[Encounter] Trump's Victory Was the World's Defeat

[Asia Economy Reporter Byunghee Park] Hans Peter Martin, a world-renowned scholar born in Austria, published a book titled The Globalization Trap (co-authored with Harald Schumann) in Germany in 1996. He warned that democracy and quality of life were under attack. This was just four years after Francis Fukuyama, a professor at Stanford University in the U.S., predicted in his 1992 book The End of History that market economy and democracy would win the ideological battle, leading to peace without major wars or conflicts. Today, Fukuyama’s prediction has been completely off the mark, and Martin’s warning has become reality.

In his 2018 book Game Over, published 22 years later, Martin declares the defeat of the values he sought to protect. He points out that democracy and quality of life have been devastated to a dreadful extent. Democracy is being shut down everywhere, the globalization trap has deviated from a sustainable path, and global financial markets have long been irrationally unregulated, he criticizes.

Martin was born in 1957 in Bregenz, Vorarlberg, Austria. He served as the youngest editor-in-chief of the German current affairs weekly Der Spiegel and was an independent member of the European Parliament for 15 years starting in 1999.

Interestingly, Martin conceived Game Over on the day Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. Martin defined Trump’s victory as a defeat for the world. Trump is a figure opposed to the values Martin sought to uphold. Despite amassing enormous wealth, Trump holds extremist views that promote division.

Martin warns that today’s world has become ruthless and greedy, and extremism has deepened to the point that it is not an exaggeration to call it a state of war.

Many question whether Trump is fit for the position of U.S. President. However, some believe that in today’s extremely divided world, Trump’s approach is necessary to win. Martin describes Trump as someone who hardly cares about populations outside the U.S.

The political behavior that fosters division is similar in Europe. Far-right and nationalist parties are gaining ground, and the European Union (EU) faces a crisis of collapse due to Brexit (the UK’s withdrawal from the EU).

In the economic sphere, inequality is intensifying. Some argue that inequality resulting from competition in a capitalist system is inevitable and can even serve as motivation. Ken Fisher, founder of the U.S. investment firm Fisher Investments, said about unequal distribution, “It is a natural byproduct of wealth accumulation through creativity and entrepreneurship,” adding, “If young people amass huge wealth like Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk, it benefits everyone.”

Martin criticizes this as a primitive worldview. Economic achievements are not accomplished by individuals alone. In a paper published in August 2017 in the academic journal Socio-Economic Review of Oxford University, Martin revealed, “The reason why income concentration at the top is intensifying is more closely related to political movements than to productivity increases of the top earners.” Therefore, he points out that people who are not wealthy are not motivated to work harder just by seeing the rich.

According to Martin, in societies with severe economic inequality, even if the economy improves, the number of people dissatisfied with their income inevitably increases. This is because doubts grow about whether the rewards are sufficient. The wealthy might wonder why there is dissatisfaction when the economy is doing well. Martin explains that studies have shown that as economic inequality increases, the rich become less generous and more unethical.

As politics fosters division and fails to resolve inequality, trust in politics continues to decline. Martin notes that the millennial generation, born after the 1980s, no longer participates in politics.

Extreme situations cannot be ruled out. The Occupy Wall Street protests and demonstrations in Europe following the debt crisis showed signs of this. The wealthy are already preparing for extreme scenarios. They are building bunkers and purchasing land in New Zealand as a refuge in extreme situations. In Martin’s words, they are preparing a “Noah’s Ark.”

Martin emphasizes that reliable redistribution is the only solution. He calls for the revival of the ancient Greek open square, the Agora, as a place for redistribution and urges the wealthy to come out for dialogue. This may sound like a somewhat hollow solution. However, the crisis awareness shown by the wealthy on the ark paradoxically suggests the possibility of dialogue.

Eric Weinstein, CEO of Thiel Capital, an investment firm founded by Peter Thiel, known as the godfather of Silicon Valley venture capital, warned that if the truly wealthy remain indifferent to the lives of others, they will experience the outbreak of revolution, making the wealthy very dangerous. “I think the truly wealthy, those with fortunes exceeding hundreds of millions, are very dangerous. They have no knowledge of or concern for how people outside their class, those still living paycheck to paycheck, are living. The price of this indifference will be the outbreak of revolution.”

(Game Over / written by Hans Peter Martin / translated by Jiyoon Lee / Hanbit Biz)

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.