HOW TO REBUILD A SOCIETY?

A MISPLACED CONDESCENSION

The text argues that the United States stands at a decisive historical juncture in which its domestic social crisis and the breakdown of the global order are deeply intertwined, and that these problems will not be resolved simply by the departure of Donald Trump, who is presented as a symptom rather than the root cause of a deeper drift toward a vertical, coercive social order. The author contends that many Americans may tolerate illiberal methods if they appear to deliver economic results, citing China’s long-term growth and recent U.S. elections where economic dissatisfaction outweighed concern for democratic erosion. The core conflict, therefore, is not left versus right but liberal democracy versus tyranny, horizontal versus vertical organization of society. To rebuild, the United States must address structural causes of division—technological disruption, inequality, social fragmentation, and underinvestment in human capital—rather than focusing narrowly on political personalities. Challenging the common American narrative that Europe’s welfare states represent economic decay, the text argues that high public investment in education and health is essential in the knowledge economy, correlates with better outcomes such as higher life expectancy, and is compatible with economic freedom and growth. Finally, it rejects U.S. condescension toward Europe by noting that America’s own debt levels, concentration of power, and democratic backsliding are at least as severe, warning that failure to recognize these realities will accelerate the country’s slide toward tyranny with global consequences.

THE CRITICAL JUNCTURE

We, as a global community, are at a critical juncture. With the domestic social orders in doubt and the global order in shatters, we need to build a new set of order in each dimension. All countries face this double challenge, but it is more apparent and urgent in the United States, both because the domestic crisis is more severe there and because it is the country with greater power and interests at stake. The way the United States decides on these two issues will largely determine the options available to other countries.

In this intervention, I discuss some of the crucial issues that the American people should take into account to make sure that they will be managing their destiny in the twentieth-first century.

DEFINING THE CORE OF THE CRISIS

Most people believe that the crisis in American liberal democracy is closely linked to Donald Trump in the sense that it exists because he is there and will disappear when he leaves. Since taking office, he has pursued a top-down, coercive style of governance. Late in his first year in office, his popularity plummeted to the point that many believed he would become a lame duck by the November 2026 midterm elections. Many believe this will lead to the United States returning to a liberal democracy by 2028 at the latest. However, this optimistic view has serious problems.

What will they choose? This question is the most important question we face today.

There is no doubt that if liberal democracy guarantees both individual rights and economic efficiency, people would prefer it over tyranny. It is better to have freedom and economic efficiency than neither of them.

But, what if this tradeoff is not necessarily true?

FIGURE 1 shows how China, within an illiberal regime, has outperformed the United States for decades and has overtaken it as the largest economy in the world when measured with dollars with Purchasing Power Parity (PPP).

FIGURE 1

GDP, INTERNATIONAL DOLLARS, PPP

SOURCE: World Development Data, World Bank.

This is not the same as saying that tyrannies are better than or as good as liberal democracies. The costs of tyranny are much higher, though in other dimensions of life—dignity, freedoms, moral integrity, and possibly a better economic condition in the long term, defined, not in terms of one single variable like GDP, but in those of a more balanced style of life. These effects may have negative consequences on economic growth.

After all, the vertical countries that grew faster than the United States in the 1930s ended up losing the subsequent war and facing an economic collapse—such as Germany, which experienced defeat in the war, and the collapse of communism fifty years later. Russia remains a small economic power. Still, China has been growing faster than the United States for over thirty years, a period long enough to influence American voters.

The most solid evidence of Trump’s lack of popularity, the results of the November 2025 elections, is ambiguous. The polls showed that people voted against him because of his economic policies, not because he was systematically destroying the liberal democratic institutions. This is a clear message to aspiring politicians. People would find them acceptable if they applied better economic policies even if accompanied with tyrannical methods.

Donald Trump, though important in worsening political conflicts, is more a symptom than the root cause. Therefore, when he leaves, the fundamental problems that led to his rise will remain, waiting for another disruptive figure willing and able to exploit the current crisis. Most likely, the next presidential term will be the most critical event in recent history for the country and the West. The decisions made during those years will impact the entire world because if the United States opts for strict methods, these will be enforced both domestically and internationally, placing the United States in direct conflict with countries that follow the international rule of law. This is already visible with the United States leaning toward an alliance with Russia, and abandoning Europe to this country in exchange for Greenland and Latin America, one of the worst deals in history. Of course, Russia would also take the United States, which by that time would have been left without allies by Donald Trump himself.

THE UNITED STATES’ DOMESTIC ORDER

The idea that the American crisis will be over as soon as the destiny of Donald Trumpis decided is a mistake, for two reasons. Donald Trump is a symptom because he was a reaction of a society tending towards verticality as a result of its maladjustment to the technological revolution, which included the left-behind, the worsening racial and gender problems, the return of intolerance, the concentration of income and wealth, the growing conflicts around migration, and the appearance of an underclass in the former industrial states. All these problems are causes or consequences of a deep divisiveness that is eroding social cohesion. If these and similar problems are not solved, divisiveness will increase and other Princes will appear.

Therefore, those advocating for liberal democracy should not only focus on defeating Donald Trump and MAGA but also on addressing those issues as well. In the following paragraphs, I review some of these issues to help initiate the discussion.

Defining the Critical Issue

First, Americans should define what the political crisis is about. It is not left versus right. It is horizontal versus vertical social order, liberal democracy versus tyranny, the principle that the end does not justify the means against its opposite, which tries to justify any crime if it facilitates a certain objective.

The United States has traditionally held a narrow view of liberal democracy, seeing it as the reduction of government spending on social programs like education and health, or alternatively, as protecting the immediate interests of large businesses, including lowering their taxes even if it comes at the expense of the education and health of the broader population. Under this definition, Europe is seen as quasi-communistic, especially the Nordic countries, which are seen as the worst sinners. This is a big mistake. In fact, these are not only as liberally democratic as, but maybe more than, the United States used to be, but also have freer economies than the United States.

Education, Training, and Culture

American voters should ask themselves whether having the government invest heavily in human capital—education and health—is not a good policy, especially now that we are entering the Knowledge Economy. During the Industrial Age, education and health were mainly uses of money beyond a minimum standard. Today, as Joel Mokyr, 2025 Nobel Prize, has showed, they have become the most crucial factors of production, the main sources of income.

If the importance of knowledge in the economy has grown, then the importance of education must have increased as well. It is not just that education is more significant overall. The education of all has become vital for every member of society. Every citizen has a stake in the education of everybody else.

That is, education has become a common good, similar to defense, public roads, and public parks. Investing in human capital is crucial for everyone’s well-being. However, this remains a sensitive issue in the United States, where public investment in human capital is often regarded as a waste of money. An example of this perspective is illustrated by a recent article signed by the Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal, which cited the amount of resources spent by several European countries on social welfare as a significant reason for the supposed ‘decay’ of Europe. After criticizing Trump’s attribution of the European ‘decay’, the journal’s Editorial Board wrote,

“But the Trump diagnosis ignores the biggest threat to Europe’s well-being. That is Europe’s generous social-welfare states and the cascading fiscal, economic and social ills they create. Government social expenditure in the U.S. accounted for 19.8% of GDP in 2024, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In France the figure was 30.6%, in Germany 27.9%, and in Italy 27.6%. This share will rise as populations age. These columns recently documented the severity of the old-age entitlement problem in France and Germany especially.

This fact explains much of what ails Europe. Large welfare states require large tax bills to fund them, which is why government revenue reaches 47% of GDP in France, 41% in Germany, and 43% in Italy but 27% in the U.S. That level of taxation saps incentives for innovation and entrepreneurship. Generous welfare states also discourage work, which partly explains why Europe’s labor markets are so sclerotic. Meanwhile, European governments, taxed to the hilt and increasingly indebted, find it difficult to spend more on defense. Hence the Continent’s inability to shape events in Ukraine, embarrassing leaders and voters and deepening the sense of ennui caused by economic underperformance.”^[1]

Given the serious problems now affecting the United States, this is an amazing diagnosis. Just one indicator—how much countries invest in their own citizens—cannot be used to judge the quality of a country’s policies. It must be compared with an outcome that shows whether the policies have been successful. What The Wall Street Journal has done is the same as judging a hospital by how much it spends without considering the number of patients who die and survive. A hospital might seem very good because it spends very little, even if many patients die. A full diagnosis would require a complex study. But following the example of The Wall Street Journal, we can oversimplify the problem just to show how the diagnosis changes when an outcome is included. A broad measure for this is life expectancy at birth.

FIGURE 2 shows that life expectancy at birth is not only higher in all the so-called ‘decaying’ European states mentioned by The Wall Street Journal, but also has increased faster over the last 60 years. That is, the United States has ‘decayed’ in life expectancy, a crucial indicator of progress, relative to those of the ‘decaying’ European countries mentioned. More than a measure of Europe’s decay, this was a measure of the measurer’s values in a country where the last tax reform reduced taxes for the highest 1% of the population at the expense of the social services for the rest.

FIGURE 2

LIFE EXPECTANCY AT BIRTH IN YEARS

SOURCE: World Development Data, World Bank.

Economic Freedom and Growth

It is common in the United States to believe that markets in Europe are less free and therefore less efficient than in the U.S, largely as a result of social expenditures. However, according to the Index of Economic Freedom published by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative American think tank, the United States ranks 34th globally as a free market, trailing many European-style countries with high social expenditures like Singapore, Switzerland, and Ireland (the top three), as well as Luxembourg, Australia, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Finland, Canada, Iceland, Germany, Portugal, and Japan.

Many of these countries have grown as fast as, or faster than, the United States, as shown in Figure 2. Significantly, Germany has grown faster than the United States during the period 1860-2018. France, a country with very high social expenditures, grew at the same pace as the United States over that period.

FIGURE 3

GDP, INTERNATIONAL DOLLARS, PPP, 1860 = 100%

SOURCE: Maddison Project Database.

Moreover, The Wall Street Journal article gives the impression that the United States is free from the debt problems of the European countries. The last figures in 2025 were the following (from the largest to the smallest): Italy, 137% of GDP; the United States, 123%; France, 114%; United Kingdom, 104%; Spain, 104%; and Germany, 62%. That is, if we set Italy aside, the United States has a debt much higher than all the countries identified as sinners by The Wall Street Journal, and twice that of Germany.

This test is conclusive, given the values established by The Wall Street Journal, summarized in “those who earn more are better.” Taxes in these countries may be higher than those in the United States, and may cause greater pain to certain sectors in some dimension, but on the whole, these taxes, and the social expenditures they make possible, result in better revenues for citizens. What more evidence is needed to make it worth analyzing this path to a country that is entering the knowledge economy? And that’s without taking into account recent policies aimed at harming American universities.

THE MISPLACED CONDESCENSION

This condescension toward Europe is even more astonishing when we consider the terrible effects that the current economic policies of the United States are having on the country itself and the rest of the world. What greater decay can there be if Donald Trumpis concentrating economic and political power in a way that has no equivalent in Europe? When discussing lost liberal democracy, it applies to the United States and not Europe. Americans should first gain some perspective on their own problems before criticizing others and failing to see their own flaws. If they don’t recognize that flaw, the country will continue its slide toward tyranny.

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^[1] The Editorial Board, The Real Reason Europe is ‘Decaying’, The Wall Street Journal, December 11, 2025, https://www.wsj.com/opinion/europe-welfare-immigration-donald-trump-jd-vance-e5a46a4e?mod=Searchresults&pos=3&page=1