2]
example, to imagine a “Western world” (one that applies Ferguson’s “killer apps”) in which the actual West is no longer the dominant factor: America will simply pass the torch to China, as Britain once did to America.
But it seems to me extremely unlikely that China, India and “the rest” will simply take over Western values wholesale, for this would amount to renouncing any value in their own civilizations. Some syntheses and accommodations between the West and the rest will inevitably accompany the shift in power and wealth from the former to the latter. The only question is whether the process will be peaceful.
Robert Skidelsky, a member of the British House of Lords, is a professor emeritus of political economy at Warwick University.
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_030056