What is the performance of western governance?

1, the economic crisis under neoliberalism

Since 1970s, neoliberalism has become popular all over the world, especially in western countries. The "free market system" advertised by the market economy in neoliberalism is actually an economic system that is conducive to capital's maximum pursuit of profits, emphasizing the role of money, seeking maximum marketization, privatization and liberalization, and market globalization, while opposing government intervention in the economy and market supervision.

This economic model not only allows powerful economic interest groups to profit from it, but also allows countries with international competitive advantages such as the United States to usher in a golden age of economic growth. However, the global financial crisis that broke out in 2008 shattered the myth of neo-liberalism, and made people re-examine the market economic system it contained, and realized that western countries that once pursued maximum market liberalization are now facing multiple economic crises.

2. The virtual economy prevails and the real economy declines.

Take the United States as an example Before the prevalence of neo-liberalism, the United States has always had the status of the world's number one manufacturing power. After liberalization, it blindly pursues the maximization of capital benefits, which makes its real economy, represented by manufacturing, gradually give in to the virtual economy. With capital as the fundamental force, the United States began to drive globally, and a large number of real economy profits flowed into the virtual economy, which gave birth to a huge bubble.

Trying to make money outside the production process, the result is that financial derivatives produce dozens of times the value of the real economy, and the pillar industries in the United States are in serious trouble, which also makes the global capital represented by the US dollar flood unprecedentedly, causing extremely serious currency overshoot, especially serious liquidity excess and inflation, which poses a serious threat to the global economy. Therefore, in the past period of time, the comprehensive economic crisis began to spread rapidly from the virtual economy to the real economy, from the United States to the world.

3. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening.

The fictitious economy under neo-liberalism not only hollows out the real economy, but also makes the gap between the rich and the poor, which has been urgently needed to be solved in western countries, increasingly serious. This is mainly because, on the one hand, the capital-oriented virtual economy is actually a "feast for the rich". The more prosperous, the greater the gap between the rich and the poor. On the other hand, more importantly, the virtual economy must be based on the real economy in order to really flourish.

The prosperity of "virtual economy" has hollowed out the real industrial base to a certain extent, and the real industry is precisely the most important economic base that breeds and supports the middle class. Facts show that neo-liberalism with privatization, marketization and liberalization as its core content is essentially an ideological and policy system that safeguards the interests of the rich, makes the rich richer and makes the poor poorer. What it brings is the widening gap between the rich and the poor, the aggravation of inequality, the kidnapping of democracy by capital, the rule of the rich and money politics, which seriously violates the principle of fairness, erodes the public interest, tears the society and leads to the inferiority of the democratic system, which is profoundly destructive both economically and politically.

The financial market is in crisis.

The flood of capital brought by the complete market economy not only damaged the development of the real economy, but also planted the seeds of crisis for the financial market. With the widespread implementation of neo-liberal policies, in the past period, the wave of privatization in western countries has been rising, social welfare has been greatly reduced, government regulation has been fully relaxed, and the degree of economic financialization and liberalization has been continuously improved. In this way, the inherent defects of the capitalist market economy and the risk of market failure are further amplified, and the contradiction between the organized production of individual enterprises and the anarchy of the whole social production is intensified.

In order to alleviate contradictions and satisfy the profit-seeking desire of monopoly capital, various so-called financial innovations and financial derivatives emerge one after another. In some countries, when ordinary people "freely enjoy" borrowing and consumption, monopoly capital wandered freely around the world, which led to the disconnection between virtual economy and real economy, the accumulation and expansion of various asset bubbles, and the increasing risks of global economic operation. Financial freedom and financial stability required by neoliberalism are also one of the main contradictions. In the face of the financial crisis that has occurred and has not yet occurred, neo-liberalism is obviously not a good solution to the crisis, or even the root of the crisis.

5. The disadvantages of the existing political system have already appeared, and anti-globalization has intensified.

Some experts pointed out that the western political system has played a very important role in history, but it has many disadvantages since its development, showing polarization and emphasizing elections over governance. Even in some countries, democracy has been kidnapped by capital and has become a tool for capital to seek benefits. Political parties have become spokesmen for the interests of the upper class and the middle class, and the dissatisfaction of ordinary people has become populism and opposition to the elite.

6. Populism has an influence on political decision-making.

Former British Prime Minister Tony? Blair said that a series of political upheavals, from Britain's withdrawal from the EU referendum to the failure of Italian constitutional referendum and the resignation of Prime Minister Renzi, indicate that western democracy is facing the most serious crisis in decades. Whether it is a referendum or an election, it has evolved into a contest between ordinary people and elites. However, the political elites of traditional political parties have gradually declined in a series of contests, losing the hearts of the people.

7. The wave of anti-globalization is fierce.

In recent years, various social crises in western society have stimulated the rise of national protectionism, which in turn triggered the wanton spread of the anti-globalization wave.

8. Deeply mired in the predicament of system reform.

Now, the change of economic structure has directly led to the change of western social structure, and the changed social structure has put forward corresponding changes to the political system, but the political system has not responded. On the one hand, the western political system has lost its ability to control capital and interest groups, on the other hand, it has no ability to provide social services. The west often accuses other countries of not engaging in political reform, but in fact, their own political system needs major reform. The current predicament is the result of the lack of effective political reform.

9. Social pluralism has been hindered and unsafe factors have increased.

For a long time, western society has been proud of liberalism and pluralism, but in recent years, the attitude towards ethnic minorities has tended to be conservative or even closed. In the case of social welfare difficulties, many people blame the social and economic difficulties on the impact of immigrants. The intensification of extreme thoughts and the frequent occurrence of violent incidents have become the main social problems.

10, social welfare reform is difficult to advance under the existing political system.

Generally speaking, western governments try to adapt social welfare level to economic development and public demand through reform. But the problem is that the failure of representative democracy in social welfare has led to the governance crisis of western society, which is manifested as follows: on the one hand, driven by vote democracy, the social welfare promised by western politicians exceeds the affordability of national finance, and they have to face the practical need to cut social welfare after taking office; On the other hand, social welfare reform ignores the actual needs of all the people, and falls into a dispute of ideas, which leads to repeated social welfare reform policies.

1 1, extreme ideological trends impact the universal values of cultural diversity.

Since the enlightenment of18th century, the values of "freedom, equality and fraternity" have spread rapidly to western society as universal values, and also to Asian, African and Latin American countries under the impetus of "the second wave of democratization" in 1970s. Once upon a time, cultural pluralism, as the most important form to realize the values of "freedom, equality and fraternity", brought together people of different races and religious beliefs in western countries and created cultural prosperity that western countries were proud of.

However, cultural diversity masks the economic inequality between people with different cultural backgrounds. As a kind of social consciousness, cultural pluralism cannot be divorced from the social material foundation and become a "floating" existence.

The inequality of wealth possession between different social classes makes their right to speak in society show a trend of class differentiation. The social material wealth class occupies the right to speak in the mass media, and promotes the values of western countries under the cloak of universal values, but rarely takes into account the differences in economic development level and actual needs among people of various classes, regions and different cultural backgrounds. Blind infiltration of western universal values will inevitably lead to a strong rebound of extreme thoughts and tear the moral concepts and social order of contemporary western society.

12. Violence is increasingly becoming an outlet of social conflicts.

An important feature of modern countries is that the government legally uses violence on the basis of people's consent. This kind of violence aims at maintaining social order and ensuring the realization of the basic rights of all citizens. At present, there are some problems in western social governance, such as terrorist violence attacks, excessive use of violence by public power, refugee crisis, and deterioration of social security in Europe.

Terrorism has brought a serious security threat to western society. Generally speaking, terrorist forces are often combined with extremist religious forces and separatist forces to realize the political demands of terrorists by means of terrorist attacks and violence against innocent civilians.