We are in 2026 and getting closer day by day to 2030, which raises a question when looking back at history: how close are we ideologically, historically, and culturally to the 1930s? The parallels are many, and concerning.

• Gradual erosion of multilateralism and geopolitical revisionism. The 1930s saw the beginning and end of the League of Nations, a sort of embryonic United Nations founded in 1919 after World War I under the push of American President Woodrow Wilson. The purpose of the League of Nations was to guarantee the peaceful resolution of territorial disputes through the Permanent Court of International Justice and the gradual disarmament of member states. This utopian dream ended very quickly due to specific historical events. In 1933, Japan invaded Manchuria and subsequently withdrew from the League following its condemnation of this hostile action. In 1935 and 1937, respectively, Italian aggression in East Africa began and Italy withdrew from the League. These events foreshadowed the power politics of the coming years. Today, the United Nations—the emblem of multilateralism—finds itself in an impasse linked to the veto power held by the five permanent members of the Security Council (United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom, France). Specifically, when a member country is involved in a conflict (directly or indirectly), it ensures it uses its veto power to prevent the Security Council from applying sanctions, intervening militarily, or imposing other coercive measures. This has occurred multiple times in recent crises: Russia did so regarding the war in Ukraine, the United States in the Israel/Gaza conflict, and Russia and China regarding the Iranian nuclear program. Here too, the result is diminished multilateralism and an increase in power politics by member countries that increasingly call the shots.

• Protectionism and the fragmentation of globalization. In the post-1929 crisis phase, the US Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, increasing tariffs on hundreds of goods to protect American agriculture and manufacturing. Various countries implemented similar countermeasures, causing global trade—which had been multilateral until then—to fragment. As Otto T. Mallery acutely noted in Economic Union and Durable Peace (1943), “If goods do not cross frontiers, armies will,” applying his thought retroactively to World War II, which followed shortly thereafter. Today, we face a very similar reality. In today’s context, two decisive aspects stand out. The first is the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the CHIPS and Science Act in America, and the Net Zero Industry Act in the European Union, which are essentially corporate subsidies. The second is the weaponization of critical technologies—for example, export bans on advanced chips to China—or resources deemed strategic, such as rare earths or gallium, considered essential for future technologies. We are not yet at the level of 1930s trade fragmentation, as trade today remains global in its entirety, but these elements push countries toward an underlying distrust and commercial retaliation that feed geopolitical tensions.

• Economic crisis and the crumbling of the middle class. The Wall Street crash of 1929 caused a massive cultural shock. On one hand, it showed concretely how capitalism could fail—and in highly unpredictable ways—and on the other, it shattered faith in the endless progress previously promised to the middle class. The Great Depression resulted in double-digit unemployment in both America and Germany, along with the near-total wipeout of individual savings. Combined with rampant unemployment, this created an unprecedented level of poverty, particularly impacting the middle class. Today, the 1929 crisis can be replaced in the collective imagination by the consequences of the 2008 financial crisis, automation, and globalization-offshoring that shifted jobs elsewhere, such as China, Vietnam, and other countries far from America and Europe. All of these non-exhaustive examples have led to a new “Gilded Age.” For those unfamiliar with the term, it refers to a pre-1929 golden age characterized by industrial titans with vast fortunes in specific sectors—such as the Rockefellers in oil or Carnegie in steel—unfolding in the absence of regulations and with the creation of trusts capable of dominating their respective industries. The parallels with today’s era and modern billionaires like Musk and Bezos are clear.

I do not wish to draw any firm conclusions other than to stimulate useful reflection for myself and everyone; I would like to pose a question. If our present, the 2030s, resembles the past, the 1930s, so closely, will our near future, the 2040s, also resemble the past future, the 1940s?