Yet, for all this, there are signs that the social and intellectual world created by the Renaissance and extended by the Enlightenment – right wing and left wing – is nearing its own final days. This is marked by the crisis of the democratic nation-state. It faces these crises:
1. The bankruptcy of its welfare programs for the aged
2. Rising rates of violent crime
3. The failure in the United States of tax-funded education, K-12
4. The bankruptcy of the American empire
5. The loss of legitimacy of the democratic nation-state
6. The break-up of the European federation and euro
7. The failure of the United Nations Organization
8. The rapid extension of Islam in Western Europe
9. Falling white birthrates in the West: below replacement rate
10. The decline of historical knowledge among the West's elite
11. Loss of faith in the idea of progress
12. No replacements for the church and the nation-state
13. Boredom
These trends are known individually by hundreds of millions of people, but there is no widespread alarm that anything fundamental is at stake. There is little sense that these trends are part of a package deal.
Rarely does a bell toll to mark the end of a civilization. The demise of the USSR in 1991 was the greatest exception in human history. Nothing else matches it. But the bells are tolling, one by one.
The nation-state has rested on a series of promises. Nisbet, Barzun, and van Creveld agree: the state is failing to deliver the goods. This is undermining the state's legitimacy, and it will lead to decentralization. That is another word for fragmentation. It will lead to greater liberty for some people and less liberty for others. But will almost certainly lead to greater economic productivity, as long as peace is maintained. Technology will continue to develop. Education will move out of the control of the state. There will be new ways of learning, new ways of organizing, new ways of delivering the goods.
BATR 2020 Election News
