The first decade of the twenty-first century has seen a dramatic reversal of fortune in the relative prestige of different political and economic models. Ten years ago, on the eve of the puncturing of the dotcom bubble, the US held the high ground. Its democracy was widely emulated, if not always loved; its technology was sweeping the world; and lightly regulated “Anglo-Saxon” capitalism was seen as the wave of the future. The US managed to fritter away that moral capital in remarkably short order: the Iraq war and the close association it created between military invasion and democracy promotion tarnished the latter, while the Wall Street financial crisis put paid to the idea that markets could be trusted to regulate themselves.
21世紀的頭十年，不同政治經濟模式的相對聲望戲劇性地顛倒過來。十年前，網路泡沫破滅前夕，佔據優勢地位的是美國。美國民主被廣泛效仿，儘管它並非總是受到喜愛；美國技術風行全球；輕度管制的「盎格魯-撒克遜」式資本主義被視爲未來的潮流。然而美國很快就將這些道德資本揮霍一空：伊拉克戰爭及它在軍事入侵和民主推廣之間建立起的密切聯繫，玷汙了民主的聲譽；華爾街金融危機則讓人們不再相信市場可以自律。