John Naisbitt: The West will have to negotiate with the rest of the world

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The editorial board of the Russian Journal presented a new issue of the newsletter RJ – Standpoint of the Week. The topic this week is ‘Is the “Moscow Consensus” possible?’

The possibility of forming a new political consensus was raised at 2009 Yaroslavl Forum where the political principles of the world order were discussed. Today, this issue continues to be examined within the framework of preparations for the next session of the Global Political Forum. There was a time when the informal ‘Washington Consensus’ was regarded as the international standard for economic policy. Today, after a series of failures and the recent global economic crisis, the master role of the Washington Consensus has been widely disputed and criticized. This week, the editorial board of RJ – Standpoint of the Week presents an overview of the debates going on in political and social science about the expected review of the foundations of the Washington Consensus, its substitution with a different agreement, and the prospects of  a new  Beijing or Moscow Consensus.

The following experts took part in the discussion: John Naisbitt, a well-known American economist and futurologist, as well as the director of the independent think tank the China Institute and professor of economics at Nankai University (China); John Williamson, the American economist who coined the term ‘Washington Consensus’ and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (Washington); Joshua Cooper Ramo, an American political scientist and managing director at Kissinger Associates, who that coined the term ‘Beijing Consensus;’ Susan George, a well-known public activist in the USA and France and head of the Transnational Institute, an international think tank for progressive politics; Evgeny Yasin, former Minister of Economy of the Russian Federation, academic adviser at the State University – Higher School of Economics, and President of the Liberal Mission Foundation; Andry Korotaev, Russian historian, sociologist, economist, director of the Eastern Anthropology Center of the Russian State University for the Humanities, and co-editor of the international journal Social Evolution & History; Richard Sakwa, British historian and political scientist, and professor of Russian and European politics at the University of Kent. The editorial board of RJ would like to draw readers’ attention to an exclusive interview with John Naisbitt, a renowned American economist and futurologist, as well as the Head of The Naisbitt China Institute:

Dear Professor Naisbitt, in your opinion, what do you think the leading world states should do in order to establish new rules of managing world affairs, which would be acceptable to the entire world – in the political, as well as economic contexts?

My wife and I have published a book called ‘China’s Megatrends’, in which we explain the new socioeconomic model that is being realised in the country. This model has neverbeen seen earlier in the history of the world, and we dub this a ‘vertical democracy’. It is not clear whether such a model will ever be exported elsewhere, but it does happen towork for the Chinese and it is a very effective and interesting model. Here there is certainly some food for thought, at a time when it is apparent that for many parliaments in the West, they are somewhat paralyzed by their dysfunctional state. This is particularly noticeable with respect to the United States, where Congress is also dysfunctional. Representative democracy, which is the system that is mainly practiced in the West, in addition to countries such as India and Japan, has become virtually outmoded in the age of the information revolution. Owing to the information revolution and to the internet, we sometimes all know as much as the elected officials do themselves in terms of what is going on. In such a situation, the representation of the populace seems to have somewhat changed. Under certain circumstances, they actual appear to unintentionally limit the public will, instead of a means of expressing the will of the public. I think that such democracies should be encouraged move towards a more participatory or direct form of democracy, since the representative democracy model is becoming increasingly outmoded. The question is also about whether or not China represents a model for the establishment of a more perfect world order.We know the Western model of a government to government aid to developing countries. We also know that generally, according to this model, these countries continue to be under developed for decades. It is important to note that the aid that is given by China to developing countries, say in Africa for instance, is quite different from the Western model. Instead, its aid is aimed at building their infrastructure. They build highways and airports and other major infrastructural projects, rather than giving money directly to the governments, partly due to the risk that they spend this funding unwisely. The end-effect ends up presenting a win-win situation, as indicated by so many of the African beneficiaries. The mutual benefit in this relationship is that these countries receive much needed infrastructure, while China is able to purchase natural resources from these countries at below market prices. In regard to the economic model that is being followed in the West, including the USA, I myself do not expect to see very great change at all in this regard. We can refer back to Aristotle on this point, as he had a great understanding about change and what was involved therein, noting that we should not confuse the distortion of things with things themselves. Likewise, we should not confuse all of the distortions in the market model with the model itself.

Do you think that the West, which is trying to find an exit strategy to pull out of this crisis, is able to focus on its own problems and stop trying to even out the world, thereby considering such a change in approach as a contribution to a new political and economic reality? Or should it deny following along the lines of a neoliberal economic model? Should the world remain divided or do you think that it should gain another chance to become an even playing field?

I do not think that the world has become an ‘even playing field’, so to speak. The premise is not one that I accept. A single glance at the map of the world is enough to realise that
there remain huge differences between countries in economic, cultural and other spheres. This is not an ‘even world’. I think we are still moving toward a world where we will have a single unified economy for the whole world. However, this single economy will probably look something like the economic system in place within the United States. In America, for example, no one in the country seems to know what the GDP is of Texas, or the GDP of New York or Connecticut or Arkansas for that matter. As our economies become more and more
integrated, it will become more difficult for us to be able to measure the GDPs of individual countries. The first signs of this situation are already apparent. To say that we actually
know what the GDP of the United States is exactly is just fiction. The United States are already so economically integrated with the rest of the world, we simply pretend that we
know what the country’s exact GDP is. Another example of where this is happening is Germany, which is a great trader and is also highly integrated. China is also heading in the
same direction, becoming integrated in the same way. The West cannot avoid the emergence of such a unified economy nor the political and cultural diversity that exists in connection with that model in the form of different national states. The West will have to participate in this new world and to negotiate the new principles for its own participation.