Cartoon by Halit Kurtulmus Aytoslu

The coming Age of Chaos

By Frederick Kuo

Asia Times: After the fall of the Soviet Union, eminent political scientist Francis Fukuyama penned his famous book The End of History proclaiming that liberal democracy represented the final chapter of human history. However, history has kept moving and it increasingly appears that the chapter of Liberal Democracy is ending with no prediction of what lies ahead.

We are living in a period of exponential change. On the stage of global geopolitics, the last five centuries of near-complete Western domination is drawing to a close, quickly being replaced by a multipolar world where Western societies are forced to compete and interact with non-Western societies as peers. This new multipolar reality will cause a massive shift of consciousness that few in the West have prepared for.

The transition from a unipolar order to one where several peer powers jostle for power and influence will lead to a significant escalation of tension and unpredictability in the world order. While the chances of a repeat of the global violence that we witnessed in the 20th century remains low because of the ironically fortunate advent of nuclear weapons and the potential of mutually assured destruction between peer rivals, increasing hostility and rivalry between peer states, particularly between the US-led order and the Sino-Russian sphere, is likely to reach fever pitch.

The rising chaos of external factors such as great-power competition that many societies will face in this less stable world order will be matched by the rising chaos of internal factors driven by technological disruption, political dysfunction and increasing social inequality. As technological progress continues unabated with the unprecedented advancement of artificial intelligence, connectivity and automation, the threat of social displacement and an extrapolated rise in wealth inequality is real.

Combined with frustration over the paralysis of our political systems and social division, the catalyst for chaos and disorder is potent. What this means is that the forces that have already begun gnawing against the foundations of liberal democracy will be significantly reinforced. Unfortunately, aside from marginal voices like Democratic presidential hopeful Andrew Yang, who advocates that Universal Basic Income be instituted to combat rising automation, public discourse has barely even begun to grasp the significance of these issues on the future of the societies we live in.

Today, we live in a period of relentless change where the assumptions that were once unquestioned are radically being challenged. The age-old ballasts of power both within and without national borders are being redrawn faster than our collective consciousness can catch up. In summary, we are entering an age of chaos, and it is guaranteed to be interesting.

Frederick Kuo is a published San Francisco-based writer, UCLA graduate and owner of local real estate brokerage Amber Rock Properties. His writings focus on economics and geopolitics within a social and historical context.