ABSTRACT
The underlying theme of False Dawn is that the US is deluded by its own ‘Enlightenment thesis’, believing that democratic capitalism will soon be accepted throughout the world, merging into a single universal free market. Although multinational corporations have become allies in promoting this ‘unified theory’ of a world civilisation, Gray believes it is destined for failure, since it is based on the same flawed assumptions as communism: ‘In their cult of reason and efficiency, their ignorance of history and their contempt for the ways of life they consign to poverty or extinction, they embody the same rationalist hubris and cultural imperialism that have marked the central traditions of Enlightenment thinking throughout its history.’
