Arun Maira: The Washington Consensus has collapsed and it won’t be mourned
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The US won the Cold War when the Soviet Union fell in 1991. The history of ideological conflict also ended, according to the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama.
Electoral democracy had vanquished authoritarianism as the better way to govern a country, and free-market capitalism had defeated socialism as a better model for the economy. Electoral democracy: The contest between electoral democracy with rival political parties on one hand and a one-party system of government on the other has not ended. The US is using its military power and hegemonic control of the global financial system to force Russia, China, Iran and Venezuela, which it claims are not democratic countries, into submission.
This is ironic because citizens in the US are fed up with its system of democracy. A New York Times/Siena College poll in October 2024 revealed that 45% of Americans believe that US democracy doesn’t do a good job of representing the people, and as many as 76% believe it is under threat from internal corruption and inadequacies (as distinct from foreign interference). Free-market capitalism: The imposition of free market reforms, the other leg of the Washington Consensus, has also stumbled.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), controlled by the US, has forced structural reforms upon governments as a condition for giving them loans. India had to comply with IMF conditions in 1991 when it needed emergency support. After 1991, market capitalism was the winning ideology everywhere.
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