foreignpolicy--2020-07-04--Crises Only Sometimes Lead to Change. Here’s Why.

In the United States , the crisis has produced an expansion of big government programs unparalleled in peacetime : massive stimulus measures , a historic expansion of unemployment benefits , a temporary basic income for many citizens , billions of dollars in funding for public health measures , low or zero-interest loans to businesses , and more .
In addition , the U.S. Federal Reserve is engaged in an experiment with modern monetary theory—previously considered “ voodoo economics ” by mainstream economists—promising to pump unlimited amounts of money into the economy .
In Europe , governments have implemented even more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Martin Sandbu urge them to “ throw caution to the wind and spend massively.
” Germany has given up its obsession with balanced budgets .
In France , President Emmanuel Macron suspended many taxes , rent , and household bills and promised no company would be allowed to collapse .
Scandinavian countries and the United Kingdom have essentially nationalized payrolls , promising to cover the wages of workers who would otherwise be laid off .
The assumption that the crisis and the radical measures undertaken in response to it will shape the world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the world order , as Yuval Noah Harari and Henry Kissinger respectively put it , has become commonplace .
As the other essays in this issue make clear , many hope—or believe—that the crisis and the responses to it will enable governments to deal with many long-standing problems , from climate change to inequality .
Many progressives in particular seem to believe that the world is at the dawn of a new era , perhaps even more now that protests against racial injustice have been added to the upheaval caused by the pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is over , ” declared the New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie .
After the coronavirus , “ ambitious progressive ideas that once seemed implausible … start to become more imaginable , ” argued his Times colleague Michelle Goldberg .
We must rethink “ the basic assumptions underlying the American value system , ” asserted former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders .
A belief in the inevitability , or at least necessity , of transformative change has characterized the European left as well .
The crisis is neoliberalism ’ s Götterdämmerung , proclaimed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ left-wing newspaper , referring to the final destruction and subsequent renewal of the world famously portrayed in Richard Wagner ’ s opera about an apocalyptic battle .
But transformation is never preordained .
Will the current crisis and the responses to it fundamentally transform economies , governments , societies , and the relationship among them ?
Is the world , as many believe or hope , at a turning point in history ?
As Leon Trotsky , one of history ’ s great revolutionaries , wrote in 1932 : The “ mere existence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an insurrection ; if it were , the masses would be always in revolt.
” Instead , he argued , “ it is necessary that the bankruptcy of the social regime , being conclusively revealed , should make these privations intolerable.
” And only at that point , he maintained , could “ new conditions and new ideas … open the prospect of a revolutionary way out.
” Trotsky , like all revolutionaries , understood that some crises lead to lasting transformation while others do not .
And history provides lessons for those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will be one of those that does .
The first is that during periods of rapid change and uncertainty it is easier to be directed by events than to direct them—and it is easier to generate discontent against an old order than consensus for a new one .
Concretely , this means that the key determinants of whether crises and discontent trigger transformation are political : In particular , planning and power are necessary .
Without agreed-on plans for what sort of new order should replace the old one , opposition movements easily @ @ @ @ @ @ @ peters out .
And if such plans are not championed by a political force with the power to implement them , good ideas can remain footnotes to history , and the status quo can stumble on .
Take 1848 , when uprisings fueled by massive discontent against existing monarchical dictatorships exploded across Europe and other parts of the globe .
As the historian Eric Hobsbawm observed , few revolutions in history “ spread more rapidly and widely , running like a brushfire across frontiers , countries and even oceans.
” Indeed , within @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crumbled under the onslaught of massive popular mobilizations .
Without agreed-on plans for what sort of new order should replace the old one , opposition movements easily collapse into infighting , and discontent often peters out .
But almost as soon as dictatorships began collapsing , divisions among the discontented came to the fore .
Middle-class liberals wanted political and economic liberalization but opposed mass enfranchisement and anything smacking of socialism , while workers and others on the left demanded full democratization and structural economic reforms .
Meanwhile , freed from the shackles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ control over their fates and territories but were often unwilling to recognize the rights of other groups to do the same .
In short , once the old order began collapsing , the lack of agreed-on plans for what should replace it led revolutionary groups to begin fighting among themselves , enabling supporters of the old order to buy some off and crush the rest .
Quickly , dictatorships returned to virtually every place from which they had disappeared .
Historians , accordingly , often refer to 1848 as “ the turning point @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Between 1918 and 1939 , another such pattern unfolded in Europe .
However , the expectation that crisis would inevitably bring transformation everywhere was naive—and leftists ’ hopes for revolutionary change on their terms were quashed once again .
In some countries , interwar crises did not lead history to turn .
In others , they did—but in dramatically different directions depending on which politicians and parties had the plans and power to make this happen .
World War I killed millions of people , ended an era of growth and globalization , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unemployment , and hyperinflation in its wake .
Before countries could recuperate , the Great Depression hit , causing an explosion of dissatisfaction with capitalism and the status quo more generally .
In most countries , however , the left was unable to unify around a plan in response to the Depression .
Communists wanted to use the crisis to bury capitalism and democracy .
Traditional socialists , influenced by Marxism , viewed capitalism as impossible to fundamentally reform and so did nothing .
Only social democrats believed the crisis provided the perfect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , economies , and societies .
In France , not only the left but also the right was unable to unite around transformative plans in response to the Great Depression and the more general dissatisfaction pervading French society .
The result was continued political drift and polarization and a country left weak and vulnerable to Nazi assault .
In a few places , such as the United States and Sweden , leftist parties did champion a social democratic Depression-fighting strategy , and progressive economic and political transformations occurred .
In other countries , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ facilitated the ability of fascists to exploit the Depression , and reactionary economic and political transformations occurred instead .
The clearest and most consequential example of this was Germany .
During the Depression , Communists increased their attacks on the Social Democratic Party ( SPD ) , the largest left party and the bulwark of German democracy , and joined with the Nazis in strikes , uprisings , and political maneuvers designed to hasten the Weimar Republic ’ s demise .
The SPD , meanwhile , despite the clamoring of its supporters and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ activist response to the catastrophe befalling them , remained largely on the sidelines .
Its leaders rejected plans put forward by social democratic reformers for a Keynesian-type response to the Depression , which called for government spending and other programs to actively fight the economic downturn in general and unemployment in particular .
Stymied by Marxists , who insisted any reform of capitalism was pointless , the party ’ s leadership believed , as its main economic theorist Rudolf Hilferding put it , that an “ offensive economic policy ” would be ineffective @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the “ logic of capitalism.
” The frustrated union leader Fritz Tarnow summed up the dilemmas of the SPD ’ s stance in the following manner : Are we standing at the sickbed of capitalism not only as doctors who want to heal the patient but also as prospective heirs who can ’ t wait for the end and would gladly help the process along with a little poison ?
… We are damned , I think , to be doctors who seriously want to cure , and yet we have to maintain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wish to receive the entire legacy of the capitalist system today rather than tomorrow .
This double role , doctor and heir , is a damned difficult task .
Although there are many reasons for fascism ’ s success in Germany and other parts of Europe , the Nazis ’ ability to take advantage of a crisis , and the left ’ s inability to do so , was critical .
The Nazis , on the other hand , had no time for healing the dying old order .
They recognized the opportunity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inherit power .
Adolf Hitler responded vigorously to the Depression , attacking the SPD and advocates of liberal democracy more generally for their passivity and inability to respond to widespread suffering .
In the 1928 elections , before the Depression hit , the National Socialist German Workers ’ Party received only 2.6 percent of the vote .
Four years later , in the campaign leading up to crucial elections in July 1932 , the Nazi Party ran on an economic platform that promised to “ solve the problem of unemployment , ” conquer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to serve “ the people.
” The elections made the Nazis the largest party in Germany .
Within six months , they were burying the Weimar Republic .
Although there are many reasons for fascism ’ s success in Germany and other parts of Europe , the Nazis ’ ability to take advantage of a crisis , and the left ’ s inability to do so , was critical .
The United States helped construct new international security and economic orders to promote the peace and prosperity necessary for postwar democratic success .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of European integration began , spurred by a recognition that democratic success required overcoming challenges too great to be achieved by the uncoordinated efforts of national governments acting alone .
And at the domestic level , European center-left and center-right parties agreed on the need for a new order and social contract between governments and citizens , with the former committed to promoting growth and protecting the latter from capitalism ’ s downsides .
Both the mainstream left and right recognized that such a transformation would be necessary to avoid the economic crises @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the interwar period .
This order worked remarkably well until the 1970s , when a combination of rising inflation , increasing unemployment , and slow growth created an opportunity for another transformation .
During the proceeding decades , neoliberals in groups like the Mont Pelerin Society and the Chicago and Virginia schools of economics and political economy had been thinking about what they saw as the downsides of the postwar order and what should replace it .
When problems and discontent emerged in the 1970s , they were therefore prepared with a narrative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as well as plans for a new one .
As Milton Friedman , an intellectual godfather of this movement , put it , “ Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change .
When that crisis occurs , the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around .
That , I believe , is our basic function : to develop alternatives to existing policies , to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.
” Friedman understood what the left didn ’ t grasp : Neoliberal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ within the economics profession , think tanks , and international organizations as well as championed by powerful political leaders like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher .
When the crisis hit in 2008 , the left lacked a coherent narrative of the existing order ’ s problems as well as convincing plans for transforming it .
Interestingly , when this neoliberal order experienced its own crisis in 2008 , no significant economic shift occurred , despite an initial widespread assumption , even by conservatives like France ’ s then-president , Nicolas Sarkozy , that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That problems and discontent did not lead to the end of an old order and the rise of a new one was at least partially a consequence , as the Economist put it , of the left ’ s inability “ to capitalise on an economic crisis tailor-made for critics of the free market.
” A key reason why the left was unable to do this , and therefore play the same transformative role its neoliberal predecessors had played a few decades earlier , was that it was divided and unprepared .
During @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the left—epitomized by Tony Blair ’ s British Labour Party , Gerhard Schröder ’ s SPD , and Bill Clinton ’ s Democrats—had become content with a technocratic management of capitalism , forgetting that it was constantly evolving and inherently dangerous .
Others on the left stopped focusing on capitalism entirely during the late 20th and early 21st centuries , turning their attention instead to intellectual currents such as postmodernism , multiculturalism , feminism , and postcolonialism , which were cultural rather than economic in nature .
Thus , when the crisis hit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coherent narrative of the existing order ’ s problems as well as convincing plans for transforming it .
Figuring out whether the United States and wealthy European countries are on the cusp of a fundamental transformation of their economies , governments , societies , and the relationship among them requires looking beyond the severity of the current crisis and the unprecedented measures already taken in response to it .
As history makes clear , crises create opportunities for change—but not all opportunities are seized .
Whether today ’ s left seizes the current @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turning point in a progressive direction—rather than another instance of a decaying old order being patched up and hobbling on—will depend on whether those favoring transformation are able to avoid the mistakes made by their predecessors in 1848 , the 1930s , and 2008 and are able to unite around convincing critiques of the old order and plans for a new one as well as turn widespread discontent into a powerful coalition in favor of transformative change .
Whether today ’ s left seizes the current opportunity and this period becomes a historical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ depend on whether those favoring transformation are able to unite around convincing critiques of the old order and plans for a new one .
For progressives , there are potentially positive signs .
There are more useful transformative ideas lying around than there were a decade ago .
In the realm of economic thinking , for example , scholars like Thomas Piketty , Emmanuel Saez , Gabriel Zucman , Mariana Mazzucato , Adam Tooze , Anne Case , and Angus Deaton have risen to the forefront of debate over the past years , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as well as developing potential responses to them .
At the same time , progressive think tanks like the Roosevelt Institute and the Washington Center for Equitable Growth have been developing and disseminating plans for long-term structural change .
Even before the remarkable outpouring of protests spurred by the killing of George Floyd , there had been a surge in mass mobilization over the past decade .
As the political scientist Erica Chenoweth and her colleagues have documented , the period from 2010 to 2019 “ saw more mass movements demanding radical change @ @ @ @ @ @ @ period since World War II .
History teaches us that new ideas and the mobilization of discontent are necessary but not sufficient to trigger transformation .
Ideas need to be forged into coherent critiques of the old order as well as attractive , viable plans for a new one .
And advocates of change need to unite around such plans to help protect against infighting , the dissipation of discontent , and pushback from defenders of the status quo .
Only then can they gain and maintain the power necessary to implement plans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ understood this better than the left over the past decades .
Neoliberals like Friedman were successful in shifting understandings of the practical relationship between markets , governments , and societies during the late 20th century because they had a clear sense of the new order they wanted to create and were able to get their ideas adopted by scholars , policymakers , and politicians who could implement them .
New ideas and the mobilization of discontent are necessary but not sufficient to trigger transformation .
Even after the financial crisis , which was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , supporters of the status quo were able to thwart fundamental change .
In the United States , for example , many of then-President Barack Obama ’ s key advisors were not interested in transformative change and remained preoccupied with patching up the old order .
To return to the German analogy used by the SPD ’ s Tarnow during the Great Depression , they were primarily interested in being “ doctors ” rather than “ heirs.
” And any potentially progressive aspects of the administration ’ s crisis package were limited in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ disseminated a narrative that transformed Obama ’ s rescue of the economy into a tale of government waste and elite bailouts .
Meanwhile , the Tea Party movement further transformed the Republican Party into a unified force devoted to fighting progressive change and convincing citizens that the government was the enemy .
To counter this , progressives must remember that the crisis and the extraordinary measures already taken in response to it are not enough to guarantee transformative change .
Whether this will be an “ FDR moment ” —as Massachusetts Sen. Edward @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New Deal , and other progressives believe—depends on ensuring that the right political conditions are in place : It was Franklin D. Roosevelt ’ s ability to rally voters and his party behind plans to dramatically reshape the relationship between the economy , government , and citizens as much as the widespread suffering and discontent with capitalism generated by the Great Depression that made the New Deal possible .
Democrats would need to mount a successful assault on the anti-government philosophy long championed by Republicans .
Translated to today , that means Democrats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the anti-government philosophy long championed by Republicans and temporarily called into question by the crisis , unify behind plans for transformative change , and convince citizens that these plans offer a better vision for the future than a patched-up version of the status quo .
Demands for major structural reforms to combat racial injustice in the United States and elsewhere are subject to a similar dynamic .
Institutionalizing major structural reforms in this area , like any other , requires winning elections and holding on to political power .
Anything that enables @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from problems that need addressing , erodes the broad but fragile support for reform that currently exists , or divides the Democratic coalition must be avoided .
Joe Biden , perhaps surprisingly , has pivoted significantly in this regard , from a message of continuity and competent management to one that champions deep structural reform in health care , the environment , infrastructure , education , racial justice-related issues , and more .
Of course , in order to enact such changes , the presumptive Democratic nominee has to win the election in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to bring the House and Senate with him .
To do this , in turn , he must have more than a negative message that focuses on the mistakes , corruption , and ineptitude of the current administration .
Biden will have to convince the electorate that transformative change is feasible and desirable .
And in power he and the Democrats have to remember that long-term change requires political shifts .
During the late 20th century , Republicans put together a coalition of the wealthy , business leaders , religious conservatives , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a promise to shrink the role of government .
This coalition enabled Republicans to enact significant changes at the local , state , and national levels .
Democrats will have to pull off a similar feat , uniting their own disparate coalition around a message of dramatic change , downplaying the areas where their constituencies ’ interests diverge rather than converge .
As the Great Depression and the events of the early 1930s in Germany make clear , suffering and discontent can bolster the standing of nationalists , racists , and reactionaries as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If Democrats and progressives elsewhere can not do this , history may still turn but in a different direction .
As the Great Depression and the events of the early 1930s in Germany make clear , suffering and discontent can bolster the standing of nationalists , racists , and reactionaries as easily as they can propel progressives .
FDR understood this—and the New Deal was designed as much to undercut the appeal of democracy ’ s enemies as it was to reform capitalism .
After all , during the 1930s , a surprising @ @ @ @ @ @ @ including Henry Ford , Charles Lindbergh , and the Rev .
Charles Coughlin , openly praised Hitler and expressed admiration for the dictatorships arising in many European countries .
Populists and right-wing extremists are already peddling a narrative that blames the crisis on foreigners—particularly China and immigrants—and are offering a vision of a post-pandemic world where globalization , multilateralism , free trade , and immigration are limited ; borders are hardened ; governments are empowered to protect the people from danger ; and social justice and inequality are once again pushed to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ historical turning points have not been the result of crises alone but rather of revolutionaries taking advantage of them .
And taking advantage of a crisis requires knowing what you want to achieve and how to do it .
This article appears in the Summer 2020 print issue .

The coronavirus pandemic has upended Western economies, many of which are now facing their gravest crises since the Great Depression. In response, governments are taking unprecedented measures.
The coronavirus pandemic has upended Western economies, many of which are now facing their gravest crises since the Great Depression. In response, governments are taking unprecedented measures.
In the United States, the crisis has produced an expansion of big government programs unparalleled in peacetime: massive stimulus measures, a historic expansion of unemployment benefits, a temporary basic income for many citizens, billions of dollars in funding for public health measures, low or zero-interest loans to businesses, and more. In addition, the U.S. Federal Reserve is engaged in an experiment with modern monetary theory—previously considered “voodoo economics” by mainstream economists—promising to pump unlimited amounts of money into the economy.
In Europe, governments have implemented even more dramatic measures, as economists such as Martin Sandbu urge them to “throw caution to the wind and spend massively.” Germany has given up its obsession with balanced budgets. In France, President Emmanuel Macron suspended many taxes, rent, and household bills and promised no company would be allowed to collapse. Scandinavian countries and the United Kingdom have essentially nationalized payrolls, promising to cover the wages of workers who would otherwise be laid off.
The assumption that the crisis and the radical measures undertaken in response to it will shape the world for years to come and forever alter the world order, as Yuval Noah Harari and Henry Kissinger respectively put it, has become commonplace. As the other essays in this issue make clear, many hope—or believe—that the crisis and the responses to it will enable governments to deal with many long-standing problems, from climate change to inequality.
Many progressives in particular seem to believe that the world is at the dawn of a new era, perhaps even more now that protests against racial injustice have been added to the upheaval caused by the pandemic. The “era of small government is over,” declared the New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie. After the coronavirus, “ambitious progressive ideas that once seemed implausible … start to become more imaginable,” argued his Times colleague Michelle Goldberg. We must rethink “the basic assumptions underlying the American value system,” asserted former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. A belief in the inevitability, or at least necessity, of transformative change has characterized the European left as well. The crisis is neoliberalism’s Götterdämmerung, proclaimed a headline in Germany’s leading left-wing newspaper, referring to the final destruction and subsequent renewal of the world famously portrayed in Richard Wagner’s opera about an apocalyptic battle. But transformation is never preordained.
Will the current crisis and the responses to it fundamentally transform economies, governments, societies, and the relationship among them? Is the world, as many believe or hope, at a turning point in history?
Answering these questions requires distinguishing between crises and transformation. It is easy to assume that crises trigger the collapse of an existing order and its replacement by a new one. But this view is fundamentally flawed, most obviously because it does not fit the historical record. Crises are fairly common; fundamental transformations are rare.
As Leon Trotsky, one of history’s great revolutionaries, wrote in 1932: The “mere existence of privations is not enough to cause an insurrection; if it were, the masses would be always in revolt.” Instead, he argued, “it is necessary that the bankruptcy of the social regime, being conclusively revealed, should make these privations intolerable.” And only at that point, he maintained, could “new conditions and new ideas … open the prospect of a revolutionary way out.”
Crises are fairly common; fundamental transformations are rare.
Trotsky, like all revolutionaries, understood that some crises lead to lasting transformation while others do not. And history provides lessons for those who believe or hope that this crisis will be one of those that does.
The first is that during periods of rapid change and uncertainty it is easier to be directed by events than to direct them—and it is easier to generate discontent against an old order than consensus for a new one. Concretely, this means that the key determinants of whether crises and discontent trigger transformation are political: In particular, planning and power are necessary. Without agreed-on plans for what sort of new order should replace the old one, opposition movements easily collapse into infighting, and discontent often peters out. And if such plans are not championed by a political force with the power to implement them, good ideas can remain footnotes to history, and the status quo can stumble on.
Take 1848, when uprisings fueled by massive discontent against existing monarchical dictatorships exploded across Europe and other parts of the globe. As the historian Eric Hobsbawm observed, few revolutions in history “spread more rapidly and widely, running like a brushfire across frontiers, countries and even oceans.” Indeed, within months, dictatorships that seemed completely secure crumbled under the onslaught of massive popular mobilizations.
Without agreed-on plans for what sort of new order should replace the old one, opposition movements easily collapse into infighting, and discontent often peters out.
But almost as soon as dictatorships began collapsing, divisions among the discontented came to the fore. Middle-class liberals wanted political and economic liberalization but opposed mass enfranchisement and anything smacking of socialism, while workers and others on the left demanded full democratization and structural economic reforms. Meanwhile, freed from the shackles of dictatorship, various ethnic groups demanded control over their fates and territories but were often unwilling to recognize the rights of other groups to do the same.
In short, once the old order began collapsing, the lack of agreed-on plans for what should replace it led revolutionary groups to begin fighting among themselves, enabling supporters of the old order to buy some off and crush the rest. Quickly, dictatorships returned to virtually every place from which they had disappeared. Historians, accordingly, often refer to 1848 as “the turning point at which history failed to turn.”
Between 1918 and 1939, another such pattern unfolded in Europe. However, the expectation that crisis would inevitably bring transformation everywhere was naive—and leftists’ hopes for revolutionary change on their terms were quashed once again. In some countries, interwar crises did not lead history to turn. In others, they did—but in dramatically different directions depending on which politicians and parties had the plans and power to make this happen.
World War I killed millions of people, ended an era of growth and globalization, and brought a flu pandemic, massive unemployment, and hyperinflation in its wake. Before countries could recuperate, the Great Depression hit, causing an explosion of dissatisfaction with capitalism and the status quo more generally.
In most countries, however, the left was unable to unify around a plan in response to the Depression. Communists wanted to use the crisis to bury capitalism and democracy. Traditional socialists, influenced by Marxism, viewed capitalism as impossible to fundamentally reform and so did nothing. Only social democrats believed the crisis provided the perfect opportunity to transform the relationship between governments, economies, and societies.
In France, not only the left but also the right was unable to unite around transformative plans in response to the Great Depression and the more general dissatisfaction pervading French society. The result was continued political drift and polarization and a country left weak and vulnerable to Nazi assault.
In a few places, such as the United States and Sweden, leftist parties did champion a social democratic Depression-fighting strategy, and progressive economic and political transformations occurred. In other countries, the left’s infighting and inaction facilitated the ability of fascists to exploit the Depression, and reactionary economic and political transformations occurred instead.
The clearest and most consequential example of this was Germany. During the Depression, Communists increased their attacks on the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the largest left party and the bulwark of German democracy, and joined with the Nazis in strikes, uprisings, and political maneuvers designed to hasten the Weimar Republic’s demise.
The SPD, meanwhile, despite the clamoring of its supporters and the rest of German society for an activist response to the catastrophe befalling them, remained largely on the sidelines. Its leaders rejected plans put forward by social democratic reformers for a Keynesian-type response to the Depression, which called for government spending and other programs to actively fight the economic downturn in general and unemployment in particular.
Stymied by Marxists, who insisted any reform of capitalism was pointless, the party’s leadership believed, as its main economic theorist Rudolf Hilferding put it, that an “offensive economic policy” would be ineffective because the ultimate arbiter of developments was the “logic of capitalism.” The frustrated union leader Fritz Tarnow summed up the dilemmas of the SPD’s stance in the following manner:
Are we standing at the sickbed of capitalism not only as doctors who want to heal the patient but also as prospective heirs who can’t wait for the end and would gladly help the process along with a little poison? … We are damned, I think, to be doctors who seriously want to cure, and yet we have to maintain the feeling that we are heirs who wish to receive the entire legacy of the capitalist system today rather than tomorrow. This double role, doctor and heir, is a damned difficult task.
Although there are many reasons for fascism’s success in Germany and other parts of Europe, the Nazis’ ability to take advantage of a crisis, and the left’s inability to do so, was critical.
The Nazis, on the other hand, had no time for healing the dying old order. They recognized the opportunity the crisis presented: a chance to inherit power. Adolf Hitler responded vigorously to the Depression, attacking the SPD and advocates of liberal democracy more generally for their passivity and inability to respond to widespread suffering.
In the 1928 elections, before the Depression hit, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party received only 2.6 percent of the vote. Four years later, in the campaign leading up to crucial elections in July 1932, the Nazi Party ran on an economic platform that promised to “solve the problem of unemployment,” conquer the Depression, and restructure the economy to serve “the people.” The elections made the Nazis the largest party in Germany. Within six months, they were burying the Weimar Republic. Although there are many reasons for fascism’s success in Germany and other parts of Europe, the Nazis’ ability to take advantage of a crisis, and the left’s inability to do so, was critical.
In contrast to 1918, after 1945 a progressive transformation occurred across Western Europe. The tragedy of the interwar years and the Great Depression led to a unified belief on both sides of the Atlantic that a new order capable of ensuring economic prosperity and social stability was necessary for democracy to succeed in Europe. This consensus led to extraordinary efforts to change political and economic dynamics at the international, regional, and domestic levels. Friedman understood what the left didn’t grasp: Neoliberal ideas were implemented because they became embedded within the economics profession, think tanks, and international organizations.
The United States helped construct new international security and economic orders to promote the peace and prosperity necessary for postwar democratic success. At the regional level, a process of European integration began, spurred by a recognition that democratic success required overcoming challenges too great to be achieved by the uncoordinated efforts of national governments acting alone. And at the domestic level, European center-left and center-right parties agreed on the need for a new order and social contract between governments and citizens, with the former committed to promoting growth and protecting the latter from capitalism’s downsides. Both the mainstream left and right recognized that such a transformation would be necessary to avoid the economic crises and political extremism that doomed democracy during the interwar period.
This order worked remarkably well until the 1970s, when a combination of rising inflation, increasing unemployment, and slow growth created an opportunity for another transformation. During the proceeding decades, neoliberals in groups like the Mont Pelerin Society and the Chicago and Virginia schools of economics and political economy had been thinking about what they saw as the downsides of the postwar order and what should replace it. When problems and discontent emerged in the 1970s, they were therefore prepared with a narrative of the old order’s failures as well as plans for a new one.
As Milton Friedman, an intellectual godfather of this movement, put it, “Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.” Friedman understood what the left didn’t grasp: Neoliberal ideas were implemented because they became embedded within the economics profession, think tanks, and international organizations as well as championed by powerful political leaders like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.
When the crisis hit in 2008, the left lacked a coherent narrative of the existing order’s problems as well as convincing plans for transforming it.
Interestingly, when this neoliberal order experienced its own crisis in 2008, no significant economic shift occurred, despite an initial widespread assumption, even by conservatives like France’s then-president, Nicolas Sarkozy, that the era of neoliberalism was over. That problems and discontent did not lead to the end of an old order and the rise of a new one was at least partially a consequence, as the Economist put it, of the left’s inability “to capitalise on an economic crisis tailor-made for critics of the free market.”
A key reason why the left was unable to do this, and therefore play the same transformative role its neoliberal predecessors had played a few decades earlier, was that it was divided and unprepared. During the previous decades, some parts of the left—epitomized by Tony Blair’s British Labour Party, Gerhard Schröder’s SPD, and Bill Clinton’s Democrats—had become content with a technocratic management of capitalism, forgetting that it was constantly evolving and inherently dangerous. Others on the left stopped focusing on capitalism entirely during the late 20th and early 21st centuries, turning their attention instead to intellectual currents such as postmodernism, multiculturalism, feminism, and postcolonialism, which were cultural rather than economic in nature. Thus, when the crisis hit in 2008, the left lacked a coherent narrative of the existing order’s problems as well as convincing plans for transforming it.
The same problem—an inability to capitalize on a crisis—could arise once again today unless those committed to creating a more just and egalitarian society heed the lessons of the past.
Figuring out whether the United States and wealthy European countries are on the cusp of a fundamental transformation of their economies, governments, societies, and the relationship among them requires looking beyond the severity of the current crisis and the unprecedented measures already taken in response to it. As history makes clear, crises create opportunities for change—but not all opportunities are seized.
Whether today’s left seizes the current opportunity and this period becomes a historical turning point in a progressive direction—rather than another instance of a decaying old order being patched up and hobbling on—will depend on whether those favoring transformation are able to avoid the mistakes made by their predecessors in 1848, the 1930s, and 2008 and are able to unite around convincing critiques of the old order and plans for a new one as well as turn widespread discontent into a powerful coalition in favor of transformative change.
Whether today’s left seizes the current opportunity and this period becomes a historical turning point in a progressive direction will depend on whether those favoring transformation are able to unite around convincing critiques of the old order and plans for a new one.
For progressives, there are potentially positive signs. There are more useful transformative ideas lying around than there were a decade ago. In the realm of economic thinking, for example, scholars like Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, Gabriel Zucman, Mariana Mazzucato, Adam Tooze, Anne Case, and Angus Deaton have risen to the forefront of debate over the past years, highlighting problems with the existing economic order as well as developing potential responses to them.
At the same time, progressive think tanks like the Roosevelt Institute and the Washington Center for Equitable Growth have been developing and disseminating plans for long-term structural change. Even before the remarkable outpouring of protests spurred by the killing of George Floyd, there had been a surge in mass mobilization over the past decade. As the political scientist Erica Chenoweth and her colleagues have documented, the period from 2010 to 2019 “saw more mass movements demanding radical change around the world” than in any period since World War II.
History teaches us that new ideas and the mobilization of discontent are necessary but not sufficient to trigger transformation. Ideas need to be forged into coherent critiques of the old order as well as attractive, viable plans for a new one. And advocates of change need to unite around such plans to help protect against infighting, the dissipation of discontent, and pushback from defenders of the status quo. Only then can they gain and maintain the power necessary to implement plans for long-term change.
The right has understood this better than the left over the past decades. Neoliberals like Friedman were successful in shifting understandings of the practical relationship between markets, governments, and societies during the late 20th century because they had a clear sense of the new order they wanted to create and were able to get their ideas adopted by scholars, policymakers, and politicians who could implement them.
New ideas and the mobilization of discontent are necessary but not sufficient to trigger transformation.
Even after the financial crisis, which was widely attributed to neoliberalism’s failings, supporters of the status quo were able to thwart fundamental change. In the United States, for example, many of then-President Barack Obama’s key advisors were not interested in transformative change and remained preoccupied with patching up the old order. To return to the German analogy used by the SPD’s Tarnow during the Great Depression, they were primarily interested in being “doctors” rather than “heirs.”
And any potentially progressive aspects of the administration’s crisis package were limited in scope and duration by conservatives, who disseminated a narrative that transformed Obama’s rescue of the economy into a tale of government waste and elite bailouts. Meanwhile, the Tea Party movement further transformed the Republican Party into a unified force devoted to fighting progressive change and convincing citizens that the government was the enemy.
Despite the extraordinary nature of the current crisis and the widespread initial acceptance of extraordinary policies in response to it, a similar pushback by supporters of the status quo has already begun. In the United States, Republicans are falling back on their old talking points—voicing concern about the dangers of budget deficits, federal bailouts of state and local governments, and the so-called moral hazard associated with unconditional government handouts that might incentivize people to stay home rather than go to work. Grassroots activists, meanwhile, in many cases supported by the same donors and groups that helped get the Tea Party off the ground, have begun protesting against lockdowns, denouncing “big government” and “threats” to individual freedom—and they have been encouraged by Trump and other Republican leaders. As Jenny Beth Martin, the co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, put it, she and her colleagues are ready to mobilize to ensure that when the pandemic is over, the United States remains a “capitalist country,” as opposed to a socialist one.
To counter this, progressives must remember that the crisis and the extraordinary measures already taken in response to it are not enough to guarantee transformative change. Whether this will be an “FDR moment”—as Massachusetts Sen. Edward Markey, a co-author of the Green New Deal, and other progressives believe—depends on ensuring that the right political conditions are in place: It was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ability to rally voters and his party behind plans to dramatically reshape the relationship between the economy, government, and citizens as much as the widespread suffering and discontent with capitalism generated by the Great Depression that made the New Deal possible.
Democrats would need to mount a successful assault on the anti-government philosophy long championed by Republicans.
Translated to today, that means Democrats would need to mount a successful assault on the anti-government philosophy long championed by Republicans and temporarily called into question by the crisis, unify behind plans for transformative change, and convince citizens that these plans offer a better vision for the future than a patched-up version of the status quo. Demands for major structural reforms to combat racial injustice in the United States and elsewhere are subject to a similar dynamic. Institutionalizing major structural reforms in this area, like any other, requires winning elections and holding on to political power. Anything that enables opponents of change to shift attention away from problems that need addressing, erodes the broad but fragile support for reform that currently exists, or divides the Democratic coalition must be avoided.
Joe Biden, perhaps surprisingly, has pivoted significantly in this regard, from a message of continuity and competent management to one that champions deep structural reform in health care, the environment, infrastructure, education, racial justice-related issues, and more. Of course, in order to enact such changes, the presumptive Democratic nominee has to win the election in November and probably with coattails long enough to bring the House and Senate with him.
To do this, in turn, he must have more than a negative message that focuses on the mistakes, corruption, and ineptitude of the current administration. Biden will have to convince the electorate that transformative change is feasible and desirable. And in power he and the Democrats have to remember that long-term change requires political shifts. During the late 20th century, Republicans put together a coalition of the wealthy, business leaders, religious conservatives, and discontented low-education whites united—although for different reasons—around a promise to shrink the role of government. This coalition enabled Republicans to enact significant changes at the local, state, and national levels. Democrats will have to pull off a similar feat, uniting their own disparate coalition around a message of dramatic change, downplaying the areas where their constituencies’ interests diverge rather than converge.
As the Great Depression and the events of the early 1930s in Germany make clear, suffering and discontent can bolster the standing of nationalists, racists, and reactionaries as easily as they can propel progressives.
If Democrats and progressives elsewhere cannot do this, history may still turn but in a different direction. As the Great Depression and the events of the early 1930s in Germany make clear, suffering and discontent can bolster the standing of nationalists, racists, and reactionaries as easily as they can propel progressives. FDR understood this—and the New Deal was designed as much to undercut the appeal of democracy’s enemies as it was to reform capitalism. After all, during the 1930s, a surprising number of U.S. citizens and politicians, including Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and the Rev. Charles Coughlin, openly praised Hitler and expressed admiration for the dictatorships arising in many European countries.
Populists and right-wing extremists are already peddling a narrative that blames the crisis on foreigners—particularly China and immigrants—and are offering a vision of a post-pandemic world where globalization, multilateralism, free trade, and immigration are limited; borders are hardened; governments are empowered to protect the people from danger; and social justice and inequality are once again pushed to the back burner.
In the past, historical turning points have not been the result of crises alone but rather of revolutionaries taking advantage of them. And taking advantage of a crisis requires knowing what you want to achieve and how to do it.
This article appears in the Summer 2020 print issue.


Empire’s Little Helper

Conquerors such as the Romans in Britain or the Mongols in China first massacred local people who were not yet “ immune ” —that is to say , submissive .
Huge numbers of people died , but afterward rulers and subjects worked out an accommodation where regular taxation replaced mere plunder .
In the same fashion , diseases settled into an arrangement with humanity .
The initial casualties as new viruses and bacteria emerged from the wilderness died down as immunity developed or diseases became less lethal , allowing a mutual , if uneasy , existence .
Disease and empire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Commissioned Golden Mirror of Medical Learning , a Chinese medical encyclopedia published in 1742 , infectious disease marks the page .
Illustration after illustration details the ravages of smallpox , a longtime scourge that Chinese armies would carry into other states : “ swallow ’ s nests ” of pustules clustered together , “ crab claws ” of marks dense at the top but light at the bottom , “ mouse tracks ” of pustules trailing across flesh .
China knew the disease well .
Doctors had been describing it since the 15th @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way in developing a partially effective vaccine known as variolation .
The text was commissioned by the Qianlong emperor himself , to “ rectify medical knowledge ” throughout the empire , and compiled over three years by a dedicated group of 80 doctors and officials , from imperial physicians to student copyists .
Over a hundred pages are devoted to smallpox alone .
China knew the disease well .
Doctors had been describing it since the 15th century , and the Chinese led the way in developing a partially effective vaccine known as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people into the nostrils of the rest of the population .
Until the 17th century , smallpox remained confined to China , as Central Eurasia was nearly walled off from Chinese contact .
The Manchus , however , who conquered the Ming dynasty in the mid-17th century and became masters of China as the Qing dynasty , extended their rule into Mongolia .
The Qing rapidly familiarized themselves with the most modern techniques to fight the disease , including variolation .
When the Manchus invited their Mongol allies to visit , they met @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , not in Beijing , and even practiced social distancing as best they could .
Qianlong , the fourth Qing ruler , was clearly happy with the results of the encyclopedia ; he heaped gifts and new offices on the writers , including a detailed manikin showing key acupuncture points .
The Dalai Lama in Tibet also knew of smallpox ’ s danger ; other lamas who visited Beijing tried to isolate themselves inside their monasteries .
Yet Mongols and Tibetans did die in large numbers , as the virus could not be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take advantage .
The last Mongol holdout against Qing domination , Prince Amursana , died of the disease in 1757 ; one historian estimated that up to 40 percent of his followers died of smallpox , more than from combat or famine .
As lands emptied , Qing troops moved in , clearing the way for future Chinese settlement—and for the sweeping claims the modern People ’ s Republic of China has made to Mongolia , Xinjiang , and Tibet .
A second disease , endemic in China since the 18th century , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The plague bacillus , which devastated Europe in the Black Death , remained active in the high mountains on the Sino-Burmese border into the 18th century .
It then followed the tracks of merchants , miners , soldiers , and travelers through southwestern China .
But at the turn of the 20th century it broke out of its Chinese bubble through Hong Kong to infect the entire world , producing several plague pandemics in the 1900s that struck North and South America and killed more than 100,000 people .
Newspapers in the American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Chinatowns in Hawaii and San Francisco were quarantined .
Newspapers in the American West attacked Chinese immigrants as disease-ridden hordes .
In 1910 , when plague broke out again in Manchuria , Qing China ’ s first public health activists began to study the disease with the aid of Western specialists .
The Malaysian-born physician Wu Lien-teh was the first to promote the wearing of cloth masks , which sharply cut the fatality rate .
The World Health Organization later developed from this pioneering international alliance against a microscopic enemy .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Chinese medical research and its imperial sponsors—knowledge that would be used both to save lives and in the making of empire .
Pandemics , like wars , are ruthless auditors that test the resilience of national and international orders .
Some regimes use them for domination ; others find in them an opportunity for collaboration .
At least once in the past , China and the Western world collaborated against a common threat .
Can it happen again ?
This article appears in the Summer 2020 print issue .

Empires are big and microbes small, but both have shaped history by conquering territories and bodies, leaving death, disease, and devastation in their wake. Yet humans have survived many such onslaughts and brought, at hard-won cost, peace, knowledge, and protection.
Empires are big and microbes small, but both have shaped history by conquering territories and bodies, leaving death, disease, and devastation in their wake. Yet humans have survived many such onslaughts and brought, at hard-won cost, peace, knowledge, and protection.
Conquerors such as the Romans in Britain or the Mongols in China first massacred local people who were not yet “immune”—that is to say, submissive. Huge numbers of people died, but afterward rulers and subjects worked out an accommodation where regular taxation replaced mere plunder. In the same fashion, diseases settled into an arrangement with humanity. The initial casualties as new viruses and bacteria emerged from the wilderness died down as immunity developed or diseases became less lethal, allowing a mutual, if uneasy, existence.
Disease and empire also marched together. In the Imperially Commissioned Golden Mirror of Medical Learning, a Chinese medical encyclopedia published in 1742, infectious disease marks the page. Illustration after illustration details the ravages of smallpox, a longtime scourge that Chinese armies would carry into other states: “swallow’s nests” of pustules clustered together, “crab claws” of marks dense at the top but light at the bottom, “mouse tracks” of pustules trailing across flesh.
China knew the disease well. Doctors had been describing it since the 15th century, and the Chinese led the way in developing a partially effective vaccine known as variolation.
The text was commissioned by the Qianlong emperor himself, to “rectify medical knowledge” throughout the empire, and compiled over three years by a dedicated group of 80 doctors and officials, from imperial physicians to student copyists. Over a hundred pages are devoted to smallpox alone. China knew the disease well. Doctors had been describing it since the 15th century, and the Chinese led the way in developing a partially effective vaccine known as variolation, by inserting scabs from infected people into the nostrils of the rest of the population.
Until the 17th century, smallpox remained confined to China, as Central Eurasia was nearly walled off from Chinese contact. The Manchus, however, who conquered the Ming dynasty in the mid-17th century and became masters of China as the Qing dynasty, extended their rule into Mongolia. The Qing rapidly familiarized themselves with the most modern techniques to fight the disease, including variolation. When the Manchus invited their Mongol allies to visit, they met them in a summer palace in Manchuria, not in Beijing, and even practiced social distancing as best they could. Qianlong, the fourth Qing ruler, was clearly happy with the results of the encyclopedia; he heaped gifts and new offices on the writers, including a detailed manikin showing key acupuncture points.
The Dalai Lama in Tibet also knew of smallpox’s danger; other lamas who visited Beijing tried to isolate themselves inside their monasteries. Yet Mongols and Tibetans did die in large numbers, as the virus could not be contained. The Qing were quick to take advantage. The last Mongol holdout against Qing domination, Prince Amursana, died of the disease in 1757; one historian estimated that up to 40 percent of his followers died of smallpox, more than from combat or famine. As lands emptied, Qing troops moved in, clearing the way for future Chinese settlement—and for the sweeping claims the modern People’s Republic of China has made to Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Tibet.
A second disease, endemic in China since the 18th century, would take an equally global toll. The plague bacillus, which devastated Europe in the Black Death, remained active in the high mountains on the Sino-Burmese border into the 18th century. It then followed the tracks of merchants, miners, soldiers, and travelers through southwestern China. But at the turn of the 20th century it broke out of its Chinese bubble through Hong Kong to infect the entire world, producing several plague pandemics in the 1900s that struck North and South America and killed more than 100,000 people.
Newspapers in the American West attacked Chinese immigrants as disease-ridden hordes.
Chinatowns in Hawaii and San Francisco were quarantined. Newspapers in the American West attacked Chinese immigrants as disease-ridden hordes.
In 1910, when plague broke out again in Manchuria, Qing China’s first public health activists began to study the disease with the aid of Western specialists. The Malaysian-born physician Wu Lien-teh was the first to promote the wearing of cloth masks, which sharply cut the fatality rate. The World Health Organization later developed from this pioneering international alliance against a microscopic enemy.
The 1742 encyclopedia shows the dedication and depth of Chinese medical research and its imperial sponsors—knowledge that would be used both to save lives and in the making of empire. Pandemics, like wars, are ruthless auditors that test the resilience of national and international orders. Some regimes use them for domination; others find in them an opportunity for collaboration. At least once in the past, China and the Western world collaborated against a common threat. Can it happen again?
This article appears in the Summer 2020 print issue.


foreignpolicy--2020-07-04--Welcome to the Post-Leader World

Welcome to the Post-Leader World

The coronavirus pandemic has laid bare how much global institutions have come to rely on a United States that has now abdicated its role as the world ’ s indispensable nation .
The Trump administration hasn ’ t just responded to the emerging health crisis by imposing travel bans , carrying out draconian restrictions on immigration and asylum , and pressing intelligence agencies to distort assessments on the source of the outbreak .
The United States has also turned on the global institutions it was instrumental in creating after World War II to address just such global threats .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may have an unexpected upside .
But the United States ’ abandonment of global leadership may have an unexpected upside .
As the world loses the positive impact of American exceptionalism , it might also start shedding its downside—top-down global governance that has favored a small number of nations , too often at the expense of the rest .
The waning of U.S. hegemony opens up new possibilities for more decentralized , democratic systems of global governance involving genuine cooperation among a critical mass of nations .
Rather than a world governed by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for one managed by what might be called global clubs .
America ’ s rejection of hegemonic responsibility—its unease with global institutions and tendency to go it alone—emerged long before COVID-19 .
And in the face of this growing absence of U.S. global leadership , some have asked—sometimes with optimism , more often with trepidation—whether China might come to fill the global leadership vacuum .
The potential for China to take on a greater role in international affairs has been the subject of speculation for years , but it has taken on new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s effort to step into the vacuum left behind by the United States has been more a stumble than a waltz .
In May , some of the health care supplies Beijing donated to other countries turned out to be defective , and many of the so-called gifts it had touted were in fact purchased by the recipients .
China has been put on the defensive by growing evidence that it suppressed information about the emerging coronavirus outbreak .
It is hobbled , too , by its naked need to quell internal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any means necessary .
Beijing ’ s bid to expand its control over the world ’ s resources can ’ t help but breed suspicion .
China is too obviously out for its own interests to effectively unite the world behind it .
Some have hoped that the current crisis will finally spur reform and reorganization at the United Nations .
But those aspirations have been repeatedly dashed by the insuperable fact that no reform is possible without the five permanent members of the Security Council—China , the United States , Russia , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ members have no interest in effective reform precisely because it will loosen their stranglehold on the organization .
The crisis offers the opportunity to transform the global order from one dominated by a single state , or a small number of them , to a more equal system of global governance .
Does this mean we are doomed , as Richard Haass recently argued in Foreign Affairs , to enter “ a global landscape of increased great-power rivalry , nuclear proliferation , weak states , surging refugee flows , and growing nationalism , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the world ” ?
Not necessarily .
The crisis offers the opportunity to transform the global order from one dominated by a single state , or a small number of them , to a more equal system of global governance .
It ’ s time to stop waiting for a hegemon to come to the rescue and instead try to address more of our global problems through independently organized global clubs .
Global clubs are a form of governance that operates on principles similar to any other club : States voluntarily choose to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ membership .
In return , they agree to comply with certain conditions .
Any state with the initiative could start a club of its own to achieve cooperative goals .
And members could discipline one another by denying the benefits of membership to those that break the rules .
We are already seeing some signs that middle-sized powers are tired of relying on the great powers to address the pandemic .
Australia , for example , pushed for a global inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic , building what Andrew Hastie @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , called a “ coalition of like-minded nations.
” To act on the stage as a middle power , he argues , “ you need to do it from a position of strength—that includes strength in numbers.
” The idea of decentralizing global governance to shifting alliances of like-minded nations is not entirely new .
Much of international law already operates on precisely this principle of shared interests and decentralized enforcement .
But unmooring global governance from reliance on a hegemonic actor , and from the global institutions we ’ ve known since @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could become reality in part because of the conditions created by the pandemic .
A decade earlier , scientists had predicted that chlorofluorocarbons ( CFCs ) , popular as propellants in aerosol cans , coolants for refrigeration , and ingredients for making Styrofoam , had the potential to destroy the ozone layer .
The British Antarctic Survey had confirmed the theory with terrifying implications .
Though galvanized to tackle the public health crisis , governments faced a quandary .
They could negotiate a global treaty to ban CFC consumption , but there was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would make any difference .
Though every state had an interest in banning ozone- depleting chemicals , every state had an even greater interest in a ban that included everyone but them .
A global treaty , in other words , would be hamstrung by massive cheating .
States would proudly renounce the use of the cheap , effective chemicals but would secretly free-ride off the sacrifice of others .
An environmental agreement to eliminate CFCs would succeed only if its provisions were enforceable .
But how ?
The solution , embodied in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Deplete the Ozone Layer , was extremely clever .
The protocol created a club of sorts .
When members signed up , they undertook to pay their dues by assuming two obligations .
The first obligation was to reduce their consumption of CFCs .
The phaseout was slow enough to allow substitutes to be put in place but fast enough to prevent the complete destruction of the ozone layer .
The second obligation was to sell ingredients for producing CFCs only to club members .
This commitment gave nonmembers an incentive to join @ @ @ @ @ @ @ club meant not being able to buy ingredients from those in the club .
The benefits of membership , and the costs of being a nonmember , increased as the club got bigger .
Because of the trade ban , every member that joined the club meant one less supplier of CFC ingredients to nonmembers .
The enforcement system is simple and remarkably effective : States are required to report their own data ; states that are party to the protocol are also able to report concerns about other parties .
When members @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first an effort to get that country to draw up and follow a plan to return to compliance .
States that still fail to comply are referred to a “ Meeting of the Parties , ” which may issue collective sanctions , including suspension of privileges of membership .
Thirty years on , CFCs have been phased out all around the world , and the hole in the ozone layer has stopped growing .
The layer will be fully restored by 2070 .
In 1965 , James Buchanan wrote about another kind of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Club goods are non-rivalrous ( like public goods ) but excludable ( like private goods ) .
Consider a swimming club .
Club members can enjoy swimming in their pool at the same time ( non-rivalry ) and can use a gate to keep nonmembers out ( excludability ) .
Because of the pool ’ s excludability , nonmembers who don ’ t pay for its construction and maintenance will not be able to free-ride off members ’ contributions .
The market , therefore , will not underproduce swimming pools .
The Montreal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attempt to save the ozone layer directly .
The ozone layer is a public good , and the market can not produce or maintain public goods efficiently .
It succeeded because it sought to protect the ozone layer indirectly by regulating the club goods that threatened it .
The treaty set up a club where only members had access to easily trade the essential ingredients for making CFCs .
The due they paid was reduced consumption .
The best way to protect or produce global goods , we suggest , is not to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ creating clubs that protect or produce the precursors of global goods .
To see how this might work , consider a club to deal with vaccine production .
As the world races to control the coronavirus pandemic , the search for a vaccine may seem an ideal candidate for states to pool their resources .
Instead of individual states testing different candidates in an uncoordinated fashion , it would be more productive for a collective approach where states test different prototypes and agree to share results with each other .
Unfortunately , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a public good .
Anyone can use it to produce a vaccine ( non- rivalry ) , and , like all ideas , it is hard to keep secret ( non-excludability ) .
Aside from the difficulty in maintaining secrecy , it is unethical not to share a cure for a deadly disease that is ravaging the globe .
Even though the chemical composition of the vaccine is a public good , vaccine production is a club good .
Producing the billions of individual doses to inoculate people around the world requires the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to create enough supply .
Different types of vaccines require distinct manufacturing processes that utilize different materials .
For a vaccine to be produced rapidly , facilities for all the likely candidates need to be ready when a working vaccine is discovered .
The required systems can not be created overnight , nor is it efficient for every state to build the full array of possible facilities on its own .
The solution would be for states to form vaccine clubs .
Members of such a club would commit not only to share @ @ @ @ @ @ @ based on promising candidates .
Once a vaccine has been found , club members would be able to use the facilities to produce the vaccine right away .
As an ethical matter , the club would provide to the world the chemical composition of the successful vaccine free of charge .
But since nonmembers would not have existing facilities at the ready for the large-scale production of vaccines , they would be at a significant disadvantage .
Can the club goods approach work for issues that states have traditionally been most interested in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The answer is yes .
Can the club goods approach work for issues that states have traditionally been most interested in , such as their own security ?
The answer is yes .
Indeed , NATO provides just such a kind of club good .
States that are party to NATO agree to come to one another ’ s defense : Every state gets protection from attack in return for agreeing to provide security to everyone else in the club .
Admittedly , NATO was formed in part to provide U.S. hegemonic support @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the same principle could apply without a hegemon .
The nascent African Union Peace and Security Council , for example , aims to promote peace , security , and stability in Africa .
It has begun developing standby forces that can be deployed to prevent a dispute from escalating , engage in peacebuilding , and provide humanitarian assistance to member states .
As long as these security arrangements are defensive in nature , and states consent in advance to humanitarian intervention , they are entirely consistent with the U.N. Charter ’ s prohibition @ @ @ @ @ @ @ force .
An advantage of clubs is that they can be formed in situations where the great powers are unwilling to act .
Consider cybersecurity .
Many believe that the international community needs rules for the regulation of computer hacking , but Russia , China , and the United States have been unable to agree on the rules or how to enforce them .
As a result , there has been little progress in forming global rules for cyberspace .
Cyberclubs could allow groups of like-minded states to overcome this impasse .
Different @ @ @ @ @ @ @ proper activities in cyberspace .
Clubs would enforce those rules by limiting access to their networks to those who do not abide by the rules .
Consequences could range from slower access to networks to complete exclusion for the most serious and persistent violations .
One could imagine a similar approach to overcoming great-power intransigence in addressing climate change , with climate clubs binding states to emission rules and establishing tradable credits enforced by tariffs and market exclusions .
Some global clubs already exist .
If you look for them , you will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But in the postwar era , these clubs have taken a back seat to U.S.-driven international organizations that pursued policies over which there was significant consensus in the developed Western world , including free trade , intellectual property protection , international security , and , yes , public health .
The pandemic has made clear that this consensus has broken down and U.S. global leadership evaporated .
Rather than build alliances and lead the world to address the pandemic , the United States has walled itself off , refused to participate in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blame abroad .
In doing so , it has made clear that states should stop looking for a hegemonic savior that no longer exists .
If they want to make progress on global problems , they should instead form global clubs .
As tragic as the collapse of U.S. global leadership may be , the shift toward global clubs could be a good thing .
Clubs gain their power by building consensus : The more members join , the more powerful the group becomes .
The more attractive the cooperative project , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more effective the club will be .
Clubs will likely not replace the existing multilateral system , but they offer a new way for states to make multilateral progress in the face of great-power paralysis .
The failure of the United States to lead in this time of crisis has been a tragedy .
But it is also an opportunity to transform a system whose efficacy and legitimacy have been slowly eroding for decades This article appears in the Summer 2020 print issue .

On April 14, as the enormity of the coronavirus crisis was finally becoming clear, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he was halting funding to the World Health Organization (WHO), delivering a major blow to an organization that depends on the United States for nearly 10 percent of its budget. Washington followed that decision with a declaration 10 days later that it would not take part in a global initiative to speed up the development, production, and distribution of drugs and vaccines to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. In early May, the United States sat out a global vaccine summit led by the European Commission, and later that month, Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from WHO altogether. Meanwhile, the United Nations Security Council has been silent, paralyzed by the rising tensions between China and the United States.
On April 14, as the enormity of the coronavirus crisis was finally becoming clear, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he was halting funding to the World Health Organization (WHO), delivering a major blow to an organization that depends on the United States for nearly 10 percent of its budget. Washington followed that decision with a declaration 10 days later that it would not take part in a global initiative to speed up the development, production, and distribution of drugs and vaccines to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. In early May, the United States sat out a global vaccine summit led by the European Commission, and later that month, Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from WHO altogether. Meanwhile, the United Nations Security Council has been silent, paralyzed by the rising tensions between China and the United States.
The coronavirus pandemic has laid bare how much global institutions have come to rely on a United States that has now abdicated its role as the world’s indispensable nation. The Trump administration hasn’t just responded to the emerging health crisis by imposing travel bans, carrying out draconian restrictions on immigration and asylum, and pressing intelligence agencies to distort assessments on the source of the outbreak. The United States has also turned on the global institutions it was instrumental in creating after World War II to address just such global threats.
But the United States’ abandonment of global leadership may have an unexpected upside. As the world loses the positive impact of American exceptionalism, it might also start shedding its downside—top-down global governance that has favored a small number of nations, too often at the expense of the rest. The waning of U.S. hegemony opens up new possibilities for more decentralized, democratic systems of global governance involving genuine cooperation among a critical mass of nations. Rather than a world governed by a hegemon, it may be time for one managed by what might be called global clubs.
Realist hegemonic stability theory, a leading school of thought in international relations, suggests that an open and liberal world economy requires the existence of a dominant state that has the capacity and the will to lead and overpower other states. The hegemon provides the rules that govern the international system and underwrites that system’s stability and reliability with its military might. But when the hegemon declines, the system becomes unstable and eventually will collapse.
America’s rejection of hegemonic responsibility—its unease with global institutions and tendency to go it alone—emerged long before COVID-19. And in the face of this growing absence of U.S. global leadership, some have asked—sometimes with optimism, more often with trepidation—whether China might come to fill the global leadership vacuum. The potential for China to take on a greater role in international affairs has been the subject of speculation for years, but it has taken on new urgency during the pandemic.
Yet China’s effort to step into the vacuum left behind by the United States has been more a stumble than a waltz. In May, some of the health care supplies Beijing donated to other countries turned out to be defective, and many of the so-called gifts it had touted were in fact purchased by the recipients. China has been put on the defensive by growing evidence that it suppressed information about the emerging coronavirus outbreak. It is hobbled, too, by its naked need to quell internal dissent by feeding rapid economic growth by any means necessary. Beijing’s bid to expand its control over the world’s resources can’t help but breed suspicion. China is too obviously out for its own interests to effectively unite the world behind it.
Some have hoped that the current crisis will finally spur reform and reorganization at the United Nations. But those aspirations have been repeatedly dashed by the insuperable fact that no reform is possible without the five permanent members of the Security Council—China, the United States, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom—and those members have no interest in effective reform precisely because it will loosen their stranglehold on the organization.
The crisis offers the opportunity to transform the global order from one dominated by a single state, or a small number of them, to a more equal system of global governance.
Does this mean we are doomed, as Richard Haass recently argued in Foreign Affairs, to enter “a global landscape of increased great-power rivalry, nuclear proliferation, weak states, surging refugee flows, and growing nationalism, along with a reduced U.S. role in the world”? Not necessarily. The crisis offers the opportunity to transform the global order from one dominated by a single state, or a small number of them, to a more equal system of global governance. It’s time to stop waiting for a hegemon to come to the rescue and instead try to address more of our global problems through independently organized global clubs.
Global clubs are a form of governance that operates on principles similar to any other club: States voluntarily choose to join an alliance to gain benefits of membership. In return, they agree to comply with certain conditions. Any state with the initiative could start a club of its own to achieve cooperative goals. And members could discipline one another by denying the benefits of membership to those that break the rules.
We are already seeing some signs that middle-sized powers are tired of relying on the great powers to address the pandemic. Australia, for example, pushed for a global inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, building what Andrew Hastie, a backbencher in the Australian Parliament, called a “coalition of like-minded nations.” To act on the stage as a middle power, he argues, “you need to do it from a position of strength—that includes strength in numbers.”
The idea of decentralizing global governance to shifting alliances of like-minded nations is not entirely new. Much of international law already operates on precisely this principle of shared interests and decentralized enforcement. But unmooring global governance from reliance on a hegemonic actor, and from the global institutions we’ve known since the end of World War II, could become reality in part because of the conditions created by the pandemic.
The approach of harnessing strength in numbers through a global club has worked before. In 1985, the British Antarctic Survey shocked the world when it reported that a huge hole in the Earth’s ozone layer had formed over Antarctica. The ozone layer protects the planet from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation, and its depletion posed grave risks for human health.
A decade earlier, scientists had predicted that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), popular as propellants in aerosol cans, coolants for refrigeration, and ingredients for making Styrofoam, had the potential to destroy the ozone layer. The British Antarctic Survey had confirmed the theory with terrifying implications.
Though galvanized to tackle the public health crisis, governments faced a quandary. They could negotiate a global treaty to ban CFC consumption, but there was no reason to think that a treaty would make any difference. Though every state had an interest in banning ozone-depleting chemicals, every state had an even greater interest in a ban that included everyone but them. A global treaty, in other words, would be hamstrung by massive cheating. States would proudly renounce the use of the cheap, effective chemicals but would secretly free-ride off the sacrifice of others. An environmental agreement to eliminate CFCs would succeed only if its provisions were enforceable. But how?
The solution, embodied in the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer, was extremely clever. The protocol created a club of sorts. When members signed up, they undertook to pay their dues by assuming two obligations. The first obligation was to reduce their consumption of CFCs. The phaseout was slow enough to allow substitutes to be put in place but fast enough to prevent the complete destruction of the ozone layer. The second obligation was to sell ingredients for producing CFCs only to club members. This commitment gave nonmembers an incentive to join. To be left out of the club meant not being able to buy ingredients from those in the club. The benefits of membership, and the costs of being a nonmember, increased as the club got bigger. Because of the trade ban, every member that joined the club meant one less supplier of CFC ingredients to nonmembers.
The enforcement system is simple and remarkably effective: States are required to report their own data; states that are party to the protocol are also able to report concerns about other parties. When members fall out of compliance, there is first an effort to get that country to draw up and follow a plan to return to compliance. States that still fail to comply are referred to a “Meeting of the Parties,” which may issue collective sanctions, including suspension of privileges of membership.
Thirty years on, CFCs have been phased out all around the world, and the hole in the ozone layer has stopped growing. The layer will be fully restored by 2070.
The enormous success of the Montreal Protocol should not have been a surprise. Economists had long distinguished between private and public goods and considered the different ways of securing them. Private goods are rivalrous and excludable. Only I can eat my apple (rivalry), and I can keep you from eating it (excludability). Public goods are non-rivalrous and non-excludable. Both you and I can enjoy clean air (non-rivalry), and I can’t stop you from enjoying it (non-excludability). And because public goods are non-rivalrous and non-excludable, economists predict that the market will fail to produce enough of them. If I pay for goods that you can enjoy too and I can’t stop you from enjoying them, why would you pay for it?
In 1965, James Buchanan wrote about another kind of good he called “club goods.” Club goods are non-rivalrous (like public goods) but excludable (like private goods). Consider a swimming club. Club members can enjoy swimming in their pool at the same time (non-rivalry) and can use a gate to keep nonmembers out (excludability). Because of the pool’s excludability, nonmembers who don’t pay for its construction and maintenance will not be able to free-ride off members’ contributions. The market, therefore, will not underproduce swimming pools.
The Montreal Protocol was successful because it did not attempt to save the ozone layer directly. The ozone layer is a public good, and the market cannot produce or maintain public goods efficiently. It succeeded because it sought to protect the ozone layer indirectly by regulating the club goods that threatened it. The treaty set up a club where only members had access to easily trade the essential ingredients for making CFCs. The due they paid was reduced consumption.
The best way to protect or produce global goods, we suggest, is not to do so directly—through outright regulation—but rather by creating clubs that protect or produce the precursors of global goods. To see how this might work, consider a club to deal with vaccine production.
As the world races to control the coronavirus pandemic, the search for a vaccine may seem an ideal candidate for states to pool their resources. Instead of individual states testing different candidates in an uncoordinated fashion, it would be more productive for a collective approach where states test different prototypes and agree to share results with each other. Unfortunately, the chemical composition of a successful vaccine is a public good. Anyone can use it to produce a vaccine (non-rivalry), and, like all ideas, it is hard to keep secret (non-excludability). Aside from the difficulty in maintaining secrecy, it is unethical not to share a cure for a deadly disease that is ravaging the globe.
Even though the chemical composition of the vaccine is a public good, vaccine production is a club good. Producing the billions of individual doses to inoculate people around the world requires the building of large and specialized manufacturing facilities to create enough supply. Different types of vaccines require distinct manufacturing processes that utilize different materials. For a vaccine to be produced rapidly, facilities for all the likely candidates need to be ready when a working vaccine is discovered. The required systems cannot be created overnight, nor is it efficient for every state to build the full array of possible facilities on its own.
The solution would be for states to form vaccine clubs. Members of such a club would commit not only to share resources but to build prototype vaccine facilities based on promising candidates. Once a vaccine has been found, club members would be able to use the facilities to produce the vaccine right away. As an ethical matter, the club would provide to the world the chemical composition of the successful vaccine free of charge. But since nonmembers would not have existing facilities at the ready for the large-scale production of vaccines, they would be at a significant disadvantage.
Can the club goods approach work for issues that states have traditionally been most interested in, such as their own security? The answer is yes.
Can the club goods approach work for issues that states have traditionally been most interested in, such as their own security? The answer is yes. Indeed, NATO provides just such a kind of club good. States that are party to NATO agree to come to one another’s defense: Every state gets protection from attack in return for agreeing to provide security to everyone else in the club.
Admittedly, NATO was formed in part to provide U.S. hegemonic support and protection to Western Europe, but the same principle could apply without a hegemon. The nascent African Union Peace and Security Council, for example, aims to promote peace, security, and stability in Africa. It has begun developing standby forces that can be deployed to prevent a dispute from escalating, engage in peacebuilding, and provide humanitarian assistance to member states. As long as these security arrangements are defensive in nature, and states consent in advance to humanitarian intervention, they are entirely consistent with the U.N. Charter’s prohibition on states’ unilateral resort to military force.
An advantage of clubs is that they can be formed in situations where the great powers are unwilling to act. Consider cybersecurity. Many believe that the international community needs rules for the regulation of computer hacking, but Russia, China, and the United States have been unable to agree on the rules or how to enforce them. As a result, there has been little progress in forming global rules for cyberspace.
Cyberclubs could allow groups of like-minded states to overcome this impasse. Different groups could establish their own rules for proper activities in cyberspace. Clubs would enforce those rules by limiting access to their networks to those who do not abide by the rules. Consequences could range from slower access to networks to complete exclusion for the most serious and persistent violations. One could imagine a similar approach to overcoming great-power intransigence in addressing climate change, with climate clubs binding states to emission rules and establishing tradable credits enforced by tariffs and market exclusions.
Global clubs offer an opportunity for shifting alliances of states to gather together to pursue their shared interests by creating cooperative agreements. The club rules are enforced not by a hegemon but by members directly by denying the benefits of membership to bad actors. One advantage of such decentralized governance is that any state can start a club. It doesn’t take a hegemon; it just takes a good idea.
Some global clubs already exist. If you look for them, you will see clubs across the global governance landscape. But in the postwar era, these clubs have taken a back seat to U.S.-driven international organizations that pursued policies over which there was significant consensus in the developed Western world, including free trade, intellectual property protection, international security, and, yes, public health.
The pandemic has made clear that this consensus has broken down and U.S. global leadership evaporated. Rather than build alliances and lead the world to address the pandemic, the United States has walled itself off, refused to participate in international efforts, and sought to shift blame abroad. In doing so, it has made clear that states should stop looking for a hegemonic savior that no longer exists. If they want to make progress on global problems, they should instead form global clubs.
As tragic as the collapse of U.S. global leadership may be, the shift toward global clubs could be a good thing. Clubs gain their power by building consensus: The more members join, the more powerful the group becomes. The more attractive the cooperative project, the more states will join, and the more effective the club will be. Clubs will likely not replace the existing multilateral system, but they offer a new way for states to make multilateral progress in the face of great-power paralysis.
The failure of the United States to lead in this time of crisis has been a tragedy. But it is also an opportunity to transform a system whose efficacy and legitimacy have been slowly eroding for decades
This article appears in the Summer 2020 print issue.