This book and author is causing a stir right now, which seems a bit strange to me. Her arguments only make sense if you were naive enough to buy into Fukuyama's idea of the triumph of liberal capitalism and the western social model after the fall of the Communist bloc.
Welsh's book basically points out that things haven't worked out this way - the barbaric wars, pirate capitalism, and social equality that were always there under the liberal capitalist propaganda / daydream / theoretical ramblings are all still there. Perhaps the western liberal capitalist worldview was more fantasy than realized - in much of the world with oppressive dictators, grinding poverty, stolen economic resources and slave-like exploitative work conditions (usually supported by some agglomeration of Western powers), the capitalist dream looked pretty much like what Welsh describes for the whole time period. There is no question of return; it is pretty much a continuation. The only place these type of conflict points might seem like a return is in western societies themselves, which were relatively protected to maintain public support for the ruling elites. Now that we have globalization, a happy home public is not really necessary anymore, so things may return to being a little harsher at home...
The one thing that annoyed me is, in her discussion of Putin's new "model of government", she is not blunt enough or harsh enough. She seems to argue that it is simply a different model of economic and political rules, expectations, pathways. This is too kind, and I think, a bit naive. Putin's model is a pirate capitalism model. His concept of managing the public is to enforce rule of law so he and his cronies can go on pocketing everything they can without being disturbed by the courts, demonstrations, alternate political parties and various other social "disorders".
Perhaps and eyeopener for some, but only those lost in a liberal capitalist dream...
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