I've been in the mood for the grand sweep of history – no wonder with the images on TV so reminiscent of 1989 – and catching up with a book published a few years ago, Walter Russell Mead's God and Gold: Britain, America and the Making of the Modern World. He makes almost the opposite argument to the one made by Ian Morris in his Why the West Rules For Now, which I reviewed here recently. Whereas Morris says that in the grand scheme of human history there is relatively little difference between the trajectories of West and East, but the East may soon overtake the West for a few centuries, Mead's is an argument about Western supremacy.
Specifically, he means Anglo-Saxon supremacy. This is not a national or ethnic marker, but rather a cultural one, a liberal, pragmatic, open mindset. (He and I use 'liberal' in the British/Enlightenment sense, not the politicised American one.) From the days of William and Mary, the policy of building British maritime power and the British Empire created a virtuous circle between trade, economic dynamism, financial innovation and military success. When British dominance slipped, American imperial power (albeit with a small 'i') took its place. Mead also weaves in the sense of moral superiority displayed by the two free-trading, financially free-wheeling liberal democracies. In each war, whether against Napoleon or Hitler, God was on the side of gold. “That God is a liberal has been the great fundamental conviction of the English-speaking powers since the English reformation, and, if history is the mirror of Providence, they were right.”(p81)
An important strand of Mead's argument is that economic strength built on trade and command of the oceans has led to military success: “The Anglo-Americans' enemies all go bankrupt.” (p111) He claims the Anglo-Americans or international WASP tendency – the Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians are included – have never lost a proper war. Military defeats are all painted as temporary setbacks.
This irked some reviewers when the book was first published – What about Iraq? asked Johann Hari in the New York Times. Another question now might be, what about the crash? It's harder than in 2007 to paint the global financial markets as the pinnacle of Anglo-American capitalism. Mead has fun (p127ff) pointing out the number of times pundits have cried wolf over the impact of ever-climbing national debt. He notes that Britain's national debt stood at 268% in 1822, but it could bear the burden and prosper. I'm not so confident about the ability of either the UK or US to bear the burden now, as the baby boom ages and productivity growth slows back down to a crawl.
On the other hand, we might also ask, What about Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Yemen etc etc? Liberal democracy might well, it seems, be a lasting global legacy of the Anglo-American order. It's a question the Chinese authorities will be asking themselves in the centuries-old dance of civilisations.
God & Gold is a beautifully-written book and full of facts and arguments both compelling and provocative. If it won't risk a clash between the Anglos and the Americans, I'd describe it as just my cup of tea.
