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Globalization has lifted billions from poverty. While it didn't benefit the US middle class in a direct, more money in their pockets way, it did likely prevent

Globalization has lifted billions from poverty. While it didn't benefit the US middle class in a direct, more money in their pockets way, it did likely prevent horrific wars that ravaged the world in the last century. It's bad business to nuke your customers. So the US middle class did benefit from not being drafted into the global mega-conflicts we avoided. Also, why is US hegemony a good thing? What good is it for the 96% of the world that is not the US? Does it even benefit anyone outside the US ruling class?

laverya 6y ago
> Also, why is US hegemony a good thing? What good is it for the 96% of the world that is not the US? Does it even benefit anyone outside the US ruling class? As you alluded to in the previous paragraph, it's good for people because it means we're not participating in the kind of horrific wars that ravaged the world in the century before. And the US has been far less extractive than previous global hegemons. (So in that sense it's worse for US citizens, but better for the rest of the world) Now, everything is a tradeoff, and perhaps this particular tradeoff hasn't been worth it. But there are most certainly good things that US hegemony has given the world.
- romanoderoma 6y ago
  Is it true? https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-trump-brought-home-the-endless-war https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-trump-brou... Trump brought war on US soil, Americans VS other Americans, is it better?
  - laverya 6y ago
    I have no idea how this is relevant to a comment on US hegemony. Is this the comment you meant to reply to? If you mean to say that BLM in the US is comparable to the great wars of the 19th and 20th centuries, I'd say that you're off by a factor of a million in deaths.
    - romanoderoma 6y ago
      Well it is relevant because US egemony is dead. And it was about time. Also: US Has Killed More Than 20 Million People in 37 “Victim Nations” Since World War II https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-has-killed-more-than-20-million-people-in-37-victim-nations-since-world-war-ii/5492051 https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-has-killed-more-than-20-mil...
      - laverya 6y ago
        "Here's a benefit that US hegemony provides" "But what about BLM and domestic conflict, US hegemony is dead, and the US has killed a lot of people overseas" I still don't see the connection.
        notreallytrue 6y ago
        The US hegemony hasn't provided any benefit to anybody, except if you count millions of dead people as a benefit. Did the impoverishment of the middle class happen before, after, or during the US hegemony? Did the large scale wars of the past 30 years happen before, after or during US hegemony? Did the international terrorism escalation happen bwfore, after or during the US hegemony? The west especially is poorer and less safe. Trump was simply the final nail in the coffin. I think people are just connecting dots here. I really hope Biden will realise it.
      - mcguire 6y ago
        "To the families and friends of these victims it makes little difference whether the causes were U.S. military action, proxy military forces, the provision of U.S. military supplies or advisors, or other ways, such as economic pressures applied by our nation." "The U.S. is responsible for between 1 and 1.8 million deaths during the war between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan, by luring the Soviet Union into invading that nation." "Over the years we have repeatedly heard about the Khmer Rouge’s role in the deaths of millions in Cambodia without any acknowledgement being made this mass killing was made possible by the the U.S. bombing of that nation which destabilized it by death , injuries, hunger and dislocation of its people. So the U.S. bears responsibility not only for the deaths from the bombings but also for those resulting from the activities of the Khmer Rouge – a total of about 2.5 million people. Even when Vietnam latrer invaded Cambodia in 1979 the CIA was still supporting the Khmer Rouge." "Some people estimate that the number of Cuban forces killed range from 2,000, to 4,000. Another estimate is that 1,800 Cuban forces were killed on an open highway by napalm. This appears to have been a precursor of the Highway of Death in Iraq in 1991 when U.S. forces mercilessly annihilated large numbers of Iraqis on a highway." "Between 8,000 and 12,000 Nepalese have died since a civil war broke out in 1996. The death rate, according to Foreign Policy in Focus, sharply increased with the arrival of almost 8,400 American M-16 submachine guns (950 rpm) and U.S. advisers. Nepal is 85 percent rural and badly in need of land reform. Not surprisingly 42 % of its people live below the poverty level." "Yugoslavia was a socialist federation of several republics. Since it refused to be closely tied to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, it gained some suport from the U.S. But when the Soviet Union dissolved, Yugoslavia’s usefulness to the U.S. ended, and the U.S and Germany worked to convert its socialist economy to a capitalist one by a process primarily of dividing and conquering. There were ethnic and religious differences between various parts of Yugoslavia which were manipulated by the U.S. to cause several wars which resulted in the dissolution of that country. From the early 1990s until now Yugoslavia split into several independent nations whose lowered income, along with CIA connivance, has made it a pawn in the hands of capitalist countries. (1) The dissolution of Yugoslavia was caused primarily by the U.S." "Let us put this in historical perspective: the commemoration of the War to End All Wars acknowledges that 15 million lives were lost in the course of World War I (1914-18)." [But see the 1917-1919 flu pandemic, which may have started in the United States, making the US directly responsible for the deaths of 50 million people.]
  - aksss 6y ago
    You’re questioning if it’s better to kill other families at scale than kill our own family members (thus far) in edge cases? Nietzsche said, “in times of peace a warlike nation turns on itself”.
- FpUser 6y ago
  The US does not have military hegemony as it shares it with the Russia (both have enough nukes to wipe out each other and the rest of the world). China would probably come to this stage soon as well. Being economic hegemon (again likely to be challenged by China) is obviously good for the US but the rest of the world might not share this view for the large part.
matt_o 6y ago
> Also, why is US hegemony a good thing? What good is it for the 96% of the world that is not the US? To paraphrase Churchill: "The US hegemony is the worst hegemony for the world, except for all the other hegemonies." The US retreating into isolationism would likely open up a vacuum eagerly filled in by less, well, liberal-minded states. The globalization you describe was pushed by the US-EU-(Japan/India/etc.) alliance, with the US's armed forced being the big stick in case someone would object. At least this is my current understanding.
- zebrafish 6y ago
  That’s correct. This was the only way for the world to pay for WWII and for the US to stem the tide of communism and Stalin’s Russia. Now that the Cold War is over, the US middle class isn’t sure it wants to foot the bill for maintaining this system that no longer seems to provide it much benefit and, in fact, has seemed to harm it. I think the world will see a decent amount of chaos as the US pulls back from protecting global trade routes. Unless all of the other countries of the world want to agree to a global socialistic society, I think the US will likely focus on building back its manufacturing base, opening and maintaining markets for those goods to flow to, reducing the Medicare and Social Security overhead so that this isolationist system can actually survive, and then politics will be focused on traditional values vs progressive ideas. Of course the internet will make this conversation much messier than it used to be in the pre-WWII days. I’m interested to see how the shifting demographics affect this conversation. The three biggest things that shaped history are demographics, geography, and information flow. Two of these three are going to be significantly different since the last time the US moved towards isolationism.
- FpUser 6y ago
  >"...with the US's armed forced being the big stick in case someone would object..." Yup having big stick lets one tell the rest of the world to shut up and do what the're told to do. Nice example of democracy and mutual respect in action.
  - Supermancho 6y ago
    > Nice example of democracy and mutual respect in action. Is that supposed to be a back-handed way of making a point? I don't understand what those things have to do with global stability. Someone will be the de facto world police by force, now that the technology to utilize energy is so efficient. This situation has nothing to do with some sort of (USA-centered) Politically Correct philosophy. This situation is the eventuality of our time.
bane 6y ago
> Also, why is US hegemony a good thing? > Globalization has lifted billions from poverty. There, I reordered things for you to answer your own question. :)
baby 6y ago
That's what bothers me with the world at the moment, we have powerful states fighting for their hegemony (sometimes with nuclear weapons), not thinking at all about the earth as a unified place full with people and not citizen of whatever country.
ThrowawayR2 6y ago
> "Also, why is US hegemony a good thing?" If you review history, large wars broke out between the major powers vying for dominance on a regular basis in the 19th and early 20th century, culminating in the First and Second World Wars. For all the negatives of what the US has done with its military since then, they're not a hundredth as bad as what went on before by any objective measure. The Pax Americana has been good for stability and with stability comes prosperity. If the United States truly gave up its hegemony and turned isolationist, you'd see a resurgence of rearmament and jockeying for power among nations, inevitably followed by a new era of war after war.
- brabel 6y ago
  What Pax Americana? The US has been in multiple wars every single year[1] since the end of World War II. Not to mention the Cold War, which only stayed cold because of the nukes holding both sides back. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States#20th-century_wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni...
  - blix 6y ago
    Rome was involved in multiple periphery wars during the "Pax Romana" as well. Instead, the historical term refers to internal peace within the empire. Pax Americana usually means the same thing, though the borders of the empire are a little less clear.
- codekilla 6y ago
  Complete BS. The US has unilaterally kneecapped the U.N. and every other international organization capable of facilitating a fair world order. We don’t need the US to build a fair world order, contrary to the neocon ‘Pax Americana’ crap. Honestly I was surprised to see that phrase in a hacker news comment.
  - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
    I'm a European lefty, and I always hated the American imperialism. I was kinda happy about Trump talking about pulling out of all the foreign wars. Then I thought about it a bit more, and realised (and the last four years have shown) that if America withdraw, the Russians and the Chinese will move right in, and while I'm not a major fan of American imperialism, I'm even less of a fan of the Russian or Chinese flavours. And the US built the UN and all the other multilateral organisations post WW2, so yeah they work for the US, but they're also pretty good for everyone else.
srtjstjsj 6y ago
> Also, why is US hegemony a good thing? You yourself just wrote a the answer: it prevents wars.
- socialdemocrat 6y ago
  The US does not prevent wars. It is a cause of most of the wars in modern times. It has done something like 100 military invasions. Toppled countless democratically elected leaders and undermined democracies. US hegemony is to set be the US, not to serve the world.
  - bawolff 6y ago
    Yes, that's the argument, in a hegemony (usa or otherwise), wars basically only happen when the hegemon wants them to, and the hegemon has so much soft power its rare that they want them to, and when it does happen its small scale. The end result is ordinary people get caught up in less wars because politically war is much more rarely the right answer (either you're too politically weak to start one, or if you are the hegemon you just give people the evil eye and they usually shutup) That doesn't make it a utopia, just a world with less war dead.
- hef19898 6y ago
  Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq might disagree. It did prevent, possibly, wars in Europe.
  - flyinglizard 6y ago
    Vietnam was the US standing to a foreign power trying to take over. It is not a war on the nation, but a war on an aggressive faction. Same for Korea really.
    - hef19898 6y ago
      The Vietnamese fought for freedom from colonialism. The got that from the French, almost, until the US intervened. The only aggressive factions were the French and the US. Korea was different, and also backed by the UN. But even there things aren't as clear cut as you imply. North Korea had yet to turn into the Kim-led hard core Stalinist regime.
dqv 6y ago
Is there a reason you ommitted the working class from your comment? I find it odd you're addressing everything the parent said except for how globalization affects the working class.
newsclues 6y ago
Globalization transfer middle class jobs/wealth out of America allowing the upper class to gain a larger share of the profit, relying on the state to support the growing lower class but without a large middle class tax base. Don’t you see the problem here?
- wsgeek 6y ago
  Well said
- NicoJuicy 6y ago
  Historically the amount of people in "middle class" was very low. Globalisation allowed it to grow, but i don't think isolation fixes any problem if every country starts doing that.
throwaway5752 6y ago
No particular fan of the current administration here, nor do I disagree with you much. But you have to understand, the shift of manufacturing from the US has just devastated the economies of entire regions. You have children fleeing where their families have lived for generations. I'm convinced a factor in opiates getting a toehold in these areas was due to people going on disability to try to stay economically afloat, and getting prescribed painkillers as cover for faked injuries or in recovery for real but unneccessary surgeries (I have no proof, just anecdata). US hegemony was good for them. It helped payed their mortgages and their kids' tuitions. It's easy to magnanimous when you aren't the one losing your house or kids aren't ODing from fentanyl. And the resentment is real when you see new grads at Google or Facebook making 10 times what you make, or CEOs making 1000 times what you make. edit: the president did little, if anything to help their situation and channeled that resentment for his own benefit. It is a matter of national security that we all fix this and I hope the new administration will prioritize it.
- jstarfish 6y ago
  > I'm convinced a factor in opiates getting a toehold in these areas was due to people going on disability to try to stay economically afloat, and getting prescribed painkillers as cover for faked injuries or in recovery for real but unneccessary surgeries (I have no proof, just anecdata). IME it's less about disability fraud and more about treatment of the physical injuries sustained from blue-collar work. Those faking it are the ones with enough foresight to sell their pills to others. But you are otherwise right from what I've seen; the opiates are addictive, the demands of the job do not lessen (they only increase) and the rest writes itself.
  - throwaway5752 6y ago
    Of course you are right. It can be hard work and takes a toll on the body. I know this directly. I didn't mean to imply it was all fraud, and apologize if it came off that way.
- x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
  The people in those regions you mentioned are largely conservative. By that measure, isn't their issue with the Free-Market system which they prostrate themselves at the altar of? Conservatives also cite laws as being something that should be left up to the states. And they say that marginalized groups should simply move if they don't like the laws of the state they are in. So isn't the system working as they desired since people are leaving places they don't find suitable?
rayiner 6y ago
> Also, why is US hegemony a good thing? What good is it for the 96% of the world that is not the US? Does it even benefit anyone outside the US ruling class. I’m from Bangladesh. The US backed world order has been amazing for the country. The World Bank and IMF have helped countries like Bangladesh modernize their economies, and they’re US-led institutions. As the US pulls out, China displaces it. In Bangladesh, Chinese investment is flowing in, along with middle eastern culture. Neither of those things are good in my opinion. I don’t think the US needs to continue footing the bill alone. But the other western powers don’t seem interested in helping. When I think about what I want the future of Bangladesh to look like in 50 years, I want it to be basically like the US or Canada, only with different food and religious holidays and movies and literature. And that seemed like the future in the 1990s, but it’s getting cloudy today.
- xbar 6y ago
  This. US isolationism along with its "take my $ and going home" attitude to global institutions in order to court "one world government" conspiracists has created myriad political vacuums such as this. It would be nice if we weren't dealing with a poorly-handled pandemic and consequential economic crisis that will take all our attention for the next 3 years. But I'm optimistic that we will develop an outward-thinking foreign policy before the end of this presidency.
satisfaction 6y ago
The important question is when does it end, the economists that promoted globalization have come forward and admitted that it hurt the US more than planned. Does it only end when the US population is in the state that the poor Chinese, et al. farmers were in before we accepted this globalism? At some point we have to stop and say, "OK, we gave you a leg up now let's spend a few decades and rebuild our own country". This is not what is proposed by Democrat politicians, they propose we continue to transfer wealth (in many forms) to other countries and fill the income gap that is produced with social welfare programs.
tibiapejagala 6y ago
>Also, why is US hegemony a good thing? Maybe if you live in US you can afford to not care, but I live in a weak, poor, corrupted country. For us it's either US, Russia (now) or China (in the long run) and I prefer US after all.
spicyramen 6y ago
I second that US policy in American continent has been very infective that still hundreds of thousands migrate to US because their countries hasnt been developed. Let's take aside Civil war in Guatemala, Salvador and Nicaragua. Migrants flood because their local governments can't produce jobs not guarantee basic safety. US trains armies and send equipment through the PPP plan which got not results. Trump idea was to stop migration and the delegation of responsability back which results in basic jobs available for americans, force those countries to develop and at the end you can help them with investment in infrastructure with private money no government tax payer money.
manigandham 6y ago
US hegemony is also called Pax Americana. A global peace that has lasted for an average lifetime now. Would you prefer China or Russia instead?

laverya 6y ago

> Also, why is US hegemony a good thing? What good is it for the 96% of the world that is not the US? Does it even benefit anyone outside the US ruling class? As you alluded to in the previous paragraph, it's good for people because it means we're not participating in the kind of horrific wars that ravaged the world in the century before. And the US has been far less extractive than previous global hegemons. (So in that sense it's worse for US citizens, but better for the rest of the world) Now, everything is a tradeoff, and perhaps this particular tradeoff hasn't been worth it. But there are most certainly good things that US hegemony has given the world.

romanoderoma 6y ago
Is it true? https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-trump-brought-home-the-endless-war https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/how-trump-brou... Trump brought war on US soil, Americans VS other Americans, is it better?
- laverya 6y ago
  I have no idea how this is relevant to a comment on US hegemony. Is this the comment you meant to reply to? If you mean to say that BLM in the US is comparable to the great wars of the 19th and 20th centuries, I'd say that you're off by a factor of a million in deaths.
  - romanoderoma 6y ago
    Well it is relevant because US egemony is dead. And it was about time. Also: US Has Killed More Than 20 Million People in 37 “Victim Nations” Since World War II https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-has-killed-more-than-20-million-people-in-37-victim-nations-since-world-war-ii/5492051 https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-has-killed-more-than-20-mil...
    - laverya 6y ago
      "Here's a benefit that US hegemony provides" "But what about BLM and domestic conflict, US hegemony is dead, and the US has killed a lot of people overseas" I still don't see the connection.
      - notreallytrue 6y ago
        The US hegemony hasn't provided any benefit to anybody, except if you count millions of dead people as a benefit. Did the impoverishment of the middle class happen before, after, or during the US hegemony? Did the large scale wars of the past 30 years happen before, after or during US hegemony? Did the international terrorism escalation happen bwfore, after or during the US hegemony? The west especially is poorer and less safe. Trump was simply the final nail in the coffin. I think people are just connecting dots here. I really hope Biden will realise it.
    - mcguire 6y ago
      "To the families and friends of these victims it makes little difference whether the causes were U.S. military action, proxy military forces, the provision of U.S. military supplies or advisors, or other ways, such as economic pressures applied by our nation." "The U.S. is responsible for between 1 and 1.8 million deaths during the war between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan, by luring the Soviet Union into invading that nation." "Over the years we have repeatedly heard about the Khmer Rouge’s role in the deaths of millions in Cambodia without any acknowledgement being made this mass killing was made possible by the the U.S. bombing of that nation which destabilized it by death , injuries, hunger and dislocation of its people. So the U.S. bears responsibility not only for the deaths from the bombings but also for those resulting from the activities of the Khmer Rouge – a total of about 2.5 million people. Even when Vietnam latrer invaded Cambodia in 1979 the CIA was still supporting the Khmer Rouge." "Some people estimate that the number of Cuban forces killed range from 2,000, to 4,000. Another estimate is that 1,800 Cuban forces were killed on an open highway by napalm. This appears to have been a precursor of the Highway of Death in Iraq in 1991 when U.S. forces mercilessly annihilated large numbers of Iraqis on a highway." "Between 8,000 and 12,000 Nepalese have died since a civil war broke out in 1996. The death rate, according to Foreign Policy in Focus, sharply increased with the arrival of almost 8,400 American M-16 submachine guns (950 rpm) and U.S. advisers. Nepal is 85 percent rural and badly in need of land reform. Not surprisingly 42 % of its people live below the poverty level." "Yugoslavia was a socialist federation of several republics. Since it refused to be closely tied to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, it gained some suport from the U.S. But when the Soviet Union dissolved, Yugoslavia’s usefulness to the U.S. ended, and the U.S and Germany worked to convert its socialist economy to a capitalist one by a process primarily of dividing and conquering. There were ethnic and religious differences between various parts of Yugoslavia which were manipulated by the U.S. to cause several wars which resulted in the dissolution of that country. From the early 1990s until now Yugoslavia split into several independent nations whose lowered income, along with CIA connivance, has made it a pawn in the hands of capitalist countries. (1) The dissolution of Yugoslavia was caused primarily by the U.S." "Let us put this in historical perspective: the commemoration of the War to End All Wars acknowledges that 15 million lives were lost in the course of World War I (1914-18)." [But see the 1917-1919 flu pandemic, which may have started in the United States, making the US directly responsible for the deaths of 50 million people.]
- aksss 6y ago
  You’re questioning if it’s better to kill other families at scale than kill our own family members (thus far) in edge cases? Nietzsche said, “in times of peace a warlike nation turns on itself”.
FpUser 6y ago
The US does not have military hegemony as it shares it with the Russia (both have enough nukes to wipe out each other and the rest of the world). China would probably come to this stage soon as well. Being economic hegemon (again likely to be challenged by China) is obviously good for the US but the rest of the world might not share this view for the large part.

matt_o 6y ago

> Also, why is US hegemony a good thing? What good is it for the 96% of the world that is not the US? To paraphrase Churchill: "The US hegemony is the worst hegemony for the world, except for all the other hegemonies." The US retreating into isolationism would likely open up a vacuum eagerly filled in by less, well, liberal-minded states. The globalization you describe was pushed by the US-EU-(Japan/India/etc.) alliance, with the US's armed forced being the big stick in case someone would object. At least this is my current understanding.

zebrafish 6y ago
That’s correct. This was the only way for the world to pay for WWII and for the US to stem the tide of communism and Stalin’s Russia. Now that the Cold War is over, the US middle class isn’t sure it wants to foot the bill for maintaining this system that no longer seems to provide it much benefit and, in fact, has seemed to harm it. I think the world will see a decent amount of chaos as the US pulls back from protecting global trade routes. Unless all of the other countries of the world want to agree to a global socialistic society, I think the US will likely focus on building back its manufacturing base, opening and maintaining markets for those goods to flow to, reducing the Medicare and Social Security overhead so that this isolationist system can actually survive, and then politics will be focused on traditional values vs progressive ideas. Of course the internet will make this conversation much messier than it used to be in the pre-WWII days. I’m interested to see how the shifting demographics affect this conversation. The three biggest things that shaped history are demographics, geography, and information flow. Two of these three are going to be significantly different since the last time the US moved towards isolationism.
FpUser 6y ago
>"...with the US's armed forced being the big stick in case someone would object..." Yup having big stick lets one tell the rest of the world to shut up and do what the're told to do. Nice example of democracy and mutual respect in action.
- Supermancho 6y ago
  > Nice example of democracy and mutual respect in action. Is that supposed to be a back-handed way of making a point? I don't understand what those things have to do with global stability. Someone will be the de facto world police by force, now that the technology to utilize energy is so efficient. This situation has nothing to do with some sort of (USA-centered) Politically Correct philosophy. This situation is the eventuality of our time.

bane 6y ago

> Also, why is US hegemony a good thing? > Globalization has lifted billions from poverty. There, I reordered things for you to answer your own question. :)

baby 6y ago

That's what bothers me with the world at the moment, we have powerful states fighting for their hegemony (sometimes with nuclear weapons), not thinking at all about the earth as a unified place full with people and not citizen of whatever country.

ThrowawayR2 6y ago

> "Also, why is US hegemony a good thing?" If you review history, large wars broke out between the major powers vying for dominance on a regular basis in the 19th and early 20th century, culminating in the First and Second World Wars. For all the negatives of what the US has done with its military since then, they're not a hundredth as bad as what went on before by any objective measure. The Pax Americana has been good for stability and with stability comes prosperity. If the United States truly gave up its hegemony and turned isolationist, you'd see a resurgence of rearmament and jockeying for power among nations, inevitably followed by a new era of war after war.

brabel 6y ago
What Pax Americana? The US has been in multiple wars every single year[1] since the end of World War II. Not to mention the Cold War, which only stayed cold because of the nukes holding both sides back. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States#20th-century_wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni...
- blix 6y ago
  Rome was involved in multiple periphery wars during the "Pax Romana" as well. Instead, the historical term refers to internal peace within the empire. Pax Americana usually means the same thing, though the borders of the empire are a little less clear.
codekilla 6y ago
Complete BS. The US has unilaterally kneecapped the U.N. and every other international organization capable of facilitating a fair world order. We don’t need the US to build a fair world order, contrary to the neocon ‘Pax Americana’ crap. Honestly I was surprised to see that phrase in a hacker news comment.
- disgruntledphd2 6y ago
  I'm a European lefty, and I always hated the American imperialism. I was kinda happy about Trump talking about pulling out of all the foreign wars. Then I thought about it a bit more, and realised (and the last four years have shown) that if America withdraw, the Russians and the Chinese will move right in, and while I'm not a major fan of American imperialism, I'm even less of a fan of the Russian or Chinese flavours. And the US built the UN and all the other multilateral organisations post WW2, so yeah they work for the US, but they're also pretty good for everyone else.

srtjstjsj 6y ago

> Also, why is US hegemony a good thing? You yourself just wrote a the answer: it prevents wars.

socialdemocrat 6y ago
The US does not prevent wars. It is a cause of most of the wars in modern times. It has done something like 100 military invasions. Toppled countless democratically elected leaders and undermined democracies. US hegemony is to set be the US, not to serve the world.
- bawolff 6y ago
  Yes, that's the argument, in a hegemony (usa or otherwise), wars basically only happen when the hegemon wants them to, and the hegemon has so much soft power its rare that they want them to, and when it does happen its small scale. The end result is ordinary people get caught up in less wars because politically war is much more rarely the right answer (either you're too politically weak to start one, or if you are the hegemon you just give people the evil eye and they usually shutup) That doesn't make it a utopia, just a world with less war dead.
hef19898 6y ago
Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq might disagree. It did prevent, possibly, wars in Europe.
- flyinglizard 6y ago
  Vietnam was the US standing to a foreign power trying to take over. It is not a war on the nation, but a war on an aggressive faction. Same for Korea really.
  - hef19898 6y ago
    The Vietnamese fought for freedom from colonialism. The got that from the French, almost, until the US intervened. The only aggressive factions were the French and the US. Korea was different, and also backed by the UN. But even there things aren't as clear cut as you imply. North Korea had yet to turn into the Kim-led hard core Stalinist regime.

dqv 6y ago

Is there a reason you ommitted the working class from your comment? I find it odd you're addressing everything the parent said except for how globalization affects the working class.

newsclues 6y ago

Globalization transfer middle class jobs/wealth out of America allowing the upper class to gain a larger share of the profit, relying on the state to support the growing lower class but without a large middle class tax base. Don’t you see the problem here?

wsgeek 6y ago
Well said
NicoJuicy 6y ago
Historically the amount of people in "middle class" was very low. Globalisation allowed it to grow, but i don't think isolation fixes any problem if every country starts doing that.

throwaway5752 6y ago

No particular fan of the current administration here, nor do I disagree with you much. But you have to understand, the shift of manufacturing from the US has just devastated the economies of entire regions. You have children fleeing where their families have lived for generations. I'm convinced a factor in opiates getting a toehold in these areas was due to people going on disability to try to stay economically afloat, and getting prescribed painkillers as cover for faked injuries or in recovery for real but unneccessary surgeries (I have no proof, just anecdata). US hegemony was good for them. It helped payed their mortgages and their kids' tuitions. It's easy to magnanimous when you aren't the one losing your house or kids aren't ODing from fentanyl. And the resentment is real when you see new grads at Google or Facebook making 10 times what you make, or CEOs making 1000 times what you make. edit: the president did little, if anything to help their situation and channeled that resentment for his own benefit. It is a matter of national security that we all fix this and I hope the new administration will prioritize it.

jstarfish 6y ago
> I'm convinced a factor in opiates getting a toehold in these areas was due to people going on disability to try to stay economically afloat, and getting prescribed painkillers as cover for faked injuries or in recovery for real but unneccessary surgeries (I have no proof, just anecdata). IME it's less about disability fraud and more about treatment of the physical injuries sustained from blue-collar work. Those faking it are the ones with enough foresight to sell their pills to others. But you are otherwise right from what I've seen; the opiates are addictive, the demands of the job do not lessen (they only increase) and the rest writes itself.
- throwaway5752 6y ago
  Of course you are right. It can be hard work and takes a toll on the body. I know this directly. I didn't mean to imply it was all fraud, and apologize if it came off that way.
x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
The people in those regions you mentioned are largely conservative. By that measure, isn't their issue with the Free-Market system which they prostrate themselves at the altar of? Conservatives also cite laws as being something that should be left up to the states. And they say that marginalized groups should simply move if they don't like the laws of the state they are in. So isn't the system working as they desired since people are leaving places they don't find suitable?

rayiner 6y ago

> Also, why is US hegemony a good thing? What good is it for the 96% of the world that is not the US? Does it even benefit anyone outside the US ruling class. I’m from Bangladesh. The US backed world order has been amazing for the country. The World Bank and IMF have helped countries like Bangladesh modernize their economies, and they’re US-led institutions. As the US pulls out, China displaces it. In Bangladesh, Chinese investment is flowing in, along with middle eastern culture. Neither of those things are good in my opinion. I don’t think the US needs to continue footing the bill alone. But the other western powers don’t seem interested in helping. When I think about what I want the future of Bangladesh to look like in 50 years, I want it to be basically like the US or Canada, only with different food and religious holidays and movies and literature. And that seemed like the future in the 1990s, but it’s getting cloudy today.

xbar 6y ago
This. US isolationism along with its "take my $ and going home" attitude to global institutions in order to court "one world government" conspiracists has created myriad political vacuums such as this. It would be nice if we weren't dealing with a poorly-handled pandemic and consequential economic crisis that will take all our attention for the next 3 years. But I'm optimistic that we will develop an outward-thinking foreign policy before the end of this presidency.

satisfaction 6y ago

The important question is when does it end, the economists that promoted globalization have come forward and admitted that it hurt the US more than planned. Does it only end when the US population is in the state that the poor Chinese, et al. farmers were in before we accepted this globalism? At some point we have to stop and say, "OK, we gave you a leg up now let's spend a few decades and rebuild our own country". This is not what is proposed by Democrat politicians, they propose we continue to transfer wealth (in many forms) to other countries and fill the income gap that is produced with social welfare programs.

tibiapejagala 6y ago

>Also, why is US hegemony a good thing? Maybe if you live in US you can afford to not care, but I live in a weak, poor, corrupted country. For us it's either US, Russia (now) or China (in the long run) and I prefer US after all.

spicyramen 6y ago

I second that US policy in American continent has been very infective that still hundreds of thousands migrate to US because their countries hasnt been developed. Let's take aside Civil war in Guatemala, Salvador and Nicaragua. Migrants flood because their local governments can't produce jobs not guarantee basic safety. US trains armies and send equipment through the PPP plan which got not results. Trump idea was to stop migration and the delegation of responsability back which results in basic jobs available for americans, force those countries to develop and at the end you can help them with investment in infrastructure with private money no government tax payer money.

manigandham 6y ago

US hegemony is also called Pax Americana. A global peace that has lasted for an average lifetime now. Would you prefer China or Russia instead?