Capitalism defeated Bin Laden

Five years later, what is the state of Western capitalism in general, and the American one in particular? Excellent, thank you. The terror attacks did not leave any impression on it. The Western world's economy is moving full steam ahead into a fifth year of growth and prosperity. Not even a dent has been left since the September 11 assault.

To the contrary, the "parade of conquest" by the capitalist-Western system, which was the target of the attacks, was not halted or slowed down – in fact, many other countries adopted the system. Those who are still attempting to undermine it do not come from the extremist Islamic side, but rather, from the secular post-Marxist Left.

Terrorism destroyed the World Trade Center in New York in the hopes of undermining international trade. And what happened since then? Global commerce expanded at a highly rapid pace, between 7 and 8 percent a year. Never before have so many goods and people crossed the borders of their countries.

Terrorism hoped to put a death spell on Western stock exchanges, but even the sleepy American stock market gained about 40 percent since then. Other markets skyrocketed by hundreds of percents.

Terrorism also hoped to undermine international shipping, air travel, and the hotel industry - to no avail. America's ports and those across the world are as busy and crowded as never before. Overseas transportation modes equipped themselves with anti-terror means in the wake of the attacks and are now safer and faster. The tourism industry, meanwhile, is blooming.

The American economic administration's rapid and effective response to the terror attacks – boosting budgets, cutting taxes, lowering interest, and transferring terror risks from private shoulders to the public treasury –shortened the superficial recession created immediately in the wake of September 11 to a total of a year and three months.

Since then, the US economy has been growing by an average yearly rate of four percent and has dispelled all pessimistic forecasts and terrorist expectations.

Unemployment is down, salaries are up, and profits earned by the large corporations – the fortresses of capitalism despised by Bin Laden – almost doubled since the dust and soot have evaporated from the Twin Towers ruins.

A more in depth analysis of American markets can still show traces of the terror offensive. Investing in the stock market has become riskier, large amounts of money belonging to pension funds and institutional investors are being poured into Asian countries and emerging markets, and the balance sheets of corporations show a preference to cash assets. Yet these changes in the preference of savers and investors did not erode or dim America's financial might.

The American economy is burdened by the Bush Administration's budgetary policy since the Iraq War and his unwillingness to cut expenses in order to finance that war. Those are failed political preference unrelated to al-Qaeda's terror.

America has not been paralyzed by fear. A new Department of Homeland Security was created and overall private and public homeland security expenses across the US rose from USD 60 billion before the attacks to USD 90 billion this year. That's plenty of money, and still, only a fraction of local production. Less than a statistical error.

'Decaying world' didn't collapse

In New York itself, the party is on. The number of employed in the city has hit a record high (even though not all large financial corporations returned to Wall Street and not all of their employees have been rehired.) The number of tourists has also hit record numbers – roughly 45 million a year.

The city's budget moved from a deficit to a surplus of USD 3.5 billion. Office space is expanding and apartment prices, which hit fantastic heights after September 11 of all times, recently showed marginal decreases. The dollar exchange rate slipped a little – and not quite enough according to many economists – but the American economy is still powerful.

This is the case not only in America. The sweeping global tide led to sharp increases in the prices of raw materials, oil, metals, and transport, and has brought back fears of inflation. All of this was not supposed to happen according to terrorist predictions.

The decaying capitalistic world should have been sinking into a nadir and letting loose the forces of Islamic revolution. As far as we know, that did not materialize.

In fact, the opposite happened. The al-Qaeda brand name lost its shine. Most Islamic radicals are expressing firm doubts about it. Its hold has become virtual: It's very strong online and through the Internet influences Muslim minorities in developed Western countries, where the perpetrators of post-September 11 attacks were recruited.

Those attacks brought to Europe a vague, temporary fear that evaporated several weeks later.

Overall, no fundamental changes took place in the lifestyle of the world's citizens. The anti-globalization movements in the 1990s had a much grander effect on capitalism's character and expansion than al-Qaeda and its assault on the Twin Towers.

The US-based "Foreign Policy," a leading publication on foreign affairs, featured a Twin Towers photo on the cover of its latest volume with a headline proclaiming September 11 was "the day nothing much changed." That's true, very little has changed, and that is the strongest testament that the attack masterminds five years ago and their spiritual father figures have been resoundingly defeated up until now.

Western capitalism, as it turns out, is not made up of spider webs. It proved flexibility, a stunning capacity to recover, and nerves of steel. It easily shook off al-Qaeda and galloped ahead undefeated. Thus far.