INTERVIEW
‘Today’s western industrial model does not work anymore’

Novelist, historian and political philosopher, John Ralston Saul, is a unique man and a thinker of Renaissance potential in today’s modern age. In his latest, very celebrated, book: The Collapse of Globalism And the Reinvention of the World, Saul expounds his theory declaring that globalisation like many great geo-political ideologies is stone dead today. He examines, in an unsparing manner, where the world is headed to in the chaos that has followed this massive development.

Saul’s path-breaking political trilogy – Voltaire’s Bastards, The Doubters Companion and the Unconscious Civilization have had an irreversible impact on political thought. He has also received many national and international awards for his works in both fiction and non-fiction.

Charu Singh caught up with the author while he was in Delhi, at a function at the Canadian High Commission to celebrate the publication of his latest book The Collapse of Globalism And the Reinvention of the World.

Well, part of it has resulted from the several thousand pages I’ve already written on the subject in the trilogy, starting with Voltaire’s Bastards and three other of my books. In this I’ve explained in detail the crisis in the west and explored all the angles related to it and as a result I had already done this huge analysis into the collapse of globalism. I looked into precisely this idea of the global economy (globalism) – and reached the conclusion that its collapse was inevitable and this has been talked of in universities since the 1990s. However, there has been a lot of opposition to this concept and no one was wanting either to look into it or face it.

Then I began asking questions like is this working in the current world situation? In the West there is a feeling that nation states as a whole are declining but this is not the case in India or China. Here nationalism is on the rise.

However, the collapse of globalism and its structures signifies a very actual confusion and crisis in the West. A great deal of this crisis is not modern but re-introduces old fashioned ideas.

I’ll explain this, I think the globalist schools are a bad marriage of two 19^th century schools. The first is the 19^th century free trade school which was left of the centre and the second is the early 19^th century unregulated capitalist school which was utterly right wing. These schools have been pitted against each other’s programs and the flaw has been this bad marriage.

The current period is one of flux and is clearly an in-between period. This may prove very important for India as the West may change direction abruptly. The next US election is not likely to be waged by people who believe in globalism and will be much more about protectionism and fear. The same thing is true of Europe, the new trend is one of protectionism, fear and populism. The West really does not know today where it is heading. On the whole, fear and protectionist psyche are getting bigger and bigger – the fear is one of losing in the international market place, fear of the large part of the population being too poor and not getting the standard of living they have been used to and fear of violence. All this combines to make the US extremely volatile. Side by side Europe is caught up in the nationalism of its new partners and in growing instability whether in UK, France or Germany. I don’t think the West today knows where its heading and this makes for a very worrying period, a dangerous period for everyone.

The West has been winning for the past 500 years and now they are suddenly going to lose. There is massive instability in their minds – people in position rose believing in globalism and so currently, everything is uncertain. They are right now in severe denial and cannot accept today’s reality.

The Chinese new elite have already decided to change direction and they’ve produced a new five year plan indicating their reversal of stance and in planning. This step is a message to everyone that they’ve switched attention to internal problems. They have huge agricultural problems and they are aware of the fact that in order to produce a sustainable middle class they would need to explode the planet literally. This requires massive resource base and with this has come the realisation that the Western middle class model is impossible for them and they understand this very well.

They are trying extremely hard to change direction – big emphasis is being put on solving their environmental and agricultural problems. They understand that this globalist approach will not work and they have a growing crisis on their hands. They are looking for a non-western solution to their problems.

India has the same problem as the Chinese but a different political and social structure. The difficulty is obvious, how to pull a billion people up – so people are looking at a non-western solution. It is going to require the new middle class to turn around and look at the rest of the country.

From India’s point of view: this is a country with many strengths and in todays situation it’s a big positive to be able to live with confusion.

The challenge will be to hold on to the wealth produced and to spread this evenly, this will need the development of a whole new attitude. The fundamental tragedy is that today’s western industrial model does not work anymore – as this was designed for scarcity and now the world is in surplus. We have to re-think this entire model.

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