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Us vs. Them: The Failure of Globalism
New York Times bestseller"A cogent analysis of the concurrent Trump/Brexit phenomena and a dire warning about what lies ahead...a lucid, provocative book." --Kirkus Reviews Those who championed globalization once promised a world of winners, one in which free trade would lift all the world's boats, and extremes of left and right would give way to universally embraced liberal values. The past few years have shattered this fantasy, as those who've paid the price for globalism's gains have turned to populist and nationalist politicians to express fury at the political, media, and corporate elites they blame for their losses. The United States elected an anti-immigration, protectionist president who promised to "put America first" and turned a cold eye on alliances and treaties. Across Europe, anti-establishment political parties made gains not seen in decades. The United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union.And as Ian Bremmer shows in this eye-opening book, populism is still spreading. Globalism creates plenty of both winners and losers, and those who've missed out want to set things right. They've seen their futures made obsolete. They hear new voices and see new faces all about them. They feel their cultures shift. They don't trust what they read. They've begun to understand the world as a battle for the future that pits "us" vs. "them." Bremmer points to the next wave of global populism, one that hits emerging nations before they have fully emerged. As in Europe and America, citizens want security and prosperity, and they're becoming increasingly frustrated with governments that aren't capable of providing them. To protect themselves, many government will build walls, both digital and physical. For instance... * In Brazil and other fast-developing countries, civilians riot when higher expectations for better government aren't being met--the downside of their own success in lifting millions from poverty. * In Mexico, South Africa, Turkey, Indonesia, Egypt and other emerging states, frustration with government is on the rise and political battle lines are being drawn. * In China, where awareness of inequality is on the rise, the state is building a system to use the data that citizens generate to contain future demand for change * In India, the tools now used to provide essential services for people who've never had them can one day be used to tighten the ruling party's grip on power. When human beings feel threatened, we identify the danger and look for allies. We use the enemy, real or imagined, to rally friends to our side. This book is about the ways in which people will define these threats as fights for survival. It's about the walls governments will build to protect insiders from outsiders and the state from its people.And it's about what we can do about it.
208 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 24, 2018
360 people are currently reading
2792 people want to read
About the author
Ian Bremmer
32 books366 followersIan Bremmer (born November 12, 1969) is an American political scientist specializing in US foreign policy, states in transition, and global political risk. He is the president and founder of Eurasia Group, a leading global political risk research and consulting firm, and a professor at Columbia University. Eurasia Group provides financial, corporate, and government clients with information and insight on how political developments move markets. Bremmer is of Armenian and German descent.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 182 reviews
May 10, 2018
An executive summary of platitudes framed as if they'll blow your mind. If you have functioning eyes and a subscription to the Guardian, you'll be able to spit this shit out in your sleep.
May 8, 2018
Ian Bremmer's latest book is a breezy tour d'horizon of contemporary global affairs that offers little fresh insight and makes no real argument. The theme, such as there is one, is that populist movements have gained power across the world and that the neoliberal moment that emerged in the '90s is coming to an end. What's next? Bremmer offers a few possibilities but refuses to make any predictions or even state a preference.
There was a time when Bremmer was an incisive analyst of global affairs. But these days, he's slipped comfortably into the space occupied by Thomas Friedman, Parag Khanna, and Fareed Zakaria: "big picture" guys who can craft a compelling narrative about current affairs that studiously avoids pushing any buttons. "Us Vs. Them" is best thought of as a watered-down, special edition of the Economist rather than a work that will improve one's understanding of the world.
There was a time when Bremmer was an incisive analyst of global affairs. But these days, he's slipped comfortably into the space occupied by Thomas Friedman, Parag Khanna, and Fareed Zakaria: "big picture" guys who can craft a compelling narrative about current affairs that studiously avoids pushing any buttons. "Us Vs. Them" is best thought of as a watered-down, special edition of the Economist rather than a work that will improve one's understanding of the world.
May 6, 2018
I generally like Bremmer's books (G-Zero, End of the Free Market, J-curve etc) but this book seemed lazy. It didn't seem well thought out nor researched. Very little in Us vs Them will strike you as enlightening, if you've been alive the past 2 years. His other books have a rather novel idea that is well argued. This idea isn't well argued and sure as hell isn't novel. I would have preferred a much deeper analysis of public perceptions on things like Brexit, TPP or Schengen. Instead it is a few brief quips about things like UBI, automation, and "they took our jobs."
I honestly think it was a quick way for Bremmer to maintain relevance and grab a few easy bucks.
I honestly think it was a quick way for Bremmer to maintain relevance and grab a few easy bucks.
April 24, 2018
Really, a 4.5.
The “us/them” division is global in scale and catastrophic in scope. It is already testing our civility, our security, our cultural identity, and our commitment to the ideals of democracy. But you already know that.
This is the latest in a growing list of books that seeks to understand why the we/they divide exists without, to its credit, falling into the trap of using the data to simply fan the fires of partisan division. Bremmer has a political agenda (we all do), and he’s no fan of Trump, the person. He does, however, go out of his way to note, “Donald Trump didn’t create us vs. them. Us vs. them created Donald Trump, and those who dismiss his supporters are damaging the United States.” Whether you agree with that or not, he is one of a handful of analysts willing to try and rise above the personal vilification that defines so much of our current political debate.
The author reviews the “us/them” division around the world and his analysis of current events in places like Nigeria and Venezuela is revealing and informative. I must admit, however, that for a time I found the analysis to be just a bit repetitive and a little superficial. There are lots of facts and figures but not a lot of insight into the why behind the what.
I do believe, however, that Bremmer essentially closes the “why” loop in the last section of the book when he takes up the obvious question of a way forward. In short he believes that we must do no less than redefine the social contract between the government and the governed.
And it is here that he once again opens his thinking in a way that few other authors have. All too often any discussion about the social contract devolves into a largely PC debate about freedom of the press, representative democracy, and the legal protection of marginalized people. We talk about authoritarianism and fascism, but what most citizens want, in the end, is a government that is fair, trustworthy, and competent, treats them with respect, and, most importantly, has their collective interests at heart.
And that, Bremmer points out, is a social contract we can find common ground on. We are never going to agree on every aspect of what a good government should or should not do. If we can agree on the framework of a social contract that acknowledges the inequities created by globalism, the challenges presented by the mass migration of people, the need for lifelong education in a technologically advancing world (without ignoring the continued importance of the traditional liberal arts), and the global desire for personal security, we can make a start.
My only disappointment with the book is that he doesn’t really take on the issue of the growing power of the corpocracy. No segment of society has benefited more from the asymmetry of globalism than the corporate and financial elite. Adjusting the social contract without, at the same time, revisiting the economic contract between workers, employers, and communities, will amount to nothing.
Bremmer does, however, introduce the universal wage, which is not a new idea and will ultimately have to precede any chance of addressing the us/them divide. Globalism and technology have essentially commercialized every aspect of what it means to live in the modern world. We have to take the mere fight for survival (and the security of health care) off the table if we are to have any hope of restoring economic progress and human dignity.
The author does provide several ideas for doing that although he stops short of a specific agenda and he is a little less optimistic than I’d prefer, perhaps naively, to be. “Things have to become much worse, particularly for the winners, before they can become better for everyone else. This is the ultimate failure of globalism.”
If, however, we can all approach the issues with the even-handedness and objectivity that Ian Bremmer does here, we can surely accelerate the process.
The “us/them” division is global in scale and catastrophic in scope. It is already testing our civility, our security, our cultural identity, and our commitment to the ideals of democracy. But you already know that.
This is the latest in a growing list of books that seeks to understand why the we/they divide exists without, to its credit, falling into the trap of using the data to simply fan the fires of partisan division. Bremmer has a political agenda (we all do), and he’s no fan of Trump, the person. He does, however, go out of his way to note, “Donald Trump didn’t create us vs. them. Us vs. them created Donald Trump, and those who dismiss his supporters are damaging the United States.” Whether you agree with that or not, he is one of a handful of analysts willing to try and rise above the personal vilification that defines so much of our current political debate.
The author reviews the “us/them” division around the world and his analysis of current events in places like Nigeria and Venezuela is revealing and informative. I must admit, however, that for a time I found the analysis to be just a bit repetitive and a little superficial. There are lots of facts and figures but not a lot of insight into the why behind the what.
I do believe, however, that Bremmer essentially closes the “why” loop in the last section of the book when he takes up the obvious question of a way forward. In short he believes that we must do no less than redefine the social contract between the government and the governed.
And it is here that he once again opens his thinking in a way that few other authors have. All too often any discussion about the social contract devolves into a largely PC debate about freedom of the press, representative democracy, and the legal protection of marginalized people. We talk about authoritarianism and fascism, but what most citizens want, in the end, is a government that is fair, trustworthy, and competent, treats them with respect, and, most importantly, has their collective interests at heart.
And that, Bremmer points out, is a social contract we can find common ground on. We are never going to agree on every aspect of what a good government should or should not do. If we can agree on the framework of a social contract that acknowledges the inequities created by globalism, the challenges presented by the mass migration of people, the need for lifelong education in a technologically advancing world (without ignoring the continued importance of the traditional liberal arts), and the global desire for personal security, we can make a start.
My only disappointment with the book is that he doesn’t really take on the issue of the growing power of the corpocracy. No segment of society has benefited more from the asymmetry of globalism than the corporate and financial elite. Adjusting the social contract without, at the same time, revisiting the economic contract between workers, employers, and communities, will amount to nothing.
Bremmer does, however, introduce the universal wage, which is not a new idea and will ultimately have to precede any chance of addressing the us/them divide. Globalism and technology have essentially commercialized every aspect of what it means to live in the modern world. We have to take the mere fight for survival (and the security of health care) off the table if we are to have any hope of restoring economic progress and human dignity.
The author does provide several ideas for doing that although he stops short of a specific agenda and he is a little less optimistic than I’d prefer, perhaps naively, to be. “Things have to become much worse, particularly for the winners, before they can become better for everyone else. This is the ultimate failure of globalism.”
If, however, we can all approach the issues with the even-handedness and objectivity that Ian Bremmer does here, we can surely accelerate the process.
July 29, 2018
Maybe I had high hopes for this book, but the truth is that it’s full of common knowledge ideas that most of us already read in the reference newspapers. There is little fresh content here unfortunately.
July 21, 2018
Read it in two sittings. For all of Bremmer's qualities as a thinker and writer (and there are many), this book glosses over the great inflection point of our time without any real offered insight. Disappointing....
November 17, 2018
In a way, there is nothing new here if you follow the news, but in another way, there is. In a relatively short book, the author addresses the political, economic, environmental, and social pressures for various developing countries and predicts where it will lead them. There is a particular emphasis on the impact that AI will have on the global community. Just when you start to get really depressed, he ends with some examples of hope. In a nutshell, we have to get our act together, not just in the U.S. where we are facing our own pressures, but across the world. If we work together rationally, reacting with integrity and compassion to evidence rather than emotion and vitriol, our species might just have a chance.
June 14, 2018
Terrible. Really, really bad.
Didn't get what the purpose of this book was. Instead of dismissing populism, perhaps a real attempt at understanding why it is becoming more prevalent in the world. Instead of dismissing Donald Trump, perhaps an acknowledgment of why he succeeded. It's as if Bremmer considers himself a coastal elite. Don't you have to be successful to be elite?
This book perfectly summarizes the pomposity of Goodreads reviews. The more pompous and self-absorbed the review of this book, the higher the rating they give the book. Maybe I didn't like the book because I'm plain old common folk.
Didn't get what the purpose of this book was. Instead of dismissing populism, perhaps a real attempt at understanding why it is becoming more prevalent in the world. Instead of dismissing Donald Trump, perhaps an acknowledgment of why he succeeded. It's as if Bremmer considers himself a coastal elite. Don't you have to be successful to be elite?
This book perfectly summarizes the pomposity of Goodreads reviews. The more pompous and self-absorbed the review of this book, the higher the rating they give the book. Maybe I didn't like the book because I'm plain old common folk.
June 2, 2018
Excellent analysis of the political, economic, and cultural problems facing the world. However, Bremmer's solutions slip into Progressive/Socialist cant failing to fully grasp human psychology and the immensity of the problem facing the OECD and emerging nations now and in the near future.
As an explanation of the problem, this is a good book but the solutions are socialist idealism...or very nearly this.
Worth a look, but not a serious one.
Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars
As an explanation of the problem, this is a good book but the solutions are socialist idealism...or very nearly this.
Worth a look, but not a serious one.
Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars
June 20, 2018
Ian Bremmer expertly elucidates the shortcomings of globalism in this miniature guide. With the ascension of political polarization occurring in both industrialized and developing countries, a world in which the government ensures egalitarianism rather than tribalism is more imperative than ever, as Bremmer decisively states in this concise analysis of the globe's discrete governments.
July 4, 2018
Seems a mere regurgitation of a close reading of newspaper and magazine reporting
November 28, 2018
Ian Bremmer is a political scientist specializing in US foreign policy, and to his credit he does help illuminate the big picture by traveling to several regions of the world and demonstrating how the other is defined throughout the world. He lays out in broad strokes the trouble with society being defined along ideological, cultural, religious, and immigrant lines and how those divisions increasingly define our politics in a globalist world. He suggests that while globalism (neoliberalism) has made promises that many of those promises have not been fulfilled for the poor and middle class of the world.
Unfortunately, he argues all of this in such broad strokes and through such well known events such as Brexit and the United States election within the past couple of years that the book offered very little in the way of new insight or much in depth and insightful of a look at the current events in general. I found myself regularly board with this book and feeling a bit like I was simply reading a summary of some of the most recent headlines and regularly written about concerns about automation, economics, political and cultural division, and the challenges of an ever more globalized world. All of these are compelling topics on their own with much to dive deep into but he dove into none of them very deeply or broadly in my view.
Unfortunately, he argues all of this in such broad strokes and through such well known events such as Brexit and the United States election within the past couple of years that the book offered very little in the way of new insight or much in depth and insightful of a look at the current events in general. I found myself regularly board with this book and feeling a bit like I was simply reading a summary of some of the most recent headlines and regularly written about concerns about automation, economics, political and cultural division, and the challenges of an ever more globalized world. All of these are compelling topics on their own with much to dive deep into but he dove into none of them very deeply or broadly in my view.
April 28, 2018
Ian Bremmer remains a strong story-teller, doing what he's always done best - expressing crystal-clear concepts and thoughts, and presenting International Relations for non-specialists.
Yet the book is short, covers a billion ideas very superficially, and is some weird combination of examples from the last 18 months. Basically, if you've been reading any newspapers in the last 1-2 years, you're unlikely to hear any particularly deep new analysis.
Unfortunately, the book is disappointing...
Yet the book is short, covers a billion ideas very superficially, and is some weird combination of examples from the last 18 months. Basically, if you've been reading any newspapers in the last 1-2 years, you're unlikely to hear any particularly deep new analysis.
Unfortunately, the book is disappointing...
Read
August 30, 2018Unless you were living in a cave for a while, this book summarizes what you saw in the news.
The increasing globalism didn't benefit everybody equally. Automation further intensified the inequity. Those who suffered made the populist movements gain traction. Le Pen didn't win but it was close. Trump did. And so on.
Towards the end, there is finally some policy prescription. We need to give people the chance to learn -- in a life-long process.
The increasing globalism didn't benefit everybody equally. Automation further intensified the inequity. Those who suffered made the populist movements gain traction. Le Pen didn't win but it was close. Trump did. And so on.
Towards the end, there is finally some policy prescription. We need to give people the chance to learn -- in a life-long process.
July 10, 2018
Could've used more detail in certain areas, but overall a good summary of the current state of affairs. Did not go much into possible solutions.
April 30, 2019
Watch a detailed review along with my favorite ideas and takeaways at:
https://youtu.be/iWOe9t1n8c0
https://youtu.be/iWOe9t1n8c0
February 23, 2021
Brings up many very interesting points about the rise of populism and the state of world affairs, but is completely lacking in conclusion and leaves many questions unanswered. Intriguing at first, but ultimately left me disappointed.
Currently reading
January 8, 2021Whilst many (or even most?) May label this book as simple hyperbole.
Just try telling me that it is nothing short of a Brilliant synopsis of our current situation, globally and economically as Americans head more desperate into the global economy.
I.e. we're more or less fuk'd no matter how it all pans out.
Progressive liberal idealistbassholes and hard right conservative anti Obamacare folks alike.
Let's get honest.
The wild is fast changing.
It sucks but whatever
Just try telling me that it is nothing short of a Brilliant synopsis of our current situation, globally and economically as Americans head more desperate into the global economy.
I.e. we're more or less fuk'd no matter how it all pans out.
Progressive liberal idealistbassholes and hard right conservative anti Obamacare folks alike.
Let's get honest.
The wild is fast changing.
It sucks but whatever
April 27, 2018
A summary of developments
Ian Bremmer describes the tendencies that have caused ruptures in the politics of major countries. He takes a politics-first view and describes how trends might affect the politics-society relationship. Provides a good overview of the developments, but not much else.
Ian Bremmer describes the tendencies that have caused ruptures in the politics of major countries. He takes a politics-first view and describes how trends might affect the politics-society relationship. Provides a good overview of the developments, but not much else.
May 2, 2018
Globalism. Capitalism. It is amusing to see Bremmer fluctuate from considering each -ism an anthropomorphic entity with a will of its own to making each -ism some sort of label of a greater conspiracy. Sadly, the text gets boring quickly.
October 28, 2018
Some aspects been covered but more like science , space, pharma industries have not been talked about . Even it mainly limits itself in comparing China and USA with a little light on some other developing countries
February 13, 2019
Easy reading and makes some good points. I found myself saying "well, duh!" many times. The stuff just seems so obvious. But apparently it isn't obvious to our elected officials who are either hopelessly dumb or are more interested in their own well-being that that if their people.
October 18, 2018
I found this book to be a really tough slog to read and it didn’t really provide any solutions. Just raised issues. Not sure i could recommend this book to anyone else.
October 28, 2021
An interesting book written after the election of Donald Trump but before the pandemic hit, that discusses the impact of globalization & income inequality and suggests that governments and companies around the world must address the issue otherwise societies will disintegrate. He describes some innovative programs that have been tried out in a number of different countries, such as Brazil under Lula, Singapore, a couple of Scandinavian countries, that center on investing in re-training, providing better pay to teachers and day care workers, as well as home health care aides, making the internet more widely available, providing more drug treatment and mental health services. But he basically accepts that globalization and the coming automation revolution (robots & AI) will displace many millions of workers and that there is nothing that can be done about it since both represent ¨progress.¨ Thus, he suggests that the gig economy is the future for many displaced by automation, and that the caring economy - those who work as home health care aides, or nannies - should be paid more. He says that the government must expand the social safety net, implement pre-kindergarten programs which will lift some of the financial burden of child care from working women. The author views the progress of the economy and society from a mainstream perspective, that is, what is inevitable, that manufacturing will henceforth mostly be performed in China or in other low-wage countries, must be accepted, and its effects softened by increasing the social safety net. I for one do not agree with this analysis. On a global level, I do not think concentrating manufacturing in one country makes for a healthy world economy. Imagine if, at some future date, the population of China were tragically wiped out by a plague for which there was no cure - much more virulent and destructive than covid? Meanwhile, the production of steel, and a number of other key commodities and products were mostly by then located in China. If a key cog in the world economy were taken out, the entire world economy would fall apart. That would not happen if there is were less centralization, more dispersal of production of key commodities and products. The role of the working class everywhere is to work- and be a force to be reckoned with. The reason there was so much foreign investment in China is because labor unions in China are under the thumb of the Party and the Party ensures the workers are compliant, do not demand higher wages, or go on strike over worker or environmental safety issues. No labor union should be under the control of a government that is in cahoots with capital - to the detriment of the rank and file. That cozy and corrupt arrangement must be ended in China and everywhere on Earth where it exists. Truly independent labor unions must be the norm. That is not the case in China today. Therefore, I think Mr. Bremmer takes an accommodationist line on the current crisis devastating the industrial heartland of the USA: Suggesting that workers not only be retrained, but undergo lifelong training and education, and that the social safety net be expanded so as to enable more workers to make a living as part of the caring economy (child or elderly care workers). As long as costs remain high, all workers should make more money including those of the caring economy. But social programs never replaced a job as a means of climbing into the middle class or beyond. Social programs cannot replace industrial jobs.
Here are some quotes from the book:
¨Workers everywhere fear lost jobs and wages as a shifting global economy and technological change leave them behind.¨
¨In 2008, years of deregulation, bad bets, and bad faith brought down some of the world's biggest banks...¨
¨...in my old neighborhood, people are angry. They no longer believe that hard work and education are enough. They don't see a path, and they feel they've been lied to. For decades.¨
¨Globalization -- the cross-border flow of ideas, information, people, money, goods, and services-- has resulted in an interconnected world where national leaders have increasingly limited ability to protect the lives and livelihoods of citizens.¨
¨Globalism-- the belief that the interdependence that created globalization is a good thing -- is indeed the ideology of the elite.¨
¨¨The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia,¨ former White House strategist Steve Bannon told the ´Hollywood Reporter´ a few days after Donald Trump´s 2016 election victory. ¨The issue now is about Americans looking to not get fucked over.¨¨
¨Antiglobalists on the left use ¨them¨ to refer to the governing elite, ¨big corporations,¨ and bankers who enable financial elites to exploit the individual worker or investor.¨
¨In the world's wealthiest countries, particularly the United States, wealth inequality has steadily widened as globalism has advanced.¨
¨Nearly 40 percent of U.S. factory jobs have disappeared since 1979.¨
¨From both left and right, we now hear that trade ships jobs overseas, leaving workers with no future.¨
¨In the United States ... tensions began building well before the political earthquakes of 2016, during the financial crisis of 2008-2009, when bankers got bailouts and workers got pink slips.¨
¨Many Americans believe that some illegal immigrants, willing to work for less, take the low-wage jobs that working-class Americans are trained to do while others live off public assistance paid for by U.S. taxpayers.¨
¨It is this economic insecurity that explains growing opposition to existing free-trade deals like .....NAFTA and proposed plans like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).¨
¨... a surge in racism is predictable when white Christian men come to see that they don't dominate the United States and Europe as they once did.¨
¨Antiestablishment parties continue to feed popular fury in nearly every EU country.¨
¨The wealthiest companies can continue to use their political clout to push for tax rules that allow them to move money across borders to exploit tax advantages.¨
¨During the Cold War, the reality of mutually assured nuclear annihilation made it unthinkable for NATO and Warsaw Pact countries to start World War III.¨
¨...while nuclear weapons are held exclusively by a few governments, cyber weapons are available to anyone with the skill and ingenuity to develop them.¨
¨...industrial robots were responsible for as many as 670,000 lost manufacturing jobs between 1990 and 2007, that this number was likely to rise as the number of robots quadruple in coming years, and that other sectors weren´t creating enough jobs to offset the losses in manufacturing.¨
¨Around the world, tougher economic times make government less popular. In response, political leaders then spend too much money, including on subsidies. They pressure central banks to print more money to stimulate an economy in the short term, stoking inflation and raising public anxiety as cash buys less than it did the week before.¨
¨...it´s the tech revolution that will create unprecedented pressure on emerging states and their more fragile institutions.¨
¨The youth bulge we see in many developing countries can move from economic advantage to political threat as their path out of poverty is blocked. If they never join the active workforce, they will never have access to the education and training needed to earn twenty-first-century jobs, and they know their children will fare no better. Those able to keep their jobs may discover they must work for less pay and fewer (if any) benefits.¨
¨...it´s still too soon to know whether the tech revolution will kill more jobs than it creates.¨
¨...as the elite within developing countries amass wealth, they may lose the incentive to invest in the country´s future.¨
¨[Brazil] ... is a country where the battle of us vs. them now pits citizens against the entire political and business elite.¨
¨...Mexico is a country where automation will have a big effect. Nearly two-thirds of jobs in advanced manufacturing of automobiles, aerospace products, and plastics can be automatized. That's good news for companies and shareholders, but it's bad news for the estimated 5 million workers who will be displaced.¨
¨[In Venezuela] When opposition candidates won a majority of seats in the national assembly in December 2015, s supreme court packed with Maduro loyalists dissolved the assembly.¨
¨In July 2016, some parts of the [Turkish] army ... did try to see him off, but Erdogan eluded capture and declared a state of emergency that gave him extraordinary powers to imprison large numbers of enemies, real and imagined, and to further tighten his control of courts, the bureaucracy, the police, and the army.¨
¨...Indonesia is ... another developing country where politicians and the business elite eat at the same table and corruption remains endemic.¨
¨Within the next five years, India will surpass China to become the world's most populous country. Unlike China and Russia, India has a fast-growing population of young people.¨
¨It´s difficult enough to govern a country [that is, India] in which thirty-five different languages are spoken by at least a million people each, with 22,000 distinct dialects, but fast-expanding access to social media will make protests easier to organize and harder to contain.¨
¨China's rise can be measured in many ways, but the most impressive number is the 700 million people that state-led reform has lifted from poverty over the past four decades. In 1986, China's per capita GDP was $282. In 2016, it climbed above $8,100. The country's middle class represented 4 percent of the population in 2002 and 31 percent in 2013.¨
¨China's Ministry of Environmental Protection has reported that two-thirds of China's groundwater and one-third of its surface water are unfit for human contact of any kind. Toxins and garbage ensure that almost half the country´s rivers fall into this category. Estimates are that air pollution kills more than one million Chinese people per year.¨
¨It's also possible that, if times get tough, China's middle class, and its consumption-driven lifestyle, will become a target--of poorer people who envy their prosperity and of a government looking to protect itself against populist anger. This fear within the middle class explains why so many send their children abroad for education and their money overseas for financial security.¨
¨Each year, China now graduates four time as many students as the United States (1.3 million vs. 300,000) in the subjects of math, science, engineering, and technology.¨
¨...the World Bank has estimated that automation and innovations in machine learning threaten 77 percent of all existing jobs in China.¨
¨China has some obvious advantages. It's the one government that, at least for now, can afford to spend huge amounts of money to create unnecessary jobs to avoid political unrest. China's historic successes suggest this might be the one country that can find a way to adjust, and the aging of its population could be a plus as the country needs fewer jobs in coming years than rival India.¨
¨As governments try to safeguard the lives and livelihoods of citizens--and to protect themselves against public anger when their safeguards don´t work--we can expect both old and new forms of economic protectionism.¨
¨...it was World War II, not the New Deal, that brought economic stagnation to an end. U.S. unemployment was still at 19 percent during the recession of 1937-38.¨
¨As protectionism lowers longer-term growth in rich countries, there is a risk the pie itself will get smaller, creating a vicious cycle as slowdowns increase demand for tough-talking populists in both rich and poor countries, leaders who will rise to power with promises of higher and thicker walls."
¨Given that Vladimir Putin once referred to the Internet as a ¨CIA project,¨ it's not surprising that his government has become fascinated with both its offensive capabilities and the internal vulnerabilities it might create for his control of information across Russia.¨
¨[Chinese national security reviews IT products and services used in critical information infrastructure to ensure compliance with the policy that] It is the patriotic responsibility of media and all who work in it to promote ¨positive propaganda.¨
¨Whether the question of the moment is jobs, terrorism, or the protection of national identity, governments around the world will become much more selective about who is allowed to enter.¨
¨The United States was founded as a democracy, but the Constitution allowed states to decide for themselves who deserved a vote. In the beginning, most states limited the franchise to white men who owned land and/or paid taxes. For everyone else, the nation functioned as an oligopoly. The industrial revolution began to change this as labor gained a voice in politics and workers gained a voice in the labor movement. Only in 1856 did the last of the states drop the requirement to own property. In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution extended voting rights to nonwhite men and freed slaves, though some states continued to violate this principle for nearly a century after. Women didn't win the vote until 1920. Only in 1924 were Native Americans allowed to vote without renouncing tribal affiliation.¨
¨...the unavoidable impact of the coming of automation.¨
¨In Europe, half of all jobs created between 2010 and 2016 were based on temporary contracts. That´s in part a reflection of an economic slowdown across the EU that left employers wary about full-time hires, but the automation trend suggests there will be fewer new jobs created in the future, even when times are strong.¨
¨Of the more than 52,000 drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2015, more than 63 percent involved an opioid.¨
¨In countries around the world, political leaders try to bolster their popularity by playing one group of people off another. If your goal is to boost your popularity with a segment of the population, that's a smart political tactic. But if your goal is to promote a stronger, healthier society that will make your country safer and more prosperous, it's a cynical and dangerous habit.¨
¨No-one voted for Donald Trump because he believed the United States was growing more secure and more prosperous. In a country where working-age men without jobs outnumber those with jobs by three to one and half of unemployed men take daily pain medication, a lot of people want ¨change.¨
¨There are reasons to worry that political correctness will kill freedom of speech and the birth of good ideas.¨
¨There's a working class in the United States that really has seen more losses than gains from free trade.¨
¨Citizens feel lied to or ignored--by politicians, the mainstream media, the business elite, bankers, and public intellectuals. They believe the game is rigged in someone else´s favor, and they have a point.¨
¨It's much easier to mock Donald Trump, rail at his excesses, and caricature his backers than to work toward solutions to the problems that leave may convinced they have no future and that their fellow Americans don´t care.¨
¨The introduction of automation and artificial intelligence into the workplace will create more turmoil for workers in wealthy countries, but it will be profoundly disruptive in the developing world, where there will be fewer factory jobs to pull less educated people from the countryside into the urban workforce.¨
¨The sense of crisis isn´t yet strong enough, because so many globalists continue to profit from the system as it is, and walls of various kinds will protect them, temporarily, from real danger.¨
Here are some quotes from the book:
¨Workers everywhere fear lost jobs and wages as a shifting global economy and technological change leave them behind.¨
¨In 2008, years of deregulation, bad bets, and bad faith brought down some of the world's biggest banks...¨
¨...in my old neighborhood, people are angry. They no longer believe that hard work and education are enough. They don't see a path, and they feel they've been lied to. For decades.¨
¨Globalization -- the cross-border flow of ideas, information, people, money, goods, and services-- has resulted in an interconnected world where national leaders have increasingly limited ability to protect the lives and livelihoods of citizens.¨
¨Globalism-- the belief that the interdependence that created globalization is a good thing -- is indeed the ideology of the elite.¨
¨¨The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia,¨ former White House strategist Steve Bannon told the ´Hollywood Reporter´ a few days after Donald Trump´s 2016 election victory. ¨The issue now is about Americans looking to not get fucked over.¨¨
¨Antiglobalists on the left use ¨them¨ to refer to the governing elite, ¨big corporations,¨ and bankers who enable financial elites to exploit the individual worker or investor.¨
¨In the world's wealthiest countries, particularly the United States, wealth inequality has steadily widened as globalism has advanced.¨
¨Nearly 40 percent of U.S. factory jobs have disappeared since 1979.¨
¨From both left and right, we now hear that trade ships jobs overseas, leaving workers with no future.¨
¨In the United States ... tensions began building well before the political earthquakes of 2016, during the financial crisis of 2008-2009, when bankers got bailouts and workers got pink slips.¨
¨Many Americans believe that some illegal immigrants, willing to work for less, take the low-wage jobs that working-class Americans are trained to do while others live off public assistance paid for by U.S. taxpayers.¨
¨It is this economic insecurity that explains growing opposition to existing free-trade deals like .....NAFTA and proposed plans like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).¨
¨... a surge in racism is predictable when white Christian men come to see that they don't dominate the United States and Europe as they once did.¨
¨Antiestablishment parties continue to feed popular fury in nearly every EU country.¨
¨The wealthiest companies can continue to use their political clout to push for tax rules that allow them to move money across borders to exploit tax advantages.¨
¨During the Cold War, the reality of mutually assured nuclear annihilation made it unthinkable for NATO and Warsaw Pact countries to start World War III.¨
¨...while nuclear weapons are held exclusively by a few governments, cyber weapons are available to anyone with the skill and ingenuity to develop them.¨
¨...industrial robots were responsible for as many as 670,000 lost manufacturing jobs between 1990 and 2007, that this number was likely to rise as the number of robots quadruple in coming years, and that other sectors weren´t creating enough jobs to offset the losses in manufacturing.¨
¨Around the world, tougher economic times make government less popular. In response, political leaders then spend too much money, including on subsidies. They pressure central banks to print more money to stimulate an economy in the short term, stoking inflation and raising public anxiety as cash buys less than it did the week before.¨
¨...it´s the tech revolution that will create unprecedented pressure on emerging states and their more fragile institutions.¨
¨The youth bulge we see in many developing countries can move from economic advantage to political threat as their path out of poverty is blocked. If they never join the active workforce, they will never have access to the education and training needed to earn twenty-first-century jobs, and they know their children will fare no better. Those able to keep their jobs may discover they must work for less pay and fewer (if any) benefits.¨
¨...it´s still too soon to know whether the tech revolution will kill more jobs than it creates.¨
¨...as the elite within developing countries amass wealth, they may lose the incentive to invest in the country´s future.¨
¨[Brazil] ... is a country where the battle of us vs. them now pits citizens against the entire political and business elite.¨
¨...Mexico is a country where automation will have a big effect. Nearly two-thirds of jobs in advanced manufacturing of automobiles, aerospace products, and plastics can be automatized. That's good news for companies and shareholders, but it's bad news for the estimated 5 million workers who will be displaced.¨
¨[In Venezuela] When opposition candidates won a majority of seats in the national assembly in December 2015, s supreme court packed with Maduro loyalists dissolved the assembly.¨
¨In July 2016, some parts of the [Turkish] army ... did try to see him off, but Erdogan eluded capture and declared a state of emergency that gave him extraordinary powers to imprison large numbers of enemies, real and imagined, and to further tighten his control of courts, the bureaucracy, the police, and the army.¨
¨...Indonesia is ... another developing country where politicians and the business elite eat at the same table and corruption remains endemic.¨
¨Within the next five years, India will surpass China to become the world's most populous country. Unlike China and Russia, India has a fast-growing population of young people.¨
¨It´s difficult enough to govern a country [that is, India] in which thirty-five different languages are spoken by at least a million people each, with 22,000 distinct dialects, but fast-expanding access to social media will make protests easier to organize and harder to contain.¨
¨China's rise can be measured in many ways, but the most impressive number is the 700 million people that state-led reform has lifted from poverty over the past four decades. In 1986, China's per capita GDP was $282. In 2016, it climbed above $8,100. The country's middle class represented 4 percent of the population in 2002 and 31 percent in 2013.¨
¨China's Ministry of Environmental Protection has reported that two-thirds of China's groundwater and one-third of its surface water are unfit for human contact of any kind. Toxins and garbage ensure that almost half the country´s rivers fall into this category. Estimates are that air pollution kills more than one million Chinese people per year.¨
¨It's also possible that, if times get tough, China's middle class, and its consumption-driven lifestyle, will become a target--of poorer people who envy their prosperity and of a government looking to protect itself against populist anger. This fear within the middle class explains why so many send their children abroad for education and their money overseas for financial security.¨
¨Each year, China now graduates four time as many students as the United States (1.3 million vs. 300,000) in the subjects of math, science, engineering, and technology.¨
¨...the World Bank has estimated that automation and innovations in machine learning threaten 77 percent of all existing jobs in China.¨
¨China has some obvious advantages. It's the one government that, at least for now, can afford to spend huge amounts of money to create unnecessary jobs to avoid political unrest. China's historic successes suggest this might be the one country that can find a way to adjust, and the aging of its population could be a plus as the country needs fewer jobs in coming years than rival India.¨
¨As governments try to safeguard the lives and livelihoods of citizens--and to protect themselves against public anger when their safeguards don´t work--we can expect both old and new forms of economic protectionism.¨
¨...it was World War II, not the New Deal, that brought economic stagnation to an end. U.S. unemployment was still at 19 percent during the recession of 1937-38.¨
¨As protectionism lowers longer-term growth in rich countries, there is a risk the pie itself will get smaller, creating a vicious cycle as slowdowns increase demand for tough-talking populists in both rich and poor countries, leaders who will rise to power with promises of higher and thicker walls."
¨Given that Vladimir Putin once referred to the Internet as a ¨CIA project,¨ it's not surprising that his government has become fascinated with both its offensive capabilities and the internal vulnerabilities it might create for his control of information across Russia.¨
¨[Chinese national security reviews IT products and services used in critical information infrastructure to ensure compliance with the policy that] It is the patriotic responsibility of media and all who work in it to promote ¨positive propaganda.¨
¨Whether the question of the moment is jobs, terrorism, or the protection of national identity, governments around the world will become much more selective about who is allowed to enter.¨
¨The United States was founded as a democracy, but the Constitution allowed states to decide for themselves who deserved a vote. In the beginning, most states limited the franchise to white men who owned land and/or paid taxes. For everyone else, the nation functioned as an oligopoly. The industrial revolution began to change this as labor gained a voice in politics and workers gained a voice in the labor movement. Only in 1856 did the last of the states drop the requirement to own property. In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution extended voting rights to nonwhite men and freed slaves, though some states continued to violate this principle for nearly a century after. Women didn't win the vote until 1920. Only in 1924 were Native Americans allowed to vote without renouncing tribal affiliation.¨
¨...the unavoidable impact of the coming of automation.¨
¨In Europe, half of all jobs created between 2010 and 2016 were based on temporary contracts. That´s in part a reflection of an economic slowdown across the EU that left employers wary about full-time hires, but the automation trend suggests there will be fewer new jobs created in the future, even when times are strong.¨
¨Of the more than 52,000 drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2015, more than 63 percent involved an opioid.¨
¨In countries around the world, political leaders try to bolster their popularity by playing one group of people off another. If your goal is to boost your popularity with a segment of the population, that's a smart political tactic. But if your goal is to promote a stronger, healthier society that will make your country safer and more prosperous, it's a cynical and dangerous habit.¨
¨No-one voted for Donald Trump because he believed the United States was growing more secure and more prosperous. In a country where working-age men without jobs outnumber those with jobs by three to one and half of unemployed men take daily pain medication, a lot of people want ¨change.¨
¨There are reasons to worry that political correctness will kill freedom of speech and the birth of good ideas.¨
¨There's a working class in the United States that really has seen more losses than gains from free trade.¨
¨Citizens feel lied to or ignored--by politicians, the mainstream media, the business elite, bankers, and public intellectuals. They believe the game is rigged in someone else´s favor, and they have a point.¨
¨It's much easier to mock Donald Trump, rail at his excesses, and caricature his backers than to work toward solutions to the problems that leave may convinced they have no future and that their fellow Americans don´t care.¨
¨The introduction of automation and artificial intelligence into the workplace will create more turmoil for workers in wealthy countries, but it will be profoundly disruptive in the developing world, where there will be fewer factory jobs to pull less educated people from the countryside into the urban workforce.¨
¨The sense of crisis isn´t yet strong enough, because so many globalists continue to profit from the system as it is, and walls of various kinds will protect them, temporarily, from real danger.¨
February 12, 2025
Bremmer seemingly lamenting the upcoming failure of globalism misses the point.
In his conclusion he calls Donald Trump obnoxious , dishonest and incompetent but when saying that he neglects to mention Obama and George W as being far more dishonest and then Biden subsequently took the cake as being all the above plus a demented misinformed pusher of the lying Covid narrative that made billions for big Pharma and woke up the masses.
Or the "selected" incompetent 2024 Dem candidate Kamala Harris who couldn't win a primary in 2020 and ticked all the DEI boxes but wouldn't allow herself to be truthfully or effectively interviewed during her campaign.
Why Bremmer chose only to bag Trump?
When you realise Bremmer spends time at Davos with the WEF one realises where he's coming from and what type of solutions to the world's problems he would suggest aligning with a Schwabian dialectic.
As of 2025 at the beginning of an overwhelmingly popular second Trump term turning things upside down with DOGE's revelations of unprecedented waste and corruption through USAID we are only at the tip of the iceberg.
In his 2nd term learning from his 1st ,Trump has surrounded himself with a far more loyal group and both the neocons and Dems being sidelined with MSM finally being exposed for what it always was , just a servile attachment of the deep state .
The solutions are not found with the failed centralised stakeholder capitalist globalism that rewards the few.
Let the grand awakening continue and let populism make the motives and spending of the elites more transparent.
In his conclusion he calls Donald Trump obnoxious , dishonest and incompetent but when saying that he neglects to mention Obama and George W as being far more dishonest and then Biden subsequently took the cake as being all the above plus a demented misinformed pusher of the lying Covid narrative that made billions for big Pharma and woke up the masses.
Or the "selected" incompetent 2024 Dem candidate Kamala Harris who couldn't win a primary in 2020 and ticked all the DEI boxes but wouldn't allow herself to be truthfully or effectively interviewed during her campaign.
Why Bremmer chose only to bag Trump?
When you realise Bremmer spends time at Davos with the WEF one realises where he's coming from and what type of solutions to the world's problems he would suggest aligning with a Schwabian dialectic.
As of 2025 at the beginning of an overwhelmingly popular second Trump term turning things upside down with DOGE's revelations of unprecedented waste and corruption through USAID we are only at the tip of the iceberg.
In his 2nd term learning from his 1st ,Trump has surrounded himself with a far more loyal group and both the neocons and Dems being sidelined with MSM finally being exposed for what it always was , just a servile attachment of the deep state .
The solutions are not found with the failed centralised stakeholder capitalist globalism that rewards the few.
Let the grand awakening continue and let populism make the motives and spending of the elites more transparent.
March 29, 2020
In het Engels gelezen, waardoor ik het persoonlijk soms moeilijk had om vlot door te lezen. Ook zijn veel argumenten cijfermatig onderbouwd, wat de vlotheid nu niet meteen verbetert.
De idee komt echter hard binnen, zeker als je net als ik het boek leest in de huidige globale (politieke) sfeer van onrust en onzekerheid. Het boek zet je enorm aan tot nadenken en gaf mij alvast enorm veel nieuwe inzichten. De cijfers lezen niet vlot, maar geven (zeker voor mij) de enorme ernst van de onderliggende problematieken aan. Zeker een aanrader, en momenteel actueler dan ooit.
De idee komt echter hard binnen, zeker als je net als ik het boek leest in de huidige globale (politieke) sfeer van onrust en onzekerheid. Het boek zet je enorm aan tot nadenken en gaf mij alvast enorm veel nieuwe inzichten. De cijfers lezen niet vlot, maar geven (zeker voor mij) de enorme ernst van de onderliggende problematieken aan. Zeker een aanrader, en momenteel actueler dan ooit.
January 23, 2023
I've enjoyed hearing Bremmer's perspectives of the world stage on Preet Bharara's podcast Stay Tuned. In Us vs. Them, he dissects the realities of globalism and its failures to lift the middle class worldwide. It's a fair look at what contributed to the rise of authoritarianism in many European states as well as Trump's rise to power in the U.S.
It's also a pretty dry read for a short book, but still worth it.
It's also a pretty dry read for a short book, but still worth it.
February 27, 2023
Very alright book, I kinda was speeding through the entire thing because the book just basically summarized the worlds problems with not a whole lot of nuance or anything you haven’t heard before. It offered 0 concrete solutions or even like anything better than generic centrist solutions. I feel like it was an advanced high school essay where you just say a whole lot of words that don’t really have meaning beneath it.
April 6, 2025
Impactul globalizării și cum se adaptează țările noilor realități. Scrisă bine, cu argumente construite cu migală, este o lectură aparent ușoară. Cititorul trebuie să fie însă foarte atent la detalii pentru că în ele stă toată măiestria construcției. Nu s-a înșelat cu multe din previziunle făcute asupra Rusiei și Turciei. Am spus mai multe despre volum pentru Litera 13 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iyRV...
February 2, 2020
A waste of time and money. I heard this guy on Glenn Beck and thought he might offer some relevant insight. He frequently rails against fake news and its impact on the 2016 presidential election while taking quotes from Trump out of context. My biggest complaint is his frequent snarky and sardonic comments on populism and nationalism. He is your typical Ivy League educated pseudo intellectual.
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