Note 75

Globalisation is stuck, but not in reverse. This should be noted upfront.

But why so? Because the liberal elites driving globalisation failed at the start to develop a cosmopolitan liberalism which is essentially complementary to existing national cultures which continue to dominate political and social life. They mistakenly saw them as opposed, and were undone by the belief in that opposition which meant that they ignored it, rather than incorporated it.

Once again, philosophical oppositions do not entail political polarity and the inability of western political culture to separate philosophy from politics has undone their work. Over historical time, means do not define ends because they can change the conditions in which ends can be achieved.

Singapore, which has done so by sublimating this opposition into pragmatic ideology, presents an alternative to western politics. Of course there are institutional vulnerabilities and disruptive regime change due politics being unable to incorporate ideological positions at a deeper level, but it represents a smarter form of politics, a wider range of the possible to incorporate oppositions.