A bold optimist.

• Author: Hale, David

A review of

The Great Convergence: Asia, the West, and the Logic of One World, by Kishore Mahbubani, PublicAffairs, 2013

Kishore Mahbubani is a bold optimist. In his new book, The Great Convergence, he envisions a new global order in which mankind achieves both prosperity and peaceful coexistence. In this new world order, the 88 percent of the world's population living in developing countries will acquire much greater political power while the established powers will find a way to accommodate them. There will be a huge expansion of the global middle class and many new opportunities to promote economic growth.

Several factors explain Mahbubani's optimism. First, violent conflict on the planet has declined sharply. The number of wars which kill at least one thousand people a year has declined by 78 percent since 1988. Second, the number of people experiencing poverty has declined significantly while the world's middle class has seen a major expansion. Asia accounts for much of this improvement, and by the year 2020 it could account for half of the global economy's middle class. Third, this economic shift has been accompanied by a huge expansion of the world's university enrollments, especially in China and India.

Mahbubani believes these changes have created a world in which scientific reasoning and logic have become tar more important to political decision making than in previous periods of human history. This new way of thinking has helped to promote acceptance of the market economy and a search for multilateral solutions to international conflicts.

Mahbubani wants political leaders to think of problems in a global context rather than in terms of 193 autonomous nation states. He believes that the decision of the Bush Administration to convene a summit of the G-20 heads of government in November 2008 was an important step towards more effective international decision making. In contrast to the original G-7 group which had been dominant since the 1970s, the G-20 includes many important developing countries. It has been difficult for such a diverse group to achieve a consensus on global policy coordination, but the fact that they are even meeting is still a breakthrough in acknowledging the changing balance of power in the global economy.

Mahbubani reviews the inadequacies of existing international institutions. He believes the United Nations needs more money and a new system of governance for the Security Council. The major Western powers, he...