American Decline
Posted on | January 7, 2009 |
I am going to make an off-hand wager: the decline of the United States will lead to a more peaceful world.
(Reading the Harper’s Piece Utopia Falls would help as background here)
Theory of hegemonic transfer would have it that during times of flux, one big power in decline and another rising, there exists conflict. China seems like one likely candidate, with their communist system clipping along quite well while other economies suffer, to take over from American Dominance. But, China talks of a peaceful or quiet rise and what their world “leadership” would look like is a crapshoot.
The character of American political leadership is quiet clear though. Torture, perpetual warfare, astronomical imprisonment rates, forceful economic control, and support for whatever dictatorship or cruel entity happens to be in line with our business interests–all under the guise of Human Rights, American exceptionalism and the interest of others. Military empire in short. Half of the world’s military expenditure is our own.
In America’s decline our militarism is sure to wither. In my world, that can only be a good thing.
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4 Responses to “American Decline”
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January 8th, 2009 @ 3:21 pm
yo man, i see where you coming from with this, but i think you go a little too far to be praising the chinese government. The chinese have many human rights violations to their name, not to mention worse pollution than anywhere in the U.S. On many days there is so much pollution in the air that it is impossible to see down the block. And to call the chinese government communistic is erroneous. They call themselves communist while operating under a free-market capitalist structure. Don’t forget that they produce a large portion of all the crap we buy here in the U.S.
January 9th, 2009 @ 8:59 am
Jes and whoever else reading this,
Let me be clear: I am not praising the Chinese government here. What I am saying is it has the potential to become a/the new hegemon. It has a big military, huge economy, and a massive workforce. I am well-aware of China’s human rights violations and researched their connection to the ethnic cleansings and civil wars of Sudan. The pictures of the pollution are incredible and yes, they do operate with a psuedo-capitalist structure. You must remember their form of capitalism is very much directed by the government. The government designated where and when capitalist ventures could set up–designating “free-market zones” or something like this.
I should have been more clear, and not have said the communist system is doing just fine. The Chinese system is probably something more akin to a less environmentally-regulated, government-led capitalism.
Here in the West we love to talk about other countries Human Rights violations, but overlook our own. The US has the highest incarceration rate. We support Israel. Our weapons are fired at Gazans, Mexican drug cartels buy them, Peruvian militaries train here, Central Asian dictators shake our hands and protect our pipelines, and so on. The US refused last month to sign a ban on cluster bombs! The single greatest human rights triumph would be to shut down the weapons producers in the US, destroy the nuclear weapons and turn manufacturers of warships and tanks into alternative-fuel train producers.
January 10th, 2009 @ 9:36 pm
Of all the South American militaries to choose, you chose Peru? Although it has nothing to do with your point, I have to defend Peru’s honor here. The time of Peru’s military dictatorship was a peaceful time in sharp contrast to the human rights abuses done by the militaries of Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil. Look it up: Velasco was a great leader, better than most of the democratically-elected ones since. I think what you have to be referring to is the time from 1988-1993 when Peru was a democracy that shunned the US (at least from ‘85 to ‘90 and ‘93 to ‘95). The abuses committed were done at the behest of a democratic government and in response to MUCH MUCH worse crimes by a COMMUNIST terrorist group. So maybe pick on someone who deserves it: I choose Argentina or Chile.
And if you hate America because of their militarism and believe there will be a decline in violence because of our decline, how can you justify that by saying it’ll be better when China rises to take our place? Your justification specifically points to their enormous military as the reason for them surpassing us!
And seriously, you will be very very hard-pressed to find any time at any point in history in which the decline of an empire proved to be a less violent time. It is almost universally agreed that the decline of an empires is THE MOST VIOLENT time in its history. And the violence only escalates as one hegemon passes the baton to the next because, as you noted, the next is always more violent and more militaristic than the last.
Look up the ‘balloon effect’ (i discovered it when studying the drug trade in andean countries). That will wipe out your last paragraph (in your comment)’s hypothetical triumph. All that would mean is that instead of more nicaraguans dying from american bullets, they’ll be dying of chinese bullets (we already seeing this in Africa where the US has lost the high ground to China in the past decade: see Darfur).
January 11th, 2009 @ 6:10 pm
“The single greatest human rights triumph would be to shut down the weapons producers in the US, destroy the nuclear weapons and turn manufacturers of warships and tanks into alternative-fuel train producers.”
Right, because then all the other countries will give up their nuclear weapons, disband their militaries, and we’ll all live in a utopia of fairies and unicorns!