Ten years ago the Berlin wall fell. This was a revolution in world affairs-as great a revolution as the French revolution. We who were lucky enough to have lived through 1989 can now perhaps believe that the struggles of the 20th century had a meaning. The consequences are still working themselves out. The most obvious consequences are direct and local: Berlin is again the capital of a reunified Germany; Poland, the Czech Republic and other ex-communist countries have democratic governments and pluralistic politics; border fences have moved to the east. I want to look at how some of these results fit into the wider pattern of an evolving world order.
the victory of liberalism. We live in a world driven by ideas and the victory of one idea over another is a significant moment. The year 1989 closed the bracket that opened in 1789. The French revolution proposed three competing ideals: liberty, equality and fraternity; that is to say, liberalism, socialism and nationalism. Translated into the extremes of the 20th century, the latter two became communism and fascism. The battle against fascism was won in the second world war. The battle against communism finished in 1989 with the fall of the wall.
The victory of freedom is the victory of free markets. Private property and private enterprise are at the heart of liberalism. Democracy is important, too, but the protection of private property against the state is one of the foundations of liberty. The question of forms of ownership was more central to the division between the west and the Soviet bloc than the question of democracy-to which communist countries paid at least lip service. The division of Europe began with the Deutschmark’s foundation and ended with the monetary reunification of Germany. The division of the world was about economic systems. The end of that division, therefore, has economic consequences. The era of a divided world is followed by an era of globalisation: not just one world, but one global market. (Real globalisation is what comes next-wait until China, India and Brazil are really part of the world economy.) The victory of liberalism in the war of ideas is not the only cause of globalisation, but it is an important pre-condition for it.
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