Jewish World Review June 15, 1999 /2 Tamuz, 5759
Linda Chavez
Unraveling of social order not limted to U.S.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
FRANCIS FUKUYAMA likes to take on big issues, as he did with his first book, The End of History and the Last Man, an
analysis of the post-Cold War world published soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Now this George Mason
University professor and former RAND Corp. social scientist has taken on an even more ambitious project in his latest book,
The Great Disruption, trying to explain why social order seems to be unraveling in the last half of the twentieth century --
and not just in the United States.
Fukuyama describes three indicators of the great disruption that have occurred
throughout most Western countries in an amazingly short time span, roughly since 1960: rising crime, the breakdown of the
family and diminishing trust. By now, most Americans are wearily familiar with statistics about violent crime in the United
States, which began skyrocketing in the late '60s and peaked in the early '90s. Throughout this period, the United States
experienced homicide rates at far higher levels than any other Western nation, but the phenomenon of rising crime was not
unique to this country. Indeed, crime rose consistently during the same period in most of Europe as well, so that by 1992 the
usually copasetic Swedes had a total violent crime rate nearly equal to Americans'.
Property crimes during this period
increased just as dramatically, especially in Europe, where the theft rate actually exceeds that of the United States by a fairly
wide margin. In 1990, the theft rate in England and Wales was about 60 percent higher than here, while in Sweden, the theft
rate was about twice as high. Only in the most developed nations of Asia -- namely, Japan and South Korea -- were these
trends reversed. Japan actually experienced a significant decline in violent crime from 1960 to the present.
Perhaps more
disturbing than rising crime has been the precipitous decline in the formation of families throughout most of the West, which
Fukuyama describes in great detail. Marriage rates are down, and divorce rates are up, a
of all children -- and more than two thirds of all black children -- are now born out of wedlock, but these rates pale in
comparison to those of the Swedes, where nearly 70 percent of all births now occur outside marriage. Indeed, marriage as
an institution is in such disrepute in Sweden that divorce rates for that nation are nearly meaningless, so few couple bother to
marry in the first place.
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But the most surprising -- and portentous -- evidence of the great disruption Fukuyama presents
has to do with declining fertility. Illegitimacy may be up throughout the West, but births overall are down -- dramatically.
"Although it sounds silly to state a point so obvious," Fukuyama writes, "social capital cannot exist without people, and
Western societies are failing to produce enough of them to sustain themselves." Birthrates are so low in Italy, Spain and Japan
that the populations of those nations will experience a 30 percent decline in each successive generation. Europe is losing
population at the rate of about 1 percent per year and will be a fraction of its current size by the end of the 21st Century
unless current trends reverse. And even the United States would stop growing were it not for the infusion of so many
immigrants from nations with high fertility rates, such as Mexico.
What these lower fertility rates mean is that fewer people
will spend major portions of their lives living in families. Already, half of all Scandinavians live alone, as do one third of the
Swiss and one quarter of Americans. "In a couple generations, " Fukuyama points out, "most Europeans and Japanese may
be related only to their ancestors." In other words, the family as the basic unit of society will virtually cease to exist in these
nations. And it is not clear that any other social arrangement will ever be able to take its place.
Despite the evidence of social dissolution he amasses, Fukuyama remains relatively sanguine about the future. With
another presidential campaign gearing up -- and the inevitable discussion of family values that each election brings -- "The
Great Disruption" ought to be required reading among both parties'
candidates.
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©1999, Creators Syndicate
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