The democratically elected countries aspire to a liberal world order designed,set forth and carefully built post WWII despite a Cold war and subsequent collapse of the USSR. These first world countries get scored on a Burkian conservative vs liberal social democrat axis as they implement this shared liberal world order goal. It is foundational that there be constitutional rule of law for both conservatives and liberals in functional democracies. It led to the most rapid increase in global wealth and living standards in human history and reduced war to regional conflicts. Their mission was to contain the authoritarians and their fellow travelers.
What you describe is a libertarian vs communtarian scale. Of course organizing the world on this axis and the battle for supremacy between these two poles led to Global Depression and two world wars plus the agreement which divided up the Ottoman empire creating ruling minorities of sectarian majorities. We THOUGHT this was relegated to the dustbins of history post war till Regan, Paul Ryan and the Koch brothers rebranded it and torqued the Republican party to rebirth it as small government conservatism... aka the ann rand makers versus takers philosophy.
Then of course you get the always present authoritarians. Hitler,Sadam Husein, Kim jun Un, Trump, Putin, Castro, Mugabe, Chavez and any number of other strong men with their unwitting or incapacitated sheep in tow.
So that is the big picture question... will the Authoritarians in US leadership of the feckless libertarian right change the direction of world history? A return to the Calvin Coolige era is a feature... not a bug. Or will the liberal world order (with the ominpresent healthy battle between burkean conservatives and the progressive liberals) figure out the domestic economics, political messaging and basic politics and keep the world growing with an ever expanding world economy.
If they don't... the era of I got mine... FU! will be a simple zero sum game.... where survival is the ultimate goal.
Remember the big picture of 20th century history when the end of liberal world order began! Bush I fought the Iraq war I to preserve the liberal world order concept of borders are not changeable by invasion, and helped the Germans establish the whole German state. Clinton intervened in Yugoslavia to stop further genocide and re establish borders in southern europe. After the Bush/Clinton rebuilding job from Regan's mistakes... the US was flush with cash, real incomes had risen ... and by and large the world was at peace.
The liberal world order consensus ended when Bush II, Tony Blair and Putin reacted to muslim extremism (World trade center and Chechnya) by illiberal solutions. They just discarded the principles of the liberal world order in the name/service of security/maintaining their power. Bush invaded Iraq under a weak pretense of self defense against WMD???, and pro American/Randian values to remake the middle east and buggered it up for years. He dumped international law to create black sites and torture as a tactic. (He could not have stood for reelection in 2 years had he not invaded somebody with a name) Putin crushed Chechnya, invaded Georgia, Ukraine and annexed the Ukraine's Crimea and completely undermined the notion of international borders. Obama spent 8 years trying to rebuild that liberal world order... DECLINING to invade Lybia or Syria or any of the fubars in Africa while wielding power in killing terrorists from extremest factions hell bent on fomenting religious jihad.
It is not clear that you can put humpty dumpty back together after Bush. Obama's record is mixed... not for lack of trying tho.
The scoreboard favors the illiberal authoritarian/libertarian side with Trump et al aligning with Putin.
Trump of course wants to get on with the religious war, renegotiate the trade rules as a way to win a zero sum game and not continue with the liberal trading global order. He wants to take America back to an era where Jim Crow was just fine and domestic terrorism was swept under the rug.. Japanese internment of CITIZENS was just fine and all that matters is America first and then your libertarian economic interests.
The post war order of things was not divine good luck.... it was a product of policy's that prioritized global growth and self imposed limits on domination by the sole super power taking care of number 1. A large minority of voters elected Trump to spite the liberal world order.
The power driving illiberal solutions is a lack of judgement by the people themselves. 100 people die every day from distracted driving (texting and cell phones)... yet a Handful of victims of muslim extremists in a year are enough to drive the country in rejecting their 50 year old post war commitment to taking care of refugees. The almost equal number of terror victims of the racist right are ignored. Really? what standards are you using? Emails? really! Clinton foundation issues ... really? Trump OMG in spades...
Is this status quo nirvana???.... Oh hell no... Are there solutions available to redistribute wealth equitably not taken because of political power... yes.
Is the solution to embrace a very illiberal movement that uses authoritarianism and the oligarchs fighting it out with libertarian utopians to forge a restoration of the good ol days of the early 1900s while preserving their latter day robber baron status and privilege???
Choose wisely! authoritarian or liberal constitutional democracy. (But could you at least find some literate authoritarians, .... to and too are distinguished in what... the third grade!)
