An olde fairy tale of the new world order we must brace for

Once upon a time, in the heady and materialistic decade of the 1980s, the expansion of multi- national corporations was lauded as the way to transfer skills, create jobs and develop emerging economies. Companies told their shareholders bedtime stories in which they dreamt of a McDonald’s in every town square, a Honda in every garage and a Coke in every hand, and they all slept soundly as their dreams came true.

By the 90s, it wasn’t just private firms that were expanding successfully across national boundaries. Enabled by advances in telecom, networks of transnational non-profit organizations proliferated across the globe, linking like-minded global citizens. The growth in power of this polity of connected civil society was famously described by Jessica Mathews in her 1997 article, Power Shift, in which it was suggested that these networks were upending the traditional nation-state borders—and governments—established with the 1645 Peace of Westphalia.

An alternate view of Mathews’ “new medievalist” world order was put forward the same year by Anne-Marie Slaughter, who posited that the state, rather than being weakened, was being transformed into a new trans-governmental order, one in which governments across the world were connected and working together, whether on banking, antitrust, the environment or in justice.

As the new world order shaped itself, however, the new trans-governmental bodies could not quite keep pace with the demands for accountability from a proliferating and vociferous civil society. Towards the end of the millennium, churches, rock stars and Oxfam came together in a holy trinity and successfully lobbied for debt relief in Africa. The Bretton Woods sisters capitulated to these unlikely alliances across the global North and South. Debts were forgiven, but the alliances remained. Globalization was next on the block.

Once the ball was over, civil society woke up to the fact that rapid globalization truly had its discontents. Stiglitz and others lamented the growth of MNCs and their drive for profit that had made uniform the world, silenced cacophonous hawker stalls and put the neighbourhood chaiwaala out of business, quietly aided by the humble consumer.

The same tailwinds that had supported the rise of transnational non-profits now stoked the burgeoning of transnational terror networks. States responded with more powerful trans-governmental bodies and cooperation, armed with new laws and technology. But still they could not dampen the Big Bad Wolf of terror networks nor foster geopolitical stability.

Mathews’ power shift from states to transnational networks continues to have cataclysmic effects on the world stage. The most pervasive such networks today are virtual communities of ‘Baby Zoomers’ driven by social media, e-commerce and artificial intelligence. Accelerated by the pandemic, this generation of elite youngsters worldwide has shared cultural affinities and instant access to Google, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon and a plethora of online games. Virtual technologies are either replacing or eclipsing traditional forms of data and information gathering, communication, entertainment, sport, shopping, currency and even political participation. Purchasing power parity may well soon have to be measured by the cost of high-speed internet data rather than a Big Mac.

The rise of elite virtual transnational networks has exacerbated inequality, particularly during the pandemic. Those with access to technology and capital have enjoyed uninterrupted employment, schooling and access to the latest vaccines and healthcare, while those without have lost their jobs and their prospects for education. Many states have found it challenging to assuage these inequalities, or the growing disenchantment as people realize they sometimes have more in common with their transnational networks than with their fellow citizens. Yuval Harari’s dystopian reality of two worlds, one inhabited by owners of capital and technology and another consisting of unskilled and unemployed workers programmed to entertain themselves on video games to prevent social unrest, seems to be scarily close. Virtual communities have become the opiate of the masses.

As humans, we are descendants of peoples who travelled to distant shores to survive, trade and communicate. Harappan seals from the Indus Valley dating back to 3000 BCE have been found in Mesopotamia, indicating a flourishing trade between the two ancient civilizations. Along the legendary Silk Route, silk, goods, ideas and inventions were traded for more than a thousand years. The number zero, algebra, gunpowder, religions, the Enlightenment and even the concept of non-violence spread around the world like wildfire. Our urge to travel, share and connect will continue to define us as humans. Yet, the proliferation of virtually connected transnational networks is changing the very fabric of human society, and further straining the concept of the sovereign state. At the same time, the global divide between the privileged and less privileged is here to stay and likely to cause enormous tension in a world where the state risks becoming irrelevant. States, civil society and citizens need to reflect, prepare and brace for this new world order if we are to live happily ever after.

Shonar Lala is a development economist who has worked at the World Bank and the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation.