Niall Ferguson versus Fareed Zakaria: Is the Liberal International Order Over?

 Ferguson:
o The International Liberal Order is not international nor liberal nor orderly
(compare it to the HRE which was not holy nor an empire)
o The international liberal world order has not benefitted everyone like for example
China and India.
o Globalization has overshot. There has also at least been two major crisis brought
by it such as the financial crisis and mass migration crisis
o China has become one of the main beneficiaries of the LIO despite not being a
liberal country along with other illiberal democracies. The portion of countries
that count themselves free was the same as in 1997.
o Aside from China and other illiberal countries, the other principal beneficiaries
are the elites the lucky few that possesses intellectual property or rare real assets
like commodities
o Even with the presence of the LIO, there is still an unequal distribution of wealth
happening (e.g. Canada income that goes to the .1 percent is the same as before
the creation of LIO)
o Order was not produced by the UN but by the US and the responses to the US or
Pax Americana have been Islamic extremist and other such --- the US did not
create
OPINION
Ferguson provides many interesting points and any interesting method on debunking the
usefulness of the Liberal International Order. He attempts to convince the audience by showing
how the LIO in not Liberal, International, nor orderly through the use of examples like the rise in
radical Islamic violence, and the rise in power of illiberal countries. As such, his argument is
relatively convincing, but is still lacking in the areas as he seems to omit that there were other
countries that actually benefitted from the LIO.

 Zakaria
o It all began with President Franklin Roosevelt envisioning the kind of world order
the United States could create once it won the war. He did so because he belive
 the previous or old international world order was not working. This included the
complete and absolute surrender of the axis powers and the agreement from
Britain and France to no longer construct their empires
o Zakaria acknowledges the LIO is not perfect nor without flaws but the kind of
world today was because of the vision of Roosevelt and Mackenzie King; a world
with less political violence, greater order and better trade
o Compared to five or six decades ago or even hundreds of years ago, war and
violence is down
o Free trade now includes most countries such as countries in East Asia and the
Latin American countries. This proves that the LIO does benefit more than the
elites.
o The LIO has empowered the poorest people in the world and has lifted more
people out of poverty than those that came before it

OPINIONS:
Zakaria’s argument was basically the opposite of Ferguson’s in that the world was better
than it was before the construction of the LIO or even hundreds of years ago. In some points,
there is a grain of truth to his thinking but in most aspects of today’s society it is better than what
was before due to innovations.

CONCLUSION
We believe that out of the two debaters that Zakaria was the winner of the debate. He was
able to bring up some valid counter arguments against Ferguson’s every point the he gave.