Zakaria's claim that "There Is No Alternative" is demolished by a piece of evidence he himself offers, in a few skimmed sentences he doesn't spot the significance of. He brags that the US has the most competitive economy in the world -- "slipping sometimes in recent years to small northern European countries like Sweden, Denmark and Finland." But -- wait. Is this the Sweden that takes 51 percent of GDP in taxes, and spends it on the most lavish welfare state in the world -- producing the most content population according to international studies? And it's more competitive than America? So it turns out There Is An Alternative course for the post-American world to pursue -- an extraordinarily impressive one -- but Zakaria just doesn't want to acknowledge it, because he would have to rethink some of his dogmas. When a poor country like Hugo Chavez's Venezuela tries to imitate this social democratic vision rather than Zakaria's, he abuses them as "trouble makers" prone to "insane rants."
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