In November 1989, two watershed events changed the course of world history. The fall of the Berlin Wall would end the Cold War and open up markets across the world. That very same month, Tim Berners-Lee would create the World Wide Web and usher in a new technological era of networked computing. It seemed, as Francis Fukuyama famously wrote, like the end of history. The conflict between communism and capitalism appeared to be over. Just one model remained. But, as Fukuyama also noted—and as I saw firsthand living in Moscow—the human urge to assert identity remained. We weren’t witnessing an end, but the beginning of a major realignment, in which the neoliberal order, globalism, the Washington Consensus, and digital technology would reign. But almost from the beginning, there were deep misgivings. Many developing countries, pressured by the IMF and World Bank to adopt policies that would never have been accepted in wealthier nations, chafed. And even in advanced economies, many felt left behind as globalization and offshoring hollowed out their economic lives. Today, “new right” intellectuals like Patrick Deneen have argued that liberalism has undermined foundational aspects of society such as family, religion, and community. Others, like Curtis Yarvin, argue that democracy itself is inefficient and what we need are tech-style CEO-like sovereigns. Meanwhile, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson have called for an abundance agenda that focuses more on building what we need than preventing what we don’t want. We are now, much like America’s Founding Fathers, tasked with finding a way forward when the path is frustratingly unclear. Like generations that came before us, we will need to struggle with new paradigms made possible by advances in technologies. Yet, also like our forebears, our biggest challenge is not a lack of possibilities, but a lack of consensus. We tend to replace questions about what kind of future we want with questions about technology. But as Martin Heidegge
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