[nickff]

I came away from this article without understanding what the "Western Model" is. Does anyone have an accurate and concise definition of the model this article is attacking?

Is the "Western Model" Christianity or atheism? Does it involve capitalism or social democracy? Does it involve interventionism or isolationism? Should the government tarriff imports, or subsidize national industry? Does the "West" nationalize industry, or privatize it? Is constantly raising taxes and expanding the government "Western" or "Eastern"?

[vilhelm_s]

Francis Fukuyama's definition is "liberal democracy", i.e. democracy, rule of law, human rights, etc. And few could object to that. But I guess Mishra argues that description itself is an inaccurate description of what the system in the West looks like, and that what was actually starting to take over the world in the late 90s and early 00s was "government as practiced in the West", e.g. capitalism, colonialism, oligarchies, etc. The main message I took away from the article was something like "to see why Western-style institutions are failing to take hold in the world, we have to look more clearly at the failings of Western-style institutions".

[waps]

> And few could object to that.

I think you'll find that more than 50% of the world population object to it. Let's have democracy ! For example, the prime example of anti-human rights behaviour, killing gays, is favored by ideologies that together have ~72% of the total human population (and is a quite popular idea in most of them). I mean everybody knows about this in muslim countries, but it's no different in a number of Indian states, or African dictatorships with a LOT of people in them.

Europe and America, together, are around 700-800 million people, or a little under 10% of the total world population.

And ... Europe has a muslim population that is at 6-7% and growing rapidly, and those people are most definitely not in favor of human rights, rule of law, and absolutely not in favor of democracy (well, to be honest, most actual muslim immigrants are very much in favor of that, because they've seen and felt the alternative. But they let, even demand, their kids be educated by islamists, and very few of them share their parents' viewpoints. And of course second-generation muslim immigrants are using violence, just like their counterparts everywhere else, which ironically means they often attack newly arrived muslim immigrants. Or at least, that's how it works in Brussels. For example muslims in Brussel use violence against women to enforce their idea of "correct" marriages (no ethnic mixing, no religious mixing, no faction mixing, and especially no converting religion), but a lot of people ran away from muslim countries in the first place because they married "wrong" in some way or converted.

There are other large factions in Europe (like the extreme right, which is 20%-30% of the total population, the fact that it's mostly outlawed makes it hard to tell. If you're living on the countryside, it's far more than 20%) these factions are certainly not uniformly in favor of human rights (at least, you might say they feel the need to be selective about who receives those rights)

Every year the world is looking closer to what it was in the early 20th century. Of course, this means the current wars are but a slight taste of what's to come.

[ThomPete]

If I may take a guess.

Converting the rest of the world who haven't yet been liberalized and democratzied into countries that are.

[drzaiusapelord]

Governments built on the ideals of the secular enlightenment, self-rule, representative democracy, property rights, and human rights.

The Guardian has its head so far up its, apparently, profitable anti-US/anti-NATO biases, that its more or less become a subtle mascot for authoritarian and autocratic single-party regimes.

There's little to be gained from feeding troll articles.