Harvard Historian: Collapse of America, Swift, Sudden & Certain

[melensdad]

collapse-of-the-american-empire-swift-silent-certain: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance & CBS MarketWatch

Commentary: Historians Warning of a Sudden 'Thief at Night,' an 'Accelerating Car Crash'

"One of the disturbing facts of history is that so many civilizations collapse," warns anthropologist Jared Diamond in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Many "civilizations share a sharp curve of decline. Indeed, a society's demise may begin only a decade or two after it reaches its peak population, wealth and power."

Now, Harvard's Niall Ferguson, one of the world's leading financial historians, echoes Diamond's warning: "Imperial collapse may come much more suddenly than many historians imagine. A combination of fiscal deficits and military overstretch suggests that the United States may be the next empire on the precipice." Yes, America is on the edge.

Dismiss his warning at your peril. Everything you learned, everything you believe and everything driving our political leaders is based on a misleading, outdated theory of history. The American Empire is at the edge of a dangerous precipice, at risk of a sudden, rapid collapse.

Ferguson is brilliant, prolific and contrarian. His works include the recent Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World; The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World; Colossus: The Rise and Fall of The American Empire; and The War of the World, a survey of the "savagery of the 20th century" where he highlights a profound "paradox that, though the 20th century was 'so bloody,' it was also 'a time of unparalleled progress.'"

Why? Throughout history imperial leaders inevitably emerge and drive their nations into wars for greater glory and "economic progress," while inevitably leading their nation into collapse. And that happens suddenly and swiftly, within "a decade or two."

You'll find Ferguson's latest work, "Collapse and Complexity: Empires on the Edge of Chaos," in Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Council of Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank. His message negates all the happy talk you're hearing in today's news -- about economic recovery and new bull markets, about "hope," about a return to "American greatness" -- from Washington politicians and Wall Street bankers.

'Collapse of All Empires:' 5 Stages Repeating Through the Ages

Ferguson opens with a fascinating metaphor: "There is no better illustration of the life cycle of a great power than 'The Course of Empire,' a series of five paintings by Thomas Cole that hangs in the New York Historical Society. Cole was a founder of the Hudson River School and one of the pioneers of nineteenth-century American landscape painting; in 'The Course of Empire,' he beautifully captured a theory of imperial rise and fall to which most people remain in thrall to this day. Each of the five imagined scenes depicts the mouth of a great river beneath a rocky outcrop."

If you're unable to see them at the historical society, they're all reproduced in Foreign Affairs, underscoring Ferguson's warnings that the "American Empire on the precipice," near collapse.

First. 'The Savage State,' Before the Empire Rises

"In the first, 'The Savage State,' a lush wilderness is populated by a handful of hunter-gatherers eking out a primitive existence at the break of a stormy dawn." Imagine our history from Columbus' discovery of America in 1492 on through four more centuries as we savagely expanded across the continent.

Second. 'The Arcadian or Pastoral State,' as the American Empire Flourishes

"The second picture, 'The Arcadian or Pastoral State,' is of an agrarian idyll: the inhabitants have cleared the trees, planted fields, and built an elegant Greek temple." The temple may seem out of place. However, Cole's paintings were done in 1833-1836, not long after Thomas Jefferson built the University of Virginia using classical Greek and Roman revival architecture.

As Ferguson continues the tour you sense you're actually inside the New York Historical Society, visually reminded of how history's great cycles do indeed repeat over and over. You are also reminded of one of history's great tragic ironies -- that all nations fail to learn the lessons of history, that all nations and their leaders fall prey to their own narcissistic hubris and that all eventually collapse from within.

Third. Consummation of the American Empire

"The third and largest of the paintings is 'The Consummation of Empire.' Now, the landscape is covered by a magnificent marble entrepôt, and the contented farmer-philosophers of the previous tableau have been replaced by a throng of opulently clad merchants, proconsuls and citizen-consumers. It is midday in the life cycle."

'The Consummation of Empire' focuses us on Ferguson's core message: At the very peak of their power, affluence and glory, leaders arise, run amok with imperial visions and sabotage themselves, their people and their nation. They have it all.

But more-is-not enough as greed, arrogance and a thirst for power consume them. Back in the early days of the Iraq war, Kevin Phillips, political historian and former Nixon strategist, also captured this inevitable tendency in Wealth and Democracy:

"Most great nations, at the peak of their economic power, become arrogant and wage great world wars at great cost, wasting vast resources, taking on huge debt, and ultimately burning themselves out." We sense the "consummation" of the American Empire occurred with the leadership handoff from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush.

Unfortunately that peak is behind us: Clinton, Bush, Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and all future American leaders are merely playing their parts in the greatest of all historical dramas, repeating but never fully grasping the lessons of history in their insatiable drive for "economic progress," to recapture former glory ... while unwittingly pushing our empire to the edge, into collapse.

Four. Destruction of the Empire

Then comes 'The Destruction of Empire,' the fourth stage in Ferguson's grand drama about the life-cycle of all empires. In "Destruction" "the city is ablaze, its citizens fleeing an invading horde that rapes and pillages beneath a brooding evening sky." Elsewhere in "The War of the World," Ferguson described the 20th century as "the bloodiest in history, one hundred years of butchery." Today's high-tech relentless news cycle, suggests that our 21st century world is a far bloodier return to savagery.

At this point, investors are asking themselves: How can I prepare for the destruction and collapse of the American Empire? There is no solution in the Cole-Ferguson scenario, only an acceptance of fate, of destiny, of history's inevitable cycles.

But there is one in "Wealth, War and Wisdom" by hedge fund manager Barton Biggs, Morgan Stanley's former chief global strategist who warns us of the "possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure," advising us to buy a farm in the mountains.

"Your safe haven must be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food ... well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc. Think Swiss Family Robinson." And when they come looting, fire "a few rounds over the approaching brigands' heads."

Five. Desolation ... After the Empire Disappears

"Finally, the moon rises over the fifth painting, 'Desolation,'" says Ferguson. There is not a living soul to be seen, only a few decaying columns and colonnades overgrown by briars and ivy." No attacking "brigands?" No loveable waste-collecting robots from Wall-E?

The good news is the Earth will naturally regenerate itself without savage humans, as we saw in Alan Weisman's brilliant "The World Without Us:" Steel buildings decay. Microbes eat indestructible plastics. Eons pass. And Earth reemerges in all its glory, a Garden of Eden.

Epilogue: 'All Empires ... Are Condemned to Decline and Fall'

In a Los Angeles Times column, Ferguson asks: "America, a Fragile Empire: Here today, gone tomorrow, could the United States fall that fast?" And his answer is clear and emphatic: "For centuries, historians, political theorists, anthropologists and the public have tended to think about the political process in seasonal, cyclical terms ... we discern a rhythm to history. Great powers, like great men, are born, rise, reign and then gradually wane. No matter whether civilizations decline culturally, economically or ecologically, their downfalls are protracted."

We are deceiving ourselves, convinced "the challenges that face the United States are often represented as slow-burning ... threats seem very remote."
... continued at link ...

What do you think?

[Gav]

I am sure Mr Ferguson is an accomplished historian however the person writing that article is a loon.

What is this? A book review or alarmist polemic?

What's your point?

Thanks for wasting my time with this.

[telkanuru]

Yeah, that British Empire- totally gone, eh?

[Gav]

Yeah, that British Empire- totally gone, eh?

Your point caller?

[telkanuru]

Your point caller?

well, this.

Four. Destruction of the Empire

Then comes 'The Destruction of Empire,' the fourth stage in Ferguson's grand drama about the life-cycle of all empires. In "Destruction" "the city is ablaze, its citizens fleeing an invading horde that rapes and pillages beneath a brooding evening sky."

[Hauptman]

What do you think?

Defintely melodramatic, but there is some truth to it.

There are definitely cycles, and in some ways it does describe the U.S. up to this point; it's not a stretch to say that we peaked.

On the other hand, receding from a peak is not the same as total collapse, although some sort of collapse is always a very real possibility. The Great Depression was a collapse of sorts, but the post WW II environment allowed us to grow and peak again.

I think the former European empires are a good example. The British empire is dead, but England and it's former subject nations are thriving.

The scary part in the U.S. though is the polarization that we are experiencing. We have the means to accomplish a lot, but not the political will. We are becoming more and more unable to deal with the issues that confront us because we have no desire to work together for a common cause, the common good, and I think that may be the fundamental cause of our future troubles.

Our system functioned well for so long because of it's ability to adapt to changing times and needs, but it has lost much of that flexibility. If the system does not adapt then it eventually breaks, and that leads to collapse.

There is no common bond that binds us; it is all too common now to label any we disagree with as un-American, un-patriotic, and simply "the enemy". I'm growing more pessimistic as time goes on because I see little desire in our culture to move from this dangerous confrontational path.

[fencerchica]

One of my favorite works of Kevin Phillips is American Theocracy, in which he echoes some of the concerns expressed above by Jared Diamond. Wealth and Democracy is on my bookshelf but I haven't had the time to read it yet. While not being a liberal per se, Kevin Phillips sees the rise of movement conservatism as being the greatest threat our country has ever seen, because of the way it proposes to send us down the path to decline that other empires have followed before us. This is because of how movement conservatism is beholden to corrupt and unsustainable financial interests (specifically the F.I.R.E. sector) and to the fanatic goals of the Religious Right, and is maintained only by tenuous access to natural resources. A large part of American Theocracy consists of applying this thesis to an analysis of our entry into the Iraq War. I find Phillips and Krugman (next book by him I'm about to read is The Great Unraveling) to be especially interesting when taken as complementary to one another.

Having said all that -- Melensdad, do you actually agree with these theses of Kevin Phillips that serve as the jumping off point for this analysis of empire in decline? I mean, I kind of do, myself, but I don't think I have a feel for where you're approaching this from.

[Gav]

well, this.

Yeah well it was really **** when that happened in Edinburgh.

We're over it now though.

[melensdad]

Having said all that -- Melensdad, do you actually agree with these theses of Kevin Phillips that serve as the jumping off point for this analysis of empire in decline? I mean, I kind of do, myself, but I don't think I have a feel for where you're approaching this from.

Well I didn't post my opinions because I wanted to see if this would even be taken seriously. But now that it has I have to say that I do see SOME parallels to the path the US is going on, albeit without some of the drama expressed.

We saw the collapse of many great empires over the past couple thousand years, but far more recently we saw the USSR implode under its weight and prior to that we saw the financial collapse of Argentina. There is no reason to believe that the USA will maintain its world dominance over time, but while it may decline it doesn't necessarily mean that we will face a total collapse of society, our monetary system, and our infrastructure. Then again, we may face some/all of these things if our debt (piled up by both parties) is not controlled. Further we need to consider that we are approaching a level of support for the lowest classes of society where they are contributing little to nothing in terms of GDP and are receiving a great deal of services from our government. While I am not advocating that we cut off the lowest class of society from aid, there must be some realistic effort to convert them from a dependent class into a productive class if we are to maintain our society. The type of aid given must be such that it helps them up the economic ladder rather than holding them in place.

I believe that in all western societies we have too much focus on short term compassion at the expense of long term sustainability. Basically if we only feed the poor, without reeducating and retraining them, then we may well doom ourselves to national poverty and collapse. Many of our national policies appear to be written as if we exist inside of an economic vacuum. We over-tax product "X" and then we cry when the factory making product "X" moves to a foreign land. Similarly we over-regulate a factory making product "Y" and then cry when the factory making that product moves to a lower regulated land. Either way it leads to a non-competitive situation whereby we lose tax revenues from producers and then our compassion says we need to support those former producers while they look for new work. But if the disincentives are high enough that there is no new work we will develop a land of non-workers and a cycle of decline. This is clearly an OVERLY SIMPLISTIC view of things but it is the core of what many nations are facing.

[Digital Analog]

Well I didn't post my opinions because I wanted to see if this would even be taken seriously. But now that it has I have to say that I do see SOME parallels to the path the US is going on, albeit without some of the drama expressed.

We saw the collapse of many great empires over the past couple thousand years, but far more recently we saw the USSR implode under its weight and prior to that we saw the financial collapse of Argentina. There is no reason to believe that the USA will maintain its world dominance over time, but while it may decline it doesn't necessarily mean that we will face a total collapse of society, our monetary system, and our infrastructure. Then again, we may face some/all of these things if our debt (piled up by both parties) is not controlled. Further we need to consider that we are approaching a level of support for the lowest classes of society where they are contributing little to nothing in terms of GDP and are receiving a great deal of services from our government. While I am not advocating that we cut off the lowest class of society from aid, there must be some realistic effort to convert them from a dependent class into a productive class if we are to maintain our society. The type of aid given must be such that it helps them up the economic ladder rather than holding them in place.

I believe that in all western societies we have too much focus on short term compassion at the expense of long term sustainability. Basically if we only feed the poor, without reeducating and retraining them, then we may well doom ourselves to national poverty and collapse. Many of our national policies appear to be written as if we exist inside of an economic vacuum. We over-tax product "X" and then we cry when the factory making product "X" moves to a foreign land. Similarly we over-regulate a factory making product "Y" and then cry when the factory making that product moves to a lower regulated land. Either way it leads to a non-competitive situation whereby we lose tax revenues from producers and then our compassion says we need to support those former producers while they look for new work. But if the disincentives are high enough that there is no new work we will develop a land of non-workers and a cycle of decline. This is clearly an OVERLY SIMPLISTIC view of things but it is the core of what many nations are facing.

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-GaXa8tSBE[/YOUTUBE]

[fencerchica]

We saw the collapse of many great empires over the past couple thousand years, but far more recently we saw the USSR implode under its weight and prior to that we saw the financial collapse of Argentina.

Kevin Phillips argues persuasively that there are three past empires whose structure and whose trajectories of rise and fall most closely mirror how he perceives the US: The Dutch, the Spanish, and the British. I really don't think I can agree with you that the USSR is sufficiently similar to the US as to bear close comparison. Your choice of it, though, might reflect your biases with regard to whether the wealthy or the poor are the ones most in need of political support at present in our country... As for Argentina, while their financial problems might bear some similarity to ours, financial problems are only one part of the problem, and no offense to any Argentinians, but they don't compare in terms of global political sway/over-reach. Although granted, their government did start the Falkland War just in order to gin up public support for its regime, so there is that.

There is no reason to believe that the USA will maintain its world dominance over time, but while it may decline it doesn't necessarily mean that we will face a total collapse of society, our monetary system, and our infrastructure. Then again, we may face some/all of these things if our debt (piled up by both parties) is not controlled.

I completely agree with you here.

Further we need to consider that we are approaching a level of support for the lowest classes of society where they are contributing little to nothing in terms of GDP and are receiving a great deal of services from our government.

But wow... We're living in an era where, for good or for ill, our military has been co-opted into a global private security force for the benefit of oil industry, where insurance companies are ditching the sick while pulling in record profits, and where Repblicans like Chris Christie are selectively slashing services needed by the poor to make ends meet while refusing to tax the wealthy, and you're going around saying that the poor are the ones receiving too large of a share of government services? The wealthy are paying what is almost an all-time low in income taxes, lower even than under their precious Saint Ronald of Reagan, the poor are putting their houses in hock to survive from one day to the next and then being told they deserve it when they end up underwater, unions are under seige and seeing their membership declining to a low not seen since the Gilded Age, even the freaking right to vote is under attack when it comes to poor Americans (hint: there was a thread about this recently). Hmm, why do you think it is that the poor can't contribute as much to GDP as the FIRE sector? From a strictly monetary standpoint, productivity is getting concentrated into a smaller and smaller elite because the ability of the rest of society to produce is being eroded due to the way the rules are being manipulated on behalf of the powerful. For example, manufacturing is bleeding out of the country and we're turning into a service-based economy because of corporations sneaking offshore (only to sell cheap crap at union-busting stores like Wal-Mart *spit* to the folks left back home) and because of unequal trade agreements.

While I am not advocating that we cut off the lowest class of society from aid, there must be some realistic effort to convert them from a dependent class into a productive class if we are to maintain our society. The type of aid given must be such that it helps them up the economic ladder rather than holding them in place.

Fair enough. I vote for strengthening unions and promoting union membership (we can start by passing the Employee Free Choice Act), making our tax code decently, maybe even aggressively progressive again, raising the capital gains tax, raising the estate tax (and closing the loophole created by Bush's repeal of it *spit*), reforming the insurance industry into a non-profit structure at the very least, and splitting the increased tax revenue among improving public transportation, education, and paying down the national debt.

Basically if we only feed the poor, without reeducating and retraining them, then we may well doom ourselves to national poverty and collapse.

Re-training is always a net positive, but it is a myth that it's due to lack of training that the US middle class has been contracting and falling behind the upper class. The upper class, like I said, tends to be concentrated in the FIRE sector, and even a highly trained professional is not going to be able to come near catching up. I could go out and get my PhD and if I remain in my present industry being decently productive, there is no freaking way in hell I'll ever be able to catch up with my undergrad classmates who crossed over into banking, finance, or insurance, even though they haven't pursued graduate education as I have. This all keeps coming back to how wealth and polical power are being concentrated into a smaller and smaller class of Americans -- and REAL wealth and power are being concentrated into a tiny handful.

Many of our national policies appear to be written as if we exist inside of an economic vacuum. We over-tax product "X" and then we cry when the factory making product "X" moves to a foreign land. Similarly we over-regulate a factory making product "Y" and then cry when the factory making that product moves to a lower regulated land. Either way it leads to a non-competitive situation whereby we lose tax revenues from producers and then our compassion says we need to support those former producers while they look for new work. But if the disincentives are high enough that there is no new work we will develop a land of non-workers and a cycle of decline. This is clearly an OVERLY SIMPLISTIC view of things but it is the core of what many nations are facing.

The reason why this is an overly simplistic view is that it assumes a fair tax and tariff system. It's like imagining fencing without footwork!

[melensdad]

I really don't think I can agree with you that the USSR is sufficiently similar to the US as to bear close comparison.

I never said that. I simply said it was a recent collapse but I never compared it to the US, nor did I imply that.

The reason why this is an overly simplistic view is that it assumes a fair tax and tariff system. It's like imagining fencing without footwork!

Well I said up front it was overly simplistic. But I agree with you that it assumes a fair tax/tariff system but since each nation of the world has a different opinion on fairness, and each has its own self interests, it is unlikely that fairness could be achieved.

[Bayou Bum]

The wealthy are paying what is almost an all-time low in income taxes, lower even than under their precious Saint Ronald of Reagan

So lets go back to Reaganomics ... wait, we will in 2012!

Fair enough. I vote for strengthening unions and promoting union membership (we can start by passing the Employee Free Choice Act)

As quoted from your link:
Why Workers Need the Freedom to Form Unions and Bargain

"Joining together in a union to bargain for health care, pensions, fair wages and better working conditions is the best opportunity working people have to get ahead."


Not one word about working hard or better education to get ahead. As usual, dependent on someone else. People will never, have never, become wealthy by depending on others to get ahead.


I love the name: Employee Free Choice Act; as if it gives the employee a real free choice to join the union. It's like everything else this administration does, use intimidation and coercion to accomplish its goals. What is wrong with giving the employees a private ballot to cast their votes? I know, because not all employees want a union!

reforming the insurance industry into a non-profit structure at the very least

Profit = evil!
According to the most current Fortune 500, insurance companies only have a profit margin of 2.2%, none of the top 10 made more than 4.5% and two lost money. Their profit margins are only a fraction of drug companies, hospitals, and medical equipment suppliers. The combined profits of the top 10 insurers is $8.3 billion, only 1/7th of what Medicare loses each year to fraud and less than .4% of total health care costs in the US.

Re-training is always a net positive, but it is a myth that it's due to lack of training that the US middle class has been contracting and falling behind the upper class. The upper class, like I said, tends to be concentrated in the FIRE sector, and even a highly trained professional is not going to be able to come near catching up. I could go out and get my PhD and if I remain in my present industry being decently productive, there is no freaking way in hell I'll ever be able to catch up with my undergrad classmates who crossed over into banking, finance, or insurance, even though they haven't pursued graduate education as I have. This all keeps coming back to how wealth and polical power are being concentrated into a smaller and smaller class of Americans -- and REAL wealth and power are being concentrated into a tiny handful.

Then why don't you pursue a career in banking, finance or insurance? You have/had a choice. Just because you regret your career choice, you want to punish others who you envy. Maybe you should become a community organizer and never amount to anything! Stop whining about the choices you made.

[Inquartata]

Now, now, she's not whining about the choices she made. She's complaining that the market values other choices more highly, and rewards them commensurately.

Of course, that's the way the market works. Which is why, I guess, the market MUST be tempered with socialist measures, to force it do do otherwise, to redistribute income, wealth and things like respect and prestige to those who go into professions which are more morally worthy---like teaching and social work, I suppose. And manual labor, because blue-collar workers are better people than white-collar ones. ( Hence unions must be "strengthened", the better to restrict the supply of labor in those occupations and force incomes higher. )

It really does all hang together. In the way a flock of limed pigeons do.

[I_luv_saber]

Labor is just another part of the market. I'm not sure why people will tout the idea of laws backing labor unions but then turn around and damn laws backing employers. Unions are just "companies" for labor.

They're a great idea - Hayek even talks about how if unions weren't around he'd invent them! But to have laws aggressively backing them is no more fair than having laws supporting employers and putting labor at a disadvantage.

[jeff]

I've never been convinced by Ferguson's claims that the US is an "empire" or should act more like one, so his claim that the empire is coming to an end isn't convincing either and seems touched with hysteria. Let's all panic!!! We talked about him about 6 years ago: US an empire with attention-deficit disorder He complained that we had a short attention span and were conflicted about being an empire in the British model (which he *wanted* us to do), therefore did a lousy job of it. Imagine that: doing a crummy job of something he felt we should be doing but we never made our national policy, in a post-imperialistic period where countries no longer feel like being owned and operated by Europeans or their descendants. If you ask me, we've gotten into plenty of trouble with military occupations in places that once were colonial possessions of other countries. I think Mr. Ferguson has a revisionist attitude about imperialism and colonialism.

There are alternating cycles of "America is the unchallenged super power!" (with a veneer of triumphalism at home, and expressions of horror overseas) and "American power is on the wane!" (with expressions of horror here, and a veneer of schadenfreude overseas). So, we're in the "wane" part of the cycle now, which has happened before and will probably happen again. We've never had a recession before and people unhappy? Cast your mind back just a few presidencies ago.

Not long ago the Japanese were supposedly were going to take over everything, and everybody thought it was necessary to learn Japanese language, customs and business practices. They've been busted for a decade or two. Now, I suppose it's going to be the Chinese, unless it turns out they really have a bubble too (some observers say they are on the brink.) In 2000 we were the top of the pop charts and people were talking about DJIA reaching 36,000, and now we have a recession so I guess we should all be wearing sack cloth. Oh, please, as if that was a long term historical perspective. As if the recession is unique to us: it's hit countries from Iceland to Greece.... As if the recession is permanent (God forbid!)

A reminder: the US had unmatched power post WW-II to a large extent because the rest of the world was in rubble. We encouraged the third world to embrace capitalism and stop being subsistence farmers. Some did, and countries like China, India and Korea are much wealthier than they once were. Supposedly we were in favor of that. Have we changed our minds because we're not relatively speaking far more wealthier than they are than we once were? Or, to a more sensitive topic: globalism was supposed to be great for everybody, so corporations with sheddable workloads sent them off-shore to countries with literate populations and low salaries. Surprised?

This is a Rorschach blot for people's opinions on what they think is wrong with us. If you hate unions and people on welfare, you blame them. That is ridiculous because there's a lot less union and "welfare as we knew it" than in the years when we were on top of the world. Maybe we're doing poorly because there are fewer union members now! (As to why unions are useful, it's because individual employees don't have meaningful bargaining power with their employers.)

My Rorschach blot says that we are at risk because we've hollowed out civic institutions, especially public education, and we'll pay for it by being less competitive in the knowledge-based economies of the future. Creationism doesn't help that either. But, that's my slant, and I don't take it as a sign of inevitable decline.

Jared Diamond's Collapse is cited in the OP, I took it off the book shelf to refresh my memory of what he says. So, look on page 2: "the United States is now the most powerful nation in the world". Still true 5 years after publication. In fact, he says environmental damage is the common unifying themes of the collapsed societies, coupled with inability to recognise or cope with it. Not coddling the proletariat. In particular, he points to situations in which wealthy elites were able to cause and benefit from damage whose immediate effects they were able to avoid. Norwegian elites in Greenland being the last ones to starve. Owners of Montanan mines polluting ground water with arsenic and cyanide, then paying themselves bonuses, and then taking their companies bankrupt in order to avoid having to pay for the environmental damage they caused. Of course, they didn't live downstream from the streams they polluted, but their workers did, so maybe a strong union could have been helpful. Just sayin'

I'm certainly not saying we should be complacent or expect that the US should be the most powerful country in the world (which is not the same as being an empire) forever, but this just alarmism. It makes good press and sells books and lecture tickets too.

[Inquartata]

Great post, Jeff. Even if I might disagree with a point or two.

I suspect that when we lose our hegemonic status, it will be "not with a bang, but with a whimper": a slow, gradual decline more than a fall, with many fits and starts along the way...

And speaking of declines and falls, perhaps the most famous empire of all just sort of...moved east, reinvented itself and then went on for another thousand years.

[jeff]

Thank you, Inq! Rare praise from your direction, and therefore all the more significant.

I didn't figure you would share my "can be helpful on" unions, but that's not the thrust of this thread - and IMO it's silly to blame them for a perceived recent decline in the US when their influence is far lower than it was in (say) the 50s, 60s, 70s. Correlation aint causation, but negative correlation sure as heck aint causation!

Which Eastern Empire do you have in mind? Are you thinking Roman -> Byzantine>

[Inquartata]

it's silly to blame them for a perceived recent decline in the US when their influence is far lower than it was in (say) the 50s, 60s, 70s.

That could be said of a lot of things. And the influences of phenomena can make themselves felt long after the phenomena themselves are gone...

I mean---isn't that what they say would happen with greenhouse gasses even if we eliminated emissions?

Which Eastern Empire do you have in mind? Are you thinking Roman -> Byzantine>

Yep.

[Gav]

I was wondering when Rome/Byzantine would come up*. In the context of this article mentioning either of these is wholly wrong. In other words I agree with Inq.


*Considering that that was what was being hinted at...