The people of Southeast Asia, both masses and elites alike, looked for many years foremost up to the United States of America (US) as a role model state. However, the war on terrorism waged by the current US administration linked with cuts in civil liberties and human rights violations, especially the illegal detention and torture of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, has in the eyes of many Southeast Asians considerably discredited the US concept of liberal democracy. Furthermore, the US propagated classical economic liberalism has failed to deliver the most basic human necessities to the poor, and the current food and energy crisis as well as the latest bank crisis in the US prove that neo-liberalism is itself in trouble. The result of neo-liberalism, dominated by trade and financial liberalization, has been one of deepening inequality, also and especially in the emerging economies of Southeast Asia. Falling poverty in one community, or one country or region, is corresponding with deepening poverty elsewhere. The solution can therefore not be more liberalization, but rather more thought and more policy space for countries to pursue alternative options such as ?Social Democracy?.