It's not a big deal just institute a ~80% tax on the wealthiest like they did in America for 30+ years and no worries. Make America Great Again.

Ah,the belief that plutocracy will redistribute wealth to the detriment of themselves.
Such a cute fairytale of leftists and conservatives.
Great=rich. Ah,the manifesto and value system of the authoritarian and the slave.

Banno
8.9k
The Unraveling of America

Apocryphal has it that there is an ancient Chinese curse: may you live in interesting times.

The United States is no longer a leader among nations.

Is there something - anything - positive in this? — Banno

Do you mean for Americans...or for the rest of the world?

Not a bad question. Either.

I say everything is well as long as the dollar has it's status and Americans can create money that others will take. — ssu

Yea, good point, I am concerned about that. We've been financially irresponsible for a long time, and it's reasonable to predict that's going to be a big problem sooner or later. I have a plan for that though.

I'm 68.

I'll be dead.

Typical cynical selfish boomer psychology! :-)

Banno
8.9k
↪Frank Apisa Not a bad question. Either. — Banno

Well played, Banno! :wink:

I had read the article earlier...and mulled over what was being said. As in so many things these days, lots of speculation that seems true to me...and lots that seems way off base. I can only hope we have not fallen completely down the mountain...and that we can regain our footing at some point.

The fact that America is seen on the world's stage the way it is today...breaks my heart.

I knew there were people throughout the world who saw only "the ugly American." But there were many who saw that side of us that was beneficial to the world.

Now...that latter group seems to have almost disappeared.

I knew there were people throughout the world who saw only "the ugly American." — Frank Apisa

Yes, anyone that we've saved from ruthless tyranny typically thanks us by calling us ugly. :-) I think we're pretty good sports about that, all in all.

So... what makes something an ability. Competence is basic coherence. Why is it an ability of any use if everyone can do it. That makes someone elite- in a way. So you want, and I'm going to hope you're from whatever country we're talking about and not acting under the auspices of another, the most qualified and crucial positions such as medicine, defense, technology, science, education, etc... to be replaced with just anyone who knows how to get dressed in the morning? Erm... yeah that's a big no. lol

No, that’s not what I want. I just mean that most if not all of the skills needed to perform the work of professionals within many institutions could be acquired through practical experience rather than formal education. But since many industries require the credentials, and thus the elite education, those in power tend to be of the same mind and experience. It’s called “credentialism“, and I think it has helped form the disastrous policies of elite institutions.

Typical cynical selfish boomer psychology! :-) — Hippyhead

Yes. Boomers. :angry:

There's nothing that you did well. That includes us, the Gen X, which is one of the smallest generations ever.

Yes, anyone that we've saved from ruthless tyranny typically thanks us by calling us ugly. :-) I think we're pretty good sports about that, all in all. — Hippyhead

This myth of foreign people hating Americans is what Americans sustain themselves. Of course those people who "hate" the US are called leftists, while other called conservatives don't have much if any problem with the US. Something along the lines you are now seeing in your own country btw.

Otherwise, what's the response of for example Europeans of the American military roaming around in their country? Something like this, 5 years ago during the Obama times:

There are certainly a lot of people who confuse US social issues with a geopolitical downfall. The GDP of the US keeps increasing, which means a more powerful military, more money for aid and so on. However, this wealth is not being utilised well to deal with social issues. The US GDP is on par with the entirety of Europe, forget individual countries. They are still a geopolitical juggernaut with allies across the world and this doesn't look like it's going to change anytime soon. I think everyone can see that the rest of the world is catching up to the US but we're not there yet and won't be for some time.

In the context of the cold war, the US are still enjoying the rewards of "winning", NATO grows, Japan, Germany, SK are all strong allies. Really only China poses any kind of challenge but I don't think they'll ever overtake the US in its influence, only economically and militarily.

US leadership isn't based on its paragon status, it's based on economic, geopolitical and military might, which it still has.

Gee whiz, that Wade Davis sure is a gloomy fellow.

I don't think civilization "has been brought low" by Covid 19 quite yet. After all, Wade Davis is still being published.

And I don't think the argument regarding the significance of this pandemic in the fate of our Glorious Republic is well supported by detailing all the problems experienced by it since the Second World War. By his account, the U.S. was coughing up blood, at least, by the time Covid 19 showed up.

I'm inclined to think, no doubt cynically, that the professor was already convinced of the decline of God's Favorite Country and the pandemic served as an excuse for noting that conviction. Even so, it would come as no surprise to me that we've been looking rather seedy and down-and-out, petty, ignorant and downright stupid to the rest of the world. I don't think that Covid 19's the cause, though, and hope that the End Times aren't here yet. But I confess I've been thinking about Pope's The Dunciad and these words which appear at its end:

“Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine;
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine!
Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos! is restored;
Light dies before thy uncreating word:
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;
And universal darkness buries all.”

At the risk of being subjected to the wrath of unenlightened, however, I note pedantically that the Roman Empire lasted far longer than the subsequent, namby-pamby empires the highly civilized Wade Davis mentions. Rome fairly well dominated the Mediterranean world by 200 B.C.E., expanded from then into Europe and Great Britain and the Middle East. It almost slipped into fragments in the 3rd century C.E., but was revitalized under Aurelian and Diocletian. The accepted fall of the Western Empire took place in 476 C.E., and the Eastern Empire to centuries after that, even incorporating much of the old Western Empire during the reign of Justinian in the 6th century C.E. and then in diminished form until the 15th century C.E.

So hell, the American Empire may still last for centuries, if the U.S.A is supposed to be the new Rome. So, you see the relevance of the digression.

@Judaka :up:

America a set of ideas and ideals. And if America has been remiss in practice or exercise, unarguably and undeniably our bad. And even now under Trump we seem to be running away from them with such definitive purpose that responsible and reasonable thinkers fear a profoundly destructive Trump power grab.

But the ideas themselves that are a light to all, if America goes dim, who will take up the task of being beacon? Noted earlier it's an ill wind.... A benefit may well be that those nations and peoples who have experienced freedom will more closely understand their own role in preserving their own.

And Trump may try his grab. But he is a kind of Faust and even now the devils have come for him and will soon tear him and his to pieces, and in this current version of that play, what might well be a nightmare of Hell for him, is for the rest of us Justice, redemption, and repair.

s. The US GDP is on par with the entirety of Europe, forget individual countries. They are still a geopolitical juggernaut with allies across the world and this doesn't look like it's going to change anytime soon. — Judaka

Here's the bigger picture of the role of the US in World Economy:



Here's even a longer picture, which ought to be taken with a grain of salt as obviously the statistics aren't there and the whole thing is an estimation (and of course, the US isn't that old, but anyway):



What has happened in our time is China, which after letting go of the insanity of maoism, has grown from an economy the size of the Netherlands to the second biggest economy. Another huge change has been India, which also let go of socialism. The so-called Asian Tigers grew even earlier and many of the ex-Soviet satellites have seen good economic growth. This transition has been huge and a wonderful thing as global povetry and famine has declined, yet thanks to our slow growth we (naturally just looking at our own navel) haven't noticed this. So the real story isn't about the US unraveling, but others getting their act together.

The GDP of the US keeps increasing, which means a more powerful military, more money for aid and so on. — Judaka

Well, that aid isn't as with other countries a huge share of it is military assistance, which basically means assisting the military-industrial complex. So here's where that aid went few years ago. Nearly trillion to Ethiopia is quite notable:



And here's what it looks like compared to other countries, if we take out that military aid:


And on share of GDP, it's

US leadership isn't based on its paragon status, it's based on economic, geopolitical and military might, which it still has. — Judaka

And the role of the dollar. Never underestimate the role of the dollar. It can be difficult to understand just how important something like earlier (and even now) buying oil with your own currency that you a can print is. Or that vasts amounts of dollars are used between foreign countries that don't involve the US. It is something that Americans dismisses quite often and just take as a given, not something that actually happened because of WW2.

Here's the unraveling, IF there is an unraveling (which is indeed not anything given or obvious:



Roughly every fifth dollar the US government spends is now debt. And your largest single debtor is the Federal Reserve, not China. Before the pandemic the Federal Reserve owned twice as much than China of the treasuries and China's pot of treasuries has stayed roughly the same for the last ten years. Some countries like Germany had prior to the Covid pandemic a fiscal surplus. Last time that happened was when Clinton changed the rules on social welfare, if I remember correctly.

There's nothing that you did well. — ssu

Well, that's a bit of an overstatement. :-) But I would agree there is a lot we didn't do well.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/10/chicago-looters-riot-magnificent-mile/

I've visited that part of Chicago several times in the last few years, it must be terrible to see it being ransacked.

It’s a really interesting time to be alive, if nothing else good. This is a good resource for China's perspective on the whole thing. (Especially, this essay )

Quick dicing & splicing for the basic idea: (it mirrors the Atlantic article from the OP in a lot of places):

Over the past few centuries, changes in the international order have often been the result of a great war. Examples include the Westphalian System which followed Europe’s Thirty-Year War, the Versailles-Washington system which followed WWI, and the Yalta system which followed WWII. The basic outline of the current international order is more or less the result of WWII. But after more than 70 years, the existing order is beginning to waver as a result of multiple shocks, beginning with the end of the Cold War in 1991, and including the 9-11 incident in 2001, the financial crisis in 2008, and Trump’s election in 2016.

While its structure remains intact, the role of the United Nations is limited, the capacity of the WTO has been diminished, the resources of the IMF and the World Bank are stretched thin, the authority of the WHO is inadequate, the global arms control regime is on the verge of collapse, international standards are frequently ignored, American leadership and will have declined together, the mechanisms facilitating great power cooperation are in disorder, and the international order is hanging by a thread.

The outbreak and spread of the coronavirus pandemic has plunged the entire world into mourning, as countries locked down and borders closed, economies ground to a halt, stock markets plunged, oil prices collapsed, exchanges were broken off, insults were traded and rumors proliferated. The shock of the impact has been in no way less than a World War, which is yet another attack on the existing international order. The old order is perhaps unsustainable, but a new order has yet to be built, which is the basic feature of a once-in-a-century great change, and is also the root cause of the crisis roiling the contemporary international scene

[...]

The 2020 election will be a fight between Trump’s “keeping America great” and Biden’s “let America lead again,” but even if Biden wins, internal political handicaps and changes in the external environment suggest that America will have a hard time reassuming its role as a world leader. But just like Britain in the post-WWI period, the United States still has enough power to prevent other countries from taking her place, and America’s China policy will only get increasingly hyper-sensitive, unyielding, and arrogant as they double down on containment and suppression. Strategic competition between China and the US will become all the more fierce.

At the end of the pandemic, the existing order of “one superpower and many great powers” will change. America may remain “the superpower” but will have a hard time maintaining its hegemonic domination. China is rising fast, but faces obstacles in its drive to surpass the US. Europe’s star is fading, its future development course unclear. Russia plots its future moves in the chaos, and its position has perhaps risen somewhat. India’s weaknesses and shortcomings have been exposed, blunting the momentum of its rise. After having to postpone the Tokyo Olympics, Japan seems lost.

[...]

Since the 18th National Congress of the CCP [in November 2012], China has chosen cooperation and a win-win posture as its ideological foundation, and peaceful development as its strategic priority. It has adopted One Belt-One Road as its primary policy stance, and the construction of a new type of international relations as its immediate objective. Its ultimate goal is the creation of a community of mankind’s shared destiny, through the “five in one” general framework[10] and the “close links between peoples of the world 环环相扣,” forming a set of new international strategic frameworks that both respect the past and innovate for the future, so that the relationship between China and the world enters a new historical phase.

Yet just as China increases its participation in the world, just as China assumes world leadership, America chooses “strategic contraction” and “America first,” and the trend in Sino-American relations, which is going against the trend of development in relations throughout the world, will earn the contempt of history. The result is that the United States is not looking at China’s relations with the world from a progressive historical perspective, but instead is scrutinizing Chinese intentions through a lens of strategic caution, and using high-pressure tactics to carry out blockage and containment.


[...]

The coronavirus pandemic has not changed the fact that the world is experiencing a once-in-a-century change, but has simply made that change a bit quicker and a bit more abrupt. It has not changed the basic shape of China’s relations with the world, but instead has made these relations more complex and multi-faceted. Nor has it changed the basic judgment that China is currently in a period of strategic opportunities, a posture that will continue. After all, China led the way out of the most difficult moment of the pandemic, and began planning to return to work and production; marked by the convening of the "Two Sessions,"[12] the strategic deployment China established is still proceeding in an orderly manner.

However, it will become increasingly difficult for China to seize the opportunity, and the risk challenge will surely multiply. In this extraordinary moment when countries face the disaster of the pandemic and the entire world fights the virus, the crux of the issue is whether China be able manage its own affairs well at the same time that it assumes it role as a great power and does its utmost to supply public health goods to the world. This is both a prerequisite for restarting China’s relationship with the world as well as the foundation for the great revival of the Chinese nation.

To ensure that the restart will proceed smoothly and extend into the future, we must begin by looking back on the path we have travelled, and must unwaveringly push forward the new age of reform and opening. On this front, we must bravely advance, and cannot be satisfied with half-measures. Next, we must settle our minds and proceed calmly with the task at hand. As the goal of the “first one hundred years” approaches conclusion, we should pause for a moment, sum up our experiences and lessons learned, and look for laws and patterns that will create the conditions as we take up the sprint toward the “second hundred years.”

— Yuan Peng

I can't tell (no background knoweldge) if the 'first [ & second] hundred years' way of framing is better read as a somewhat-scary expression of authentic Long Term, Big Picture Planning or as a rhetorical way of evoking (for self & others) the power that comes with having Long Term, Big Picture Planning.

A summary position is that -

1) The US created the post-WW2 world order - the global free trade system - as a bulwark against communism. It was left the only superpower standing and did the smart self-interested thing of preventing communist takeover of a war broken world.

But then Eastern Bloc cracked and crumbled with surprising suddenness in 1991. The US had won the Cold War but then failed to figure out how to cope with the peace. It was again the hegemon by default. Much more so even than after WW2 where it still had to dismantle Britain and other still colonial empires.

A succession of weak presidents meant the US was a world leader without any particular world vision. The situation became divided into a "Davos elite" hoping to continue onwards with the "globalisation project" towards some kind of planetary governance based on the kind of techocracy that is at the heart of all actually successful modern democracies, and then the US blundering on with an increasingly domestic focus on its interests.

It didn't actually want to lead the free world. It just wanted to be free to do its own thing. Burn oil, eat junk food, gamble on markets. Party it up.

(Of course, the technocratic part of US society wanted the opposite. But their moment had passed with the Cold War challenge too).

2) The world has moved on towards some kind of next step. But China can be discounted as a major player. It is a bubble enterprise tied to the free market world order that the US created and continued to underwrite even after it had lost its main security purpose. China matters as part of the much more important story of a technocratic/democratic Asia. South East Asia’s 2.5b people beats China for population and its GDP should match China by the end of the decade.

The logic of the situation is that the US is going to turn inwards on itself finally. It has so many geopolitical advantages, it simply doesn't need the hassle of trying to run the world.

The US has the world’s best chunk of geography. It has the best chunk of food growing land and an ideal range of growing climates. It has an isolated position that means it never has to fear rowdy neighbours or physical invasion.

It has demographic power too in a population of 330 million that isn’t greying dramatically like all its rivals. It has energy abundance with its shale oil and gas, plus the easiest transition to a practical renewables infrastructure.

It has - as @ssu underlines - the dollar embedded as the world reserve currency. That is an incredible economic advantage that will be tough to unwind. It also has now tied in Canada and Mexico as its North American alliance - Mexico as the replacement China manufacturing hub, and Canada as yet more resources and growing land.

So nothing stops the US curling up within the comfort of its own North American empire and saying the world can go f*** itself. The inbuilt advantages are so many that even really bad political leaders can't actually sink the ship.

In this scenario, the US is no longer the world leader - except in the various ways it might still want to get involved in running other people's affairs.

The desirable outcome is a world that continues to globalise - but only via a more intense phase of regionalisation (the view being pushed by Parag Khanna for instance).

So Khanna talks of an age where we move on from hegemonic states - single nations running their respective empires - to regional power networks. You already have Europe as a reasonably integrated system - organised in its own "typically European" way.

Likewise Asia will emerge as a geographically organised community of interest. Belt and Road could be an important part of that integration, but China will not then "own" the region as a result. It becomes a large component of a more general workable identity - depending on which way the CCP go.

Then the US as North America is another regional bloc with its own political flavour.

Out of this rationalisation of world geopolitics might come a regionalisation that makes a better foundation for globalisation. Instead of the rather Western model that the US sought to impose on the world - for security reasons - there would be the opportunity for something more inclusive of the way the world actually is.

Of course, the problems of the world may fast overtake the political opportunity to grow that world-level of governance. But there you go.

The fact that America is seen on the world's stage the way it is today...breaks my heart. — Frank Apisa

Mine, too.

I've had an eye out for a source on Chinese thinking for a while now; something to counterbalance the anglophone Conversation.

Cheers.

What is this thread, exactly? It looks on the surface like some people crying because Trump is president, some other people demonstrating the foolishness of the crying posts with facts and then a few people just mocking the crying posts because they're redundant, weak and insipid and unworthy of debate.

So nothing stops the US curling up within the comfort of its own North American empire and saying the world can go f*** itself. The inbuilt advantages are so many that even really bad political leaders can't actually sink the ship. — apokrisis

Doubtful! Trump with his 'Me First' campaign, doesn't know the meaning of partnership, and tells everyone tp go f*** yourself..
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53683569

The article embraces Anti-americanism, formed, as it was, from afar, from an insulated view, and through the lens of a hostile media. Sweeping generalizations and lies by omission without any actual study. And this from a reputable anthropologist.

Well, that's a bit of an overstatement. :-) But I would agree there is a lot we didn't do well. — Hippyhead

Well, the generation of Greta Thunberg is already bitching at us so, we don't think we are anything special either.

Isn't anthropology "the humanities"?

I am surprised that the UK and Germany are as close as they are in aid contribution, I wouldn't have guessed that. Thanks for displaying these graphs, as you said the US decline of US dominance is a good thing because it is caused by other countries developing economically. It is not something the US can avoid nor has been trying to avoid. The dollar is important, it's also hard to measure the soft power of the US either. Their culture is exported globally and they have a very important presence in the culture of many other countries. There's just a lot of advantages for the US and the power imbalance at the height of the West is not something anyone is striving to maintain. It is shouldn't be a concern for the US to lose some of its relative power.

The US has massive geographical advantages with two large coastal areas on the Atlantic and Pacific in addition to the Great Lakes and the Gulf. Plus it has tons of rich farmland and Silicon Valley, whose companies are not negatively impacted by a pandemic, since their services are still needed and their workers can work remotely. California's economy alone is massive. Plus the US military remains the largest in the world.

And it's not like the US hasn't been through major wars, civil unrest and economic downturns before. 1918 was a worse pandemic at the end of WW1, then followed up by a major world depression the 30s and the second world war.

But if the US does get replaced as the major power in the world, it will be China, which is not a better option for most countries.

Well, the generation of Greta Thunberg is already bitching at us so, we don't think we are anything special either — ssu

Ha ha, it's payback time, eh? :-) Give'em hell Greta! :-)

Plus the US military remains the largest in the world. — Marchesk

China and India both have larger militaries.