Nathan Gardels

From Well‐Having to Well‐Being

To raise the notion of frugality in the midst of the greatest consumer boom in economic history may seem wildly out of place. But if globalization only half succeeds in lifting many more millions into the middle class in this century, by necessity frugality will become a virtue.

How China's New Leaders Think

The return of the Middle Kingdom to the center stage of history is the most significant geo-civilizaitonal development of the 21st Century. Chinas rise raises anew the great question, thought settled after the Cold War, of what system of governance will stand on the right or wrong side of history. In this section the leading ideologists of the China model and its “peaceful rise” appear alongside the fiercest critics of Chinas way.

Consumer Democracy vs. Good Governance

“Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”, Churchill famously said in the House of Commons in 1947. The prestige of the great British statesman who held forth when the empire was already on its last legs was such that democratic institutions have scarcely evolved as the world moved on, even after the end of the Cold War.

Japan's Lessons for China

The United States accuses China of subsidizing its entire export economy through artificially undervaluing its currency. China accuses the United States of fiscal profligacy while flooding the world with easy credit to keep its economy afloat. This dispute reflects the reality that the worlds two largest economies are built on opposite dynamics of production and savings vs. consumerism and debt. In Europe, the wages of unsustainable debt that financed the welfare state have also come due. Rebalancing the global economy in this context is not only a matter of fixing exchange or interest rates and extending the retirement age. It must also involve a recalibration of democracy in both East and West. Two Nobel economists, the Greek prime minister, a ranking Chinese economist and the former chief economist of the IMF address these issues.

The Return of the Middle Kingdom in a Post-American World

Not long after the conclusion of the Beijing Summer Olympics in 2008, I was invited by my friend Eric Xu, an editor at Shanghais largest paper, The Xinmin Evening News, to attend a seminar in Shanghai with some of Chinas top philosophers and scholars. They had gathered to assess the “powershift” in Chinas self-image and in global esteem as a result of such a successful execution of the games. The following short essay reports on their views and puts them in historical perspective.

Migration, Media, Modus Vivendi

The world is all mixed up. From a Germany populated by Turks to a de- Zionizing Israel that cannot partition off pluralism any more than Bosnia, the idea of a purely ethnic or religious community has become untenable. Today, we all live in hybrid cultures.