The New Globalism: A Vision for America's Role in the World

By Nick Bromell and John Tirman, MIT Center for International Studies. Posted December 11, 2008.

Obama should also pursue a reinvigorated liberal approach to global economic stability, reminding Americans that freedom from want is just as important as freedom from fear. He could urge the Bretton Woods institutions to return to the relatively successful "mixed" development models of the 1950s-70s which, as numerous economists point out, is what the "Asian tigers" have done all along, with remarkable success, improvising with markets and government interventions. Relatively inexpensive support for health care and education in poorer countries would pay enormous dividends, as would development strategies and trade policies that protect rather than plunder the environment.

Above all, Obama must insist to the American people that daunting challenges -- which these appear to be -- are also exciting opportunities. Globally, there is a renewed need to work with civil society organizations to nourish and grow the rights revolution that gave birth to the United States, and which is still unfinished -- politically, socially, and economically. Globally, there is an urgent need for sustainable economic development, which would enable the Third World to escape poverty, disease, and social disintegration without provoking disastrous environmental consequences. As Obama and the Democrats call Americans to this vision of future possibilities, they must explicitly affirm that their policies are preferable not merely because they "work" or fulfill some smarter version of the "national interest," but because they are consonant with the deepest values of liberal democracy and American liberal culture. That was the appeal in the days of Wilson and FDR and Kennedy, and it remains a bracing vision of American globalism, wrought anew, for the coming century.

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John Tirman is Executive Director of MIT's Center for International Studies.

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