his latest book The New Old World, as one of the “brilliant historians” who have documented the role played by Tony Blair and New Labour in this descent into war and economic instability. He concludes:

We were incredibly lucky. We grew up in what the French call les trentes glorieuses, the astonishing three decades that followed 1945, with unimagined prosperity and an all-nourishing state that provided healthcare and education. To cap it all, and make us softer still, we enjoyed unprecedented personal freedoms.

Then came that supposed complete victory for the west. But by then we had taken over, and what a horrible mess we’ve made. If there’s any hope at all, it must be that our crappy generation can slink away in shame, and let a younger generation see if they can manage things better. They could scarcely do worse.

Visit the Guardian to read the article in full.

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