(Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and the author of several books, most recently Militant Islam Reaches America. You may visit his website by clicking here and purchase his books by clicking here.)
In doing so, one can have no better guide than Michael Mandelbaum, a leading foreign policy analyst and author of the recently published book The Ideas That Conquered the World. What those ideas might be are spelled out in his subtitle: peace, democracy, and free markets.
Mandelbaum argues that an epochal achievement has taken place, almost without notice, as these three concepts have vanquished the competition.
Now, being in favor of no-war, political openness, and wealth may at first glance seem banal. Doesn't everyone want them? Mandelbaum acknowledges they are clichés, “the political equivalent of Muzak,” but argues — and this is both the heart of his book and of our holiday cheer — that it is precisely their banality and near-universality that is so remarkable.
He shows that these ideas are in fact stunningly new and controversial. They date back merely to the late eighteenth century; for most of the prior human experience, they were dismissed as outlandish. And it took two long centuries for them to succeed.
Peace: War was traditionally seen as the natural condition of states and no one imagined a change. As a British jurist wrote, “War appears to be as old as mankind but peace is a modern invention.” Only in the past couple of centuries did the idea develop of making peace the normal condition, yet even then old-fashioned monarchs and new-fashioned Nazis and communists resisted. Only now, especially with the spread of democracies, has the prospect of ending war become a realistic goal.
Democracy: It used to be called “mob rule” and was despised from the ancient Greeks forward — how could the unwashed masses make intelligent political decisions? Nazis and communists took this distrust to new extremes, centralizing all key decisions among a handful of leaders. Despite much resistance, democracy spread in the last century from a few English-speaking countries to much of the world.
Free markets: The notion that governments can and should increase the wealth of their populations is a radically new one. Until the Industrial Revolution in England two centuries ago, wealth was understood as static and zero-sum; the more I make, the less you do. Then came the Nazi and communist ideologies, which placed nearly all economic power in the hands of the state. Only in the past decade has it become widely accepted that restraining governmental power is the key to prosperity (“globalization”).
During the nineteenth century, these three ideas had to combat the forces of tradition until those collapsed in the First World War. Then emerged an even deadlier enemy, the two radical utopian ideologies of fascism and communism, which for seventy years glorified war, created totalitarian regimes, and controlled all aspects of life, including the economy.
But now, at last, the argument is settled. For the first time ever, the triad of peace, democracy, and free markets has no serious rival. Its message is also widely (though not universally) accepted and increasingly practiced. Russia, Mandelbaum points out, has a rough and ready democracy and a market economy. China has at least the second. India has both as does Latin America. East and Southeast Asia are following the same path. There are even hopeful signs in sub-Saharan Africa.
The Arab Middle East, and the Muslim world in general, stand out as the great exception. But that, Mandelbaum convincingly argues, is the point: they are the exception — even if a large, consequential, and dangerous one — and not the rule.
My one disagreement with Mandelbaum's excellent analysis concerns the Middle East. This region worries him for several reasons (terrorist networks, oil and gas reserves, weapons of mass destruction), but in terms of the ideas that are his core topic. Whereas he dismisses militant Islam, I see this ideology representing no less profound a challenge as did facism and communism.
Still, Mandelbaum's main point remains: that peace, democracy, and free markets “characterize the conduct of human affairs at the outset of the third millennium” is surely a blessing we should be thankful for.
