49
Dominique Moisi
Visiting professor at Harvard University
1929 or 1989?
As the economic crisis deepens and widens, Of course, there are obvious differences between 1989
the world has been searching for historical
and now. First, and perhaps above all, the revolutions of 1989
analogies to help us understand what has
and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union put an end
been happening. At the start of the crisis,
to global bipolarity. By contrast, 2009 is likely to pave the way
to a new form of bipolarity, but with China substituting for the
many people likened it to 1982 or 1973,
Soviet Union.
which was reassuring, because both dates Second, whereas democracy and market capitalism
refer to classical cyclical downturns.
appeared as clear – if more fragile than expected – winners
in 1989, it is difficult in 2009, with the spread of the global
ODaY, the mood is much grimmer, with references crisis, to distinguish winners from losers. Everyone seems to
to 1929 and 1931 beginning to abound, even if be a loser, even if some are more affected than others.
some governments continue to behave as if the Yet, history is unfair, and the US, despite its greater
crisis was more classical than exceptional. The responsibility for today’s global crisis, may emerge in better
tendency is either excessive restraint (Europe) or a diffusion shape than most countries from the morass. in better shape,
of the effort (the United States). Europe is being cautious in but not alone. as a visiting professor at Harvard and MiT, i
the name of avoiding debt and defending the euro, whereas am getting a good preview of what the world could look like
the US has moved on many fronts in order not to waste when the crisis finally passes.
an ideal opportunity to implement badly needed structural One senses something like the making of an american-
reforms. asian dominated universe. From the incredible media lab
For geo-strategists, however, the year that naturally at MiT to the mathematics and economics departments at
comes to mind, in both politics and economics, is 1989. Harvard, asians – Chinese and indians, in particular – are
Of course, the fall of the house of lehman Brothers has everywhere, like the romans in athens in the first century
nothing to do with the fall of the Berlin Wall. indeed, on the BC: full of admiration for those from whom they were learning
surface it seems to be its perfect antithesis: the collapse of so much, and whom they would overcome in the coming
a wall symbolizing oppression and artificial divisions versus decades.
the collapse of a seemingly indestructible and reassuring But before this new order appears, the world may be
institution of financial capitalism. faced with spreading disorder, if not outright chaos. What, for
Yet 2008-2009, like 1989, may very well correspond to example, will happen to a country as central and vulnerable
an epochal change, whose unfolding consequences will as Egypt when hundred of thousands of Egyptians working
be felt for decades. The end of the East-West ideological in the Gulf are forced to return to their homeland as a result
divide and the end of absolute faith in markets are historical of the crisis in the oil-producing countries? When the rich
turning points. and what happens in 2009 may jeopardize get less rich, the poor get poorer. and what about the foreign
some of the positive results of 1989, including the peaceful workers who have reached for the “European dream” and
reunification of Europe and the triumph are now faced with potential explosions
of democratic principles over nationalist, of xenophobia in Europe’s supposedly
if not xenophobic, tendencies. open countries?
in 1989, liberal democracy triumphed The consequences of 1989 ended
over the socialist ideology incarnated up being less enduring than many
and promoted by the Soviet Bloc. For observers, including me, would have
many of his supporters, it was president assumed. We can only hope that, in the
ronald reagan who, with his deliberate end, the consequences of 2009 similarly
escalation of the arms race, pushed the prove to be far less dramatic than we
Soviet economy to the brink, thereby now – intuitively and in our historical
fully demonstrating the superiority of reflexes – feel them to be.
liberal societies and free markets. Exclusive Macau Business / Project Syndicate
april 2009
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