4 ms·

Are those who predict 'America is in decline' right this time?

12 points by cwan 17y ago

InclinedPlane 17y ago
"American Empire", if it could be called such, is one of the most unusual in the history of the world. Firstly, it is not one of direct dominance, as nearly all others in history have been. It is primarily one of mutual beneficial relationships, and most frequently of voluntary associations. Secondly, it is less a dominance relationship and more of a leadership relationship. Why do factories in Malaysia produce Intel processors, because of the power of American military might or because of Intel's innovation and product excellence? America hasn't retained it's position on the top of the economic stack of the world merely out of some abundance of natural resources, military might, or large corporations. Rather, America has proven to be more innovative and more dynamic than the rest of the world, generally by a fair margin. America has germinated and grown not just many of today's largest corporations but many of today's biggest industries. A huge percentage of the Fortune 500 companies didn't even exist 20, or 50 years ago. No country has been able to match that dynamism, nor do any countries look likely to match that dynamism in the near future. The rest of the world is still struggling to break out of business models that would be more familiar in 1950s America, meanwhile America is transitioning to an even more dynamic and innovation centric economic model as startup culture begins to spread and more and more individuals start to see themselves as and become freelancers and founders than mere employees. For that reason alone I think America will probably do just fine and keep its place at the top of the heap in the world economy. That being said, there's plenty of room for everyone in the world to be rich, regardless of where the engine of dynamism in the world rests. I think in the next 20 to 50 years we'll see much of India, South America, and at least coastal China become fully first world societies, with individual income and wealth in the same range as that of America, Western Europe, Japan et al.
hga 17y ago
Ignore the subheading "Declinists have always projected America's imminent demise. For a change, they're onto something.", it's not supported by the text, reality, or history, which this author seems to know a fair amount of (e.g. the late '70s, when things looked much worse).
- Xichekolas 17y ago
  It amuses me that, since it's inception, America has essentially always moved from one jeremiad to another... and yet every year we keep pretending that there is something new about this. According to Americans, things have been "going to hell" for over 200 years, and yet somehow this time it's different. On the upside, I think all this lamenting is just a sign of our ambition to be better... and that is a good thing.
  - nopassrecover 17y ago
    Examine both America in the 1920s and America now. Can you say with complete conviction the American society of now is no worse? (to borrow an example from http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/ http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/ an easy way to negate the effect of medical/tech advances is to imagine a replica of 1920s America appearing overnight in the pacific - do you think it would take this country long to become a world power?) From the outside it seems as though America has been "going to hell" for at least the last 100 years.
    - abstractbill 17y ago
      Examine both America in the 1920s and America now. Can you say with complete conviction the American society of now is no worse? Put yourself in the shoes of someone who isn't white, or is female, and ask the same question. There may be aspects of modern American society that are worse, but it's certainly better for a lot of people.
      - nopassrecover 17y ago
        I picked 1920s particularly for this reason as rights for women, non-whites AND homosexuals (which appear to still face an uphill battle in the US) had massive gains socially (it takes social acceptance before political acceptance). I will not pretend rights were better but this was an era that precipitated the modern rights advances. The 1930s witnessed a return to Victorian conservatism. Examples: Women's suffrage movement continues to make gains as women obtain full voting rights in the Grand Duchy of Finland in 1906, New Zealand in 1909, Denmark in 1915, in the United States in 1920, and in the United Kingdom in 1918 (women over 30) and in 1928 (full enfranchisement); and women begin to enter the workplace in larger numbers. (wikipedia) While blacks continued to be discriminated against there was increasing representation and labour gains as a result of increased migration to cities. In particular, democrats, socialists and communists all gained increasing black votes and voiced support for black rights ultimately leading to FDR's election (significant black votes) in 1932 and the New Deal which spelled significant rights gains for non-whites. (paraphrased from wikipedia and other "sources"). Until the early 1930s, gay clubs were openly operated, commonly known as "pansy clubs."[citation needed] The relative liberalism of the decade is demonstrated by the fact that the actor William Haines, regularly named in newspapers and magazines as the #1 male box-office draw, openly lived in a gay relationship with his partner, Jimmie Shields.[23] Other popular gay actors/actresses of the decade included Alla Nazimova and Ramon Novarro.[24] In 1927, Mae West wrote a play about homosexuality called, The Drag,.[25][26] and alluded to the work of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. It was a box-office success. West regarded talking about sex as a basic human rights issue, and was also an early advocate of gay rights. With the return of conservatism in the 1930s, the public grew intolerant of homosexuality, and gay actors were forced to choose between retiring or agreeing to hide their sexuality.[citation needed] (source wikipedia)
S_A_P 17y ago
funny thing about the sky- its always falling... Even if we suddenly lost our standing as the largest economy in the world, I dont see that as meaning we will see Armageddon. It may even do us some good to let some other country be in the spotlight for a while.
- arethuza 17y ago
  You do know that the EU economy is larger than the US economy? OK - not one country, but pretty close to one market.
  - anamax 17y ago
    > You do know that the EU economy is larger than the US economy? OK - not one country, but pretty close to one market. Not per capita. Also, the EU punches considerably lower than its weight. Sure, there's a large pile of money, but what can it do?
    - arethuza 17y ago
      But the US isn't top of the per capita lists either.
      - anamax 17y ago
        > But the US isn't top of the per capita lists either. You're right. But the ones that are higher don't have much "total mass". We've discussed three ways to compare - total GDP, GDP/person, and "how much can they do". The US is not at the top of any of them, but it's high on all three.
pw0ncakes 17y ago
The American Empire? Yes, it will decline, but the OP did a poor job of explaining why. American corporations won't dominate the world's economic landscape forever. As a country, we'll be fine. We won't really notice the change, because our standard of living will still be improving as this occurs.
- jordanb 17y ago
  One thing I like to observe is that even with the evaporation of the Empire, Britain remains a very wealthy country with a high standard of living. In fact, their standard of living is considerably higher now than it was at the height of the Empire in the 1950s.
  - nopassrecover 17y ago
    Crime rates are considerably higher too though.
  - arethuza 17y ago
    I think the "height" of the Empire was definitely before WW1 - by 1950 Britain was in a pretty bad way.
    - pw0ncakes 17y ago
      The discrepancy in wealth between Western and Eastern Europe is due largely to the Marshall Plan (Eastern bloc states couldn't accept the aid). Without it, Britain would have struggled to rebuild its economy (and Britain was very poor in the '50s). So the "American Era" effectively began with the conclusion of World War 2. World War 1 was the sign that imperialism might not be such a good idea, since it led to an effectively pointless war, but it didn't change the relative levels of power. World War 2 occurred because certain societies didn't learn this lesson and became even more monstrous than the old imperial powers. After it, imperialism essentially died in Europe, but was unfortunately reborn in the US corporate complex.
- arethuza 17y ago
  I think you make a very important point there - there may not be that much correlation between the standard of living of the average person and the "power" of the country in global economic and military terms.
steveplace 17y ago
This. Is. Cyclical.
python123 17y ago
China has been the world's top economic power for the VAST majority of the past two thousand years. People need to accept that they are just assuming their rightful place atop the world order. Chinese people come over here and dominate Americans academically. Their top students now beat our top students (including Chinese immigrants) in every major academic contest. Theirs is a society that values intelligence. Ours is a society that praises ignorance.
- rortian 17y ago
  Ummm... >People need to accept that they are just assuming their rightful place atop the world order No, that's okay. Thanks for the suggestion though. I'd love to hear your theory of 'rightful' places in the world order. You have an odd view of the world and seem to be very angry. You hate older people, but revere the Chinese, who revere old people. Strange. I have met very intelligent people from many backgrounds. Whether they are from East Asia, or South Asia, or anyplace that produces stereotypically smart people makes little difference in my experience. In other posts you have implied that you had special knowledge of Chinese internet usage patterns. Are you being incredibly disingenuous when you act like the overwhelmed white American in your post?

12 points by cwan 17y ago

"American Empire", if it could be called such, is one of the most unusual in the history of the world. Firstly, it is not one of direct dominance, as nearly all others in history have been. It is primarily one of mutual beneficial relationships, and most frequently of voluntary associations. Secondly, it is less a dominance relationship and more of a leadership relationship. Why do factories in Malaysia produce Intel processors, because of the power of American military might or because of Intel's innovation and product excellence? America hasn't retained it's position on the top of the economic stack of the world merely out of some abundance of natural resources, military might, or large corporations. Rather, America has proven to be more innovative and more dynamic than the rest of the world, generally by a fair margin. America has germinated and grown not just many of today's largest corporations but many of today's biggest industries. A huge percentage of the Fortune 500 companies didn't even exist 20, or 50 years ago. No country has been able to match that dynamism, nor do any countries look likely to match that dynamism in the near future. The rest of the world is still struggling to break out of business models that would be more familiar in 1950s America, meanwhile America is transitioning to an even more dynamic and innovation centric economic model as startup culture begins to spread and more and more individuals start to see themselves as and become freelancers and founders than mere employees. For that reason alone I think America will probably do just fine and keep its place at the top of the heap in the world economy. That being said, there's plenty of room for everyone in the world to be rich, regardless of where the engine of dynamism in the world rests. I think in the next 20 to 50 years we'll see much of India, South America, and at least coastal China become fully first world societies, with individual income and wealth in the same range as that of America, Western Europe, Japan et al.

hga 17y ago

Ignore the subheading "Declinists have always projected America's imminent demise. For a change, they're onto something.", it's not supported by the text, reality, or history, which this author seems to know a fair amount of (e.g. the late '70s, when things looked much worse).

Xichekolas 17y ago
It amuses me that, since it's inception, America has essentially always moved from one jeremiad to another... and yet every year we keep pretending that there is something new about this. According to Americans, things have been "going to hell" for over 200 years, and yet somehow this time it's different. On the upside, I think all this lamenting is just a sign of our ambition to be better... and that is a good thing.
- nopassrecover 17y ago
  Examine both America in the 1920s and America now. Can you say with complete conviction the American society of now is no worse? (to borrow an example from http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/ http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/ an easy way to negate the effect of medical/tech advances is to imagine a replica of 1920s America appearing overnight in the pacific - do you think it would take this country long to become a world power?) From the outside it seems as though America has been "going to hell" for at least the last 100 years.
  - abstractbill 17y ago
    Examine both America in the 1920s and America now. Can you say with complete conviction the American society of now is no worse? Put yourself in the shoes of someone who isn't white, or is female, and ask the same question. There may be aspects of modern American society that are worse, but it's certainly better for a lot of people.
    - nopassrecover 17y ago
      I picked 1920s particularly for this reason as rights for women, non-whites AND homosexuals (which appear to still face an uphill battle in the US) had massive gains socially (it takes social acceptance before political acceptance). I will not pretend rights were better but this was an era that precipitated the modern rights advances. The 1930s witnessed a return to Victorian conservatism. Examples: Women's suffrage movement continues to make gains as women obtain full voting rights in the Grand Duchy of Finland in 1906, New Zealand in 1909, Denmark in 1915, in the United States in 1920, and in the United Kingdom in 1918 (women over 30) and in 1928 (full enfranchisement); and women begin to enter the workplace in larger numbers. (wikipedia) While blacks continued to be discriminated against there was increasing representation and labour gains as a result of increased migration to cities. In particular, democrats, socialists and communists all gained increasing black votes and voiced support for black rights ultimately leading to FDR's election (significant black votes) in 1932 and the New Deal which spelled significant rights gains for non-whites. (paraphrased from wikipedia and other "sources"). Until the early 1930s, gay clubs were openly operated, commonly known as "pansy clubs."[citation needed] The relative liberalism of the decade is demonstrated by the fact that the actor William Haines, regularly named in newspapers and magazines as the #1 male box-office draw, openly lived in a gay relationship with his partner, Jimmie Shields.[23] Other popular gay actors/actresses of the decade included Alla Nazimova and Ramon Novarro.[24] In 1927, Mae West wrote a play about homosexuality called, The Drag,.[25][26] and alluded to the work of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. It was a box-office success. West regarded talking about sex as a basic human rights issue, and was also an early advocate of gay rights. With the return of conservatism in the 1930s, the public grew intolerant of homosexuality, and gay actors were forced to choose between retiring or agreeing to hide their sexuality.[citation needed] (source wikipedia)

S_A_P 17y ago

funny thing about the sky- its always falling... Even if we suddenly lost our standing as the largest economy in the world, I dont see that as meaning we will see Armageddon. It may even do us some good to let some other country be in the spotlight for a while.

arethuza 17y ago
You do know that the EU economy is larger than the US economy? OK - not one country, but pretty close to one market.
- anamax 17y ago
  > You do know that the EU economy is larger than the US economy? OK - not one country, but pretty close to one market. Not per capita. Also, the EU punches considerably lower than its weight. Sure, there's a large pile of money, but what can it do?
  - arethuza 17y ago
    But the US isn't top of the per capita lists either.
    - anamax 17y ago
      > But the US isn't top of the per capita lists either. You're right. But the ones that are higher don't have much "total mass". We've discussed three ways to compare - total GDP, GDP/person, and "how much can they do". The US is not at the top of any of them, but it's high on all three.

pw0ncakes 17y ago

The American Empire? Yes, it will decline, but the OP did a poor job of explaining why. American corporations won't dominate the world's economic landscape forever. As a country, we'll be fine. We won't really notice the change, because our standard of living will still be improving as this occurs.

jordanb 17y ago
One thing I like to observe is that even with the evaporation of the Empire, Britain remains a very wealthy country with a high standard of living. In fact, their standard of living is considerably higher now than it was at the height of the Empire in the 1950s.
- nopassrecover 17y ago
  Crime rates are considerably higher too though.
- arethuza 17y ago
  I think the "height" of the Empire was definitely before WW1 - by 1950 Britain was in a pretty bad way.
  - pw0ncakes 17y ago
    The discrepancy in wealth between Western and Eastern Europe is due largely to the Marshall Plan (Eastern bloc states couldn't accept the aid). Without it, Britain would have struggled to rebuild its economy (and Britain was very poor in the '50s). So the "American Era" effectively began with the conclusion of World War 2. World War 1 was the sign that imperialism might not be such a good idea, since it led to an effectively pointless war, but it didn't change the relative levels of power. World War 2 occurred because certain societies didn't learn this lesson and became even more monstrous than the old imperial powers. After it, imperialism essentially died in Europe, but was unfortunately reborn in the US corporate complex.
arethuza 17y ago
I think you make a very important point there - there may not be that much correlation between the standard of living of the average person and the "power" of the country in global economic and military terms.

steveplace 17y ago

This. Is. Cyclical.

python123 17y ago

China has been the world's top economic power for the VAST majority of the past two thousand years. People need to accept that they are just assuming their rightful place atop the world order. Chinese people come over here and dominate Americans academically. Their top students now beat our top students (including Chinese immigrants) in every major academic contest. Theirs is a society that values intelligence. Ours is a society that praises ignorance.

rortian 17y ago
Ummm... >People need to accept that they are just assuming their rightful place atop the world order No, that's okay. Thanks for the suggestion though. I'd love to hear your theory of 'rightful' places in the world order. You have an odd view of the world and seem to be very angry. You hate older people, but revere the Chinese, who revere old people. Strange. I have met very intelligent people from many backgrounds. Whether they are from East Asia, or South Asia, or anyplace that produces stereotypically smart people makes little difference in my experience. In other posts you have implied that you had special knowledge of Chinese internet usage patterns. Are you being incredibly disingenuous when you act like the overwhelmed white American in your post?