Orlov then switches to the West. It, too, looks unstoppable, he says. It isn’t, he says. Here is my point: there is substance in the West’s social order that never existed in the USSR. The West will not suffer a comparable disintegration. The West is not a Potemkin village.
I had a similar outlook; while there is huge amounts of fraud and 'e pluribus fool-em' in the system, it's not nearly as wrong as communism. What's really happening is that the east is finally on the same foundation of sand the west is, rather than quicksand. As such, they are finally rising due to the disease not being as advanced as in Europe and the USA.
But the separate ways that all of these societies are heading are in fact side roads along the same highway. Western fascism is still the model for all of them. They call it something else, but that is what it is. It is the alliance between the state and the private sector. This is the dominant Western economic outlook today.
There is no serious challenge to the Western political model. There is simply competition among brands.
bullish
The picture of this person sums it all up. Sneering bureaucrat looks down her nose at the hoi polloi.