The Garden of Peace

Abstract

Managerialism and the neoliberal lifestyle are dulling our ability to think for, or beyond, ourselves. Recourse to the Garden of Peace enables us to rediscover our intellectual capacities. Yet, in that sanctuary, we also encounter the meta-issues of the era. Several “big questions” in geography proposed by Cutter, Golledge, and Graf (2002) direct attention to three domains of risk related to Western economic, political, and social capital under neoliberalism. They are terrorism, the limits of liberalism, and the future of labor. With backdrops of democracy, globalization, and cosmopolitanism, this article explores their development and interrelations, working through the various options to presage future neoliberal geographies and forms of governance by 2050. The scenario judged most likely, however, exemplifies the contradictions and challenges confronting the West in the next half-century