Branko Milanovic analyzes the shift from the 1990s to the modern era

Branko Milanovic examines the profound differences between the global landscape of the 1990s and the current era. He notes that while the two periods differ significantly in the distribution of economic power between nations and internal inequality, they also diverge in the prevailing spirit of the Western world.

Drawing a parallel to Alexis de Tocqueville’s description of 1830s France, Milanovic discusses a middle-class or bourgeois spirit that dominated both foreign and domestic policy. This era, characterized by the defeat of communism, was defined by an optimistic, rising capitalism championed by leaders such as Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Deng Xiaoping.

The peak of this ideological ascent occurred in the mid-1980s under Mikhail Gorbachev, leading to the unification of ideological and geopolitical dimensions following the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union. This period represented a dual triumph of both a specific ideology and the Western nations that benefited from it.