European Civilization 7 (After the collapse of the Soviet Union)

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 marked the beginning of a change to a new world order, and at this point the United States was being overtaken economically by Japan and Germany, but due to the issue of Germany's integration with East Germany, Japan was often the one to bear the brunt of the criticism. However, the Plaza Accord (a sudden doubling of the yen's appreciation) shifted the wealth accumulated in Japan to Southeast Asia, laying the foundations for the East Asian economic zone. This will probably continue with the EU European economic zone, the North American economic zone, and the Middle Eastern and Indian economic zones that are about to be formed, but when we consider what has happened in the United States and what has happened in Japan as a whole, we can see that globalization is based on the freedom of capital and trade, and aims to make the most of the idea of comparative advantage and to efficiently utilize the world's resources , but it seems that we also need to accept the diversity of civilizations and cultures to a certain extent. However, this is what the internationalists (pluralists) in the United States think, and in terms of practical benefits, British capital has special interests mainly in the Middle East and South Asia (Indian Ocean Rim), and this may be the breeding ground for various troubles.

 

Although we are still in the process of getting there, the new world order is a pluralistic economy, a world in which each economic sphere is managed by a small minority, and we could say that the international society is a pluralistic global oligarchy (the educated wealthy of each country governs). We have looked at this through the United States, but there is another phenomenon called the EU. This was formed with the help of an external force, the threat of the Soviet Union: the fifth principle (environmental principle and external principle), as Germany, France, and other European countries, which had fallen into decline, sought efficient ways to recover after the results of World War II. This movement is also an example of multipolarization, and can be said to be a precedent and an experimental attempt.

 

European civilization is facing the weakening of the British factor, the stagnation of the EU factor, and the external force: the fifth principle (environmental and external principles), Russia, which was the force of the Soviet Union's unfortunate youth and is now entering middle age with its dreams shattered, and America, after its golden age, may be entering a lonely old age.* However, European civilization had the power to purify problems that other civilizations did not have, so it may be worth paying attention to what new values: the first principle (principle of value) it will have in the future, and what kind of efficiency: the second principle (principle of improving living standards) and social structure: the third principle (principle of community development) it will exert based on them.

 

*The situation of each nation is likened to a human being, and is referred to as the youth, middle age, and old age periods. However, in many cases, this also includes the child generation, so it is possible that middle age (parent civilization) and childhood (child civilization) may coexist in the same era, or that old age (parent civilization) and youth (child civilization) may coexist in the same era.

 

Next, let's consider the cosmopolitan nature of European civilization. We mentioned cosmopolitanism earlier as a similarity to Islamic civilization, and explained in the section on Islamic civilization that a cosmopolitan civilization is "a civilization with weak central values, with separate secular states that are connected by a network." It seems that Jews and Christians also lived and worked in the Mamluk dynasty and Ottoman Turkey, which connected Islamic civilization with Italy, and it is likely that this kind of thinking existed before European civilization and was transferred from there. The Mamluk dynasty's trade know-how was passed on to Italian cities, and then to Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and England. In the first place, this way of thinking was not a purely European way of thinking, but rather spread through the Mediterranean and trade routes.

 

 On the other hand, the Industrial Revolution was not necessarily the fruition of a cosmopolitan civilization. Science was thriving in the Islamic world as well, but it did not reach that level, and China (the Ming Dynasty) had the potential to achieve it, but it did not achieve it. The Industrial Revolution was probably initially a local phenomenon, taking place in 18th century England.

 

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