Abstract
Geopolitics and economics overlap in studying the rise and decline of nations. One influential explanation of the rise of Europe and the West, of them overcoming mass poverty before other civilizations, contrasts the geopolitical fragmentation of Europe with civilizations unified under repressive rule elsewhere, and explains the rise of the West by its greater degree of economic freedom than elsewhere. After World War II, the dominant economy promoted economic freedom globally and thereby granted advantages of backwardness to less fortunate peoples. Although the global expansion of economic freedom lifted at least one billion people out of abject poverty, the same process undermined American economic dominance. The imminent power transition between America and China implies an increased risk of war. If a trade war between China and America ends the era of globalization, then the outlook becomes dark: less economic freedom, less prosperity, less political stability and higher risks of war.
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