What should the decade that started on January 1, 2000, and will end on December 31, 2009, be called?

The 2000s

1 of 8

by Grant Van Wingerden

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While all preceding decades in our lifetime have been named at the time, we seem to have been stuck with the first decade of the twenty-first century. Some call it the noughties but this just seemed a little too flippant and flirtatious for a period that started with a computer scare that threatened to throw the world into chaos and reached its nadir with a very real event that did what a microchip could not.

Add the flooding of a wonderful and historic city, two unconcluded wars fought in the very areas you would most suspect would not conclude quickly, patriotism being used as a blunt instrument and religion as a sharp one, and it is hard to see the fun side. Worth it to protect the free market and capitalism? Hard to argue for when the last couple of years saw administrations of all persuasion bailing out reckless companies that would have otherwise rightly fallen to their own supply and demand.

Why did companies think that giving their leaders bonuses worth several times over what their employees earned in a career of working hard would continue to work, even when the workers were being laid off and the company staunching profit for the shareholders? Forget proposing alternatives such as socialism, communism, libertarianism, anarcho-syndicalism, etc. Sensible, sustainable, democracy (which naturally allows for commerce between its citizens) is the place to start.

The responsible corporations reward their talent at all levels, encourage loyalty and productive service, and thereby flourish. They provide personal quick and reliable service to the customer, ahead of expansion for its own sake. This dynamic is in operation in successful 21C companies but not in those industries that fire their workers and send jobs overseas, nor in profit-driven entities that provide no real good to the paying public.

As the wars become increasingly abstract (e.g. War on Terror, rather than the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the war on Germany or war on Japan) we had to guard against open ended spending. Previous conflicts that required exposing the troops to this much risk were accompanied by a sober fireside chat, telling the population that restraint was needed, and to expect shortages, and aid the war effort. This was not the case in the Iraq War. Indeed the wealthy were rewarded with tax cuts; only social services were cut. The impression given at the time by commentators supporting the war, were that it would all be over in three years. Mission accomplished. An impression which was puzzlingly echoed by the President himself, despite al Qaeda, the Taliban, and even bin Laden all still at large when his term in office concluded; a trillion dollars spent and no end in sight.

This was also the decade when the one remaining superpower and nominal good guy showed that it was prepared to fight the enemy by using their tactics: torture, imprisonment without trial, prisoners released without compensation despite no case being proved against them, renditions, offshore prison camps, private goon squads of contractors paid on the public purse but outside the meagre restraints of the military, a corporation once run by the hastily-resigned-to- become-VP awarded exclusive contract to run operations, neighbouring and satellite countries aiding and abetting by their troop presence and support and thus compromising their own stance.

To have the decade then conclude with a leader of that selfsame superpower being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his attempt to negotiate with ideologically opposed nations and cease the sabre-rattling and carpet bombing is surely remarkable beyond any historical importance attached to his race. Getting the more tyrannical leaders on the back foot by using diplomacy rather than force heralds the opportunity for (like The Man* says) hope and change.

One could as easily argue that the eighties enjoyed the same dramatic turnaround when the Berlin War came down and the Cold War ended. With other hostile dictatorships also falling, the threat had been lifted.

Despite this monumental and promising sequence of events, we didn't have to describe any of this. The decade was named from the outset. We Knew where were and when we were. A decade before the Rolling Stones had been Sucking in the Seventies and Skyhooks Living in the 70's. There was never an argument and never a doubt. But the turbulent first decade of the century we now dwell in has no name, and certainly no nickname, so the utterly prosaic 2000's is somehow fitting.

Besides, in a decade where the greatest strides in human endeavour were accomplished in the cyberworld, a numerically based and logically precise descriptor is the way to go.

[*"The Man" was a novel written by Irving Wallace in the sixties about the first black US president)

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