It seems that everyone is doing some sort of list recapping the best (and worst) of the decade. Some people are doing movies, others music or sports and even a brave few have tried to tackle current affairs. We will as well, and in the spirit of SongofSibyl.com’s mission, I will attempt to use the nebulous criterion of whose actions in the 2000s will have the greatest impact on the rest of the twenty-first century. The list is in some sort of order, I purposely chose not to number it, so focus more on the names rather than the placement. Some are obvious choices, but I hope that a few others are not.
Al Gore – Could there have been a better blessing in disguise than losing arguably the closest election in American history for Mr. Gore? Instead of disappearing into oblivion, he won an Oscar, a Nobel Peace Prize, became a successful entrepreneur and brought to everyone’s attention the threat of climate change. The phrase “an inconvenient truth” will remain in our lexicon for decades.
George Bush – No figure on earth can steak a greater claim to this decade than Mister Bush. He was the first to be handed the presidency by America’s third branch of government, and immediately proceeded to squander a record surplus with tax cuts for the rich, withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol, cease talks with North Korea and start wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The current economic quagmire is in part due to the deregulation under his watch. The damage to our reputation and the massive increase of the deficit will likely still be felt in 2099 when the century is recapped. At the same time, a young mixed race US senator from Chicago who was only a state senator a few years prior would never have had a shot at the presidency.
Barack Obama – 2012 and 2016 will be fascinating election cycles in the United States if only because they will tell us how much Mr. Obama truly has changed the way that campaigns are financed and run. In such a partisan era, his resounding victory was remarkable even if he was helped by a weak Republican ticket and war weariness from the Bush Era. His first year as president has the longest list of major accomplishments since FDR including a successful bailout that may have prevented economic collapse, a redefinition of our foreign policy, and dozens of items on the Democratic agenda for over a decade.
Vladimir Putin – Putin is largely credited with restoring political stability and the rule of law to the world’s largest nation, while enjoying relatively high approval ratings. This is no small feat. During his eight years as President, was heralded for strong macroeconomic management, important fiscal policy reforms and with a confluence of high oil prices, surging capital inflows, and access to low-cost external financing he saw Russia’s GDP increase 72%. Putin made Russia relevant again on the world stage, and even today as its Prime Minister he is still its most influential figure.
Manmohan Singh – Like China, India has long been characterized as a sleeping giant. To say that despite having the second largest population in the world its GDP was modest would have been an understatement. Overshadowed by its neighbor during the 2000’s, India enjoyed a quite prosperous decade and is finally emerging as an influential world power. No one individual deserves more credit for this than Manmohan Singh, who has put his Oxford PhD in economics to good use. In 2007, India saw its GDP grow by nearly 9%. The benefits of Singh’s modernization of India’s highways, mobilization of half a million health care workers, and reforms of the banking and financial sectors will be felt for decades.
Jeffrey Sachs – He just might be the world’s most influential living economist and this was a significant decade for him. He convinced many around the world that poverty can be eradicated in the next twenty years and that it is a moral imperative to do so. Whether you agree with his ideas or not, specifically his controversial stance on aid, he has almost single-handedly created a debate where there was little to none. As Director of the UN Millenium Development Goals Project, he took steps to make his dream of a world without poverty a reality and will likely touch millions of lives by virtue of this.
Mohammed Yunus – Winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, Yunus developed the revolutionary idea of microcredit and has started a revolution around the world in terms of poverty alleviation. With his system for granting loans to those who are poor and have no access to credit, for example granting as little as $100 to buy chickens whose eggs are then used to pay back the loan, he has helped countless people in Bangladesh to pick themselves up by their bootstraps. Women in particular have been empowered by his work. Through their business enterprises, their children or children’s children will be able to get an education and reach middle income status.
Sergey Brin and Larry Paige – Corporations might become nearly as powerful as nation states by the end of the century, for better or for worse. These two men have done more than any others in the 2000’s to change the way that business is done and develop technology that will influence the way we live for years to come. The intellectual successor to Microsoft, Google’s search engine, Google Earth, Google Books, Google Maps, Google Video/YouTube, Gmail, Android, Chrome, AdSense, AdWords, its corporate affairs and culture, as well as its philanthropic efforts shaped the decade and have implications so great that they spill over into the policy realm. Google is a company worth watching closely for a long time.
Alan Greenspan – After an unprecedented, maybe even legendary, run as Chief of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan politicized and changed the nature of his position. He is probably as responsible for the collapse as he is for the bubble and immense period of prosperity that preceded it.
Hu Jintao – It would be hard to leave China’s president off this list. Described as having a low-key and reserved leadership style, Hu’s rise to the presidency represents China’s transition of leadership from old, establishment Communists to younger, more pragmatic technocrats. Since his ascendancy, Hu has reinstated certain controls on the economy loosened by the previous administration, and has been largely conservative with political reforms. In foreign policy, Hu advocates for an approach termed “China’s peaceful development”, pursuing soft power in international relations. Through Hu’s tenure China’s global influence in Africa, Latin America, and other developing countries has increased. Under Hu, China has grown as previously unseen rates while pulling hundreds of millions out of poverty.
