These days the argumentative space is thick with competing estimates of the decline of Western primarily American power. To take just two of the most recent publications: in The Future of Power Joseph Nye offers a compelling elaboration of his concept of smart power and in Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power Robert Kaplan argues that the global balance of power will now be negotiated around the rim of that ocean. Niall Fergusons contribution to the debate is to caution against the expectation that the shift in power from the West to the Rest will happen incrementally. Civilisations,he argues,are highly complex systems with infinite components in play,with the equilibrium constantly shifting enough to accommodate change and stress. But: There comes a moment when they go critical. To know if the West is nearing that critical stage,it is instructive to know how it came to achieve the kind of dominance it did over the past 500 years. Ferguson is the author of robust and controversial books of history like Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World and Colossus: The Rise and Fall of Americas Empire. Each coincided with the big global story of the year (Americas post-9/11 wars,Americas reliance on East Asian capital). Here he reckons with Chinas rise. To cut to the chase and also unfortunately,to cut past Fergusons great skill for the historical narrative,especially his instinct for the choice anecdote he says it is misleading to over-emphasise the role of empire in the ascendency of the West over the Rest. Instead,using a cringe-worthy phrase clearly used to embrace the tablet generation,he submits that the West,beginning around 1500,developed six killer applications: competition (drawn from a decentralisation of economic and political life,a factor that ultimately privileged Europes small warring states over the once solid empire of,say,China),science,property rights,medicine,consumer society and work ethic. These applications made it possible for the West to evolve a complex set of institutions and institutions,he stresses,are often the things that keep a culture honest,determining how far it is conducive to good behaviour rather than bad. It causes Ferguson immense grief that even as the Resterners (the word is another nod to the fact that this epic narrative reaches out to the popular reader) have begun to download the applications to chart their own ascendency,Westerners are failing to heed the lessons of history if,he says,they have read enough history and iterate the superiority of that package. It is here that Fergusons thesis gets somewhat confusing: is he tracking the possible decline of the Western power or the end of the Wests uniqueness? Is it the triumph of Western science,its work ethic and its template for organising economic life that is at hand,or is it that the Rests appropriation of this template necessarily implies a comparative disadvantage for the West? Perhaps Ferguson doesnt explain his conclusion well because his battle at the end of it appears to be against relativism and because he,all too predictably,expends so much narrative space in assigning geographical indications to beneficial human achievements,he leaves no space for those outside of his chosen realm to be accommodated. It is not that he wishes to remain resolutely unapologetic about his views that would be fine. It is that he just tries too hard. He should give up. Like the Wests ascendency,that appropriation too is past its use-by date.
