What If? Tinkering with the Counterfactual A Comment on US–Washing Machines (Article 22.6-US)

Typically, the WTO Arbitrator, when charged with evaluating the permissible level of countermeasures (suspension of concessions), has chosen a counterfactual state of the world where the challenged (illegal) measure has not been adopted at all. The Arbitrator then would calculate the trade lost because of the adopted (illegal) measure, and thus, decide on the level of permissible countermeasures. In US–Washing Machines (Article 22.6-US), deviating from this custom, the Arbitrator adopted a different counterfactual, assuming that the complainant had adopted a different, ‘reasonable’ measure. The Arbitrator then evaluated the trade lost based on the distance between the adopted (illegal) and the ‘reasonable’ measure and calculated the level of countermeasures. In this paper, we explain the multitude of perils facing dispute settlement if this approach is adopted in future disputes. We also advance a few thoughts on rethinking the workings of the Arbitrator when measuring the level of permissible countermeasures, since similar slippery slopes risk being reproduced in future cases.

Liberal Failure

John Updike’s Rabbit, Run addresses the human condition under the reign of capital in the context of a society in transition toward a neoliberal state. By depicting a protagonist preoccupied with desire and consciousness through recounting his immediate experiences, the narrative delineates the confusion inherent in the capitalistic state for the protagonist in search of a way out toward self-actualization. Through the application of possible world theory, it is argued that the imbalance between Rabbit’s counterfactual possible worlds and his actual world accounts for the failure he experiences in his quest. As such, the possible worlds’ disequilibrium, we argue, ultimately leads to Rabbit’s bitter failure in his search; too many possible worlds in their counterfactual state produce a kind of counter-reality where there are too many fantasy/wish worlds, but few obligation worlds, a situation that leads to all the inevitable consequences we witness at the end of Book One of the Rabbit tetralogy.

Un Grand Dérangement: Dreaming an Indo-Persian Empire in South Asia, 1740-1800

The essay proposes a counterfactual historical exercise centered around the conquest of the Mughal empire in nothern India in 1739 by Nadir Shah Afshar, ruler of Iran. This episode, which was of enormous significance for contemporaries, has largely been neglected by more recent historians. After a survey of Nadir Shah's career and of the politico-economic conditions of the period, I propose a scenario here wherein the ruler of Iran does not return to his country (as he did), but instead participates in the articulation of a new political system, which would (in my view) have obviously been far more resistant to European ambitions than the Mughal empire turned out to be. A sketch of this counterfactual state system is provided, and the essay concludes by considering the implications of such a view for standard narratives of the 'Rise of the West' in the early modern period.