Obama's Reading Material: Post American World

Amazon-Book Description

"This is not a book about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else." So begins Fareed Zakaria's important new work on the era we are now entering. Following on the success of his best-selling The Future of Freedom, Zakaria describes with equal prescience a world in which the United States will no longer dominate the global economy, orchestrate geopolitics, or overwhelm cultures. He sees the "rise of the rest"—the growth of countries like China, India, Brazil, Russia, and many others—as the great story of our time, and one that will reshape the world. The tallest buildings, biggest dams, largest-selling movies, and most advanced cell phones are all being built outside the United States. This economic growth is producing political confidence, national pride, and potentially international problems. How should the United States understand and thrive in this rapidly changing international climate? What does it mean to live in a truly global era? Zakaria answers these questions with his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination.

Here is an excerpt from a review by Olli Raade

State and the society

Economic development means also more pluralistic societies. The governments must yield part of the power to various players in a society, such as independent central banks, companies, multi-national companies, trade unions, various non-governmental organizations such as environmentalists; and in particular to the markets. The state and the society become distinctively separate concepts.

My question is how do you separate, or compartamentalize state from society when they are intertwined. What is a state with out its society?

Hmmm.....Would Obama go for separating state and society? Perhaps since the government already govern states, is it possible society will be a separate entity that will exact more control by the government ?