Really good piece, I don't know how you can gather your thoughts to write about this stuff. I think I am going to keep my head down and mouth shut for a while, I feel like I am out of my league most of the time responding on some of these things. My knowledge base is not wide enough

Posted by: Pat on October 7, 2002 06:55 PM

The Romans had free speech as well. Rome started life a republic of free citizens only later degenerated into an empire. It wasn't just a republic for rich people either -- Cicero gives advice about how to campaign in rural districts.

Is not a modern Julius Caesar possible, i.e. someone of such extraordinary and proven talent that nation willingly gives him a position of supreme power, only to find, too late, that it has thereby lost its liberty?

Taxes weren't that when the empire was at its height in the first and second centuries. They were raised later to meet increased defense needs. In the Orwellian twilight of the empire, people became slaves to avoid taxation. But such conditions were a response to the decline of the empire, not it's cause.

Posted by: Peter Kauffner on October 8, 2002 06:51 AM

Romans had free speech for Roman citizens, which at the very first meant rich landowners. The real innovation of the republic was in giving "common" people rights and the ability to vote. Had Rome stayed within the Italian Penninnsula, it probably would've stayed a Republic.

The United States technically could fall victim to a "Caesar's Syndrome", but the founding fathers foresaw this. That's why it's really really difficult (but NOT impossible) to get constitutional admendments passed. The idea being that a Mussolini could come along and charm most of America, but as long as 1/3rd of the country remained its normal, practical, pigheaded self, he wouldn't get too far.

I didn't mean to imply taxes were the sole cause of the decline. Rather, the lack of participation of huge swathes of Roman society in Roman government were a primary cause of its decline.

Posted by: scott on October 8, 2002 08:10 AM

The key and excellent point you make is about most persons in ancient Rome (or Greece, or Persia, or Zimbabwe, or Timbuktu, or China, or India) did not have a stake in their society.

Clearly the "democratic" aspect of ancient Rome and Greece is vastly overstated by most moderns, who seem unaware of the huge foundation of slavery underlying those societies.

Posted by: Rene Buchard on October 9, 2002 06:01 PM

Hello. Im doing a project for my school. and i was wondering how do you think the U.s is like Rome. Do you think the US is turing into how Rome was?? if so how?

Posted by: Fredric Von Stubin on December 2, 2002 04:27 PM

plez don't email me

Posted by: Heywood Jablowme on December 2, 2002 04:30 PM

Well, the US isn't really like Rome at all, for the reasons listed above. As noted in the comments, it's theoretically possible for the US to turn into an imperial state, but unlikely in the extreme.

Posted by: scott on December 3, 2002 09:13 AM

The Eagle Has Crash Landed

Pax Americana is over. Challenges from Vietnam and the Balkans to the Middle East and September 11 have revealed the limits of American supremacy. Will the United States learn to fade quietly, or will U.S. conservatives resist and thereby transform a gradual decline into a rapid and dangerous fall?

By Immanuel Wallerstein

The United States in decline? Few people today would believe this assertion. The only ones who do are the U.S. hawks, who argue vociferously for policies to reverse the decline. This belief that the end of U.S. hegemony has already begun does not follow from the vulnerability that became apparent to all on September 11, 2001. In fact, the United States has been fading as a global power since the 1970s, and the U.S. response to the terrorist attacks has merely accelerated this decline. To understand why the so-called Pax Americana is on the wane requires examining the geopolitics of the 20th century, particularly of the century's final three decades. This exercise uncovers a simple and inescapable conclusion: The economic, political, and military factors that contributed to U.S. hegemony are the same factors that will inexorably produce the coming U.S. decline.

Intro to hegemony

The rise of the United States to global hegemony was a long process that began in earnest with the world recession of 1873. At that time, the United States and Germany began to acquire an increasing share of global markets, mainly at the expense of the steadily receding British economy. Both nations had recently acquired a stable political base—the United States by successfully terminating the Civil War and Germany by achieving unification and defeating France in the Franco-Prussian War. From 1873 to 1914, the United States and Germany became the principal producers in certain leading sectors: steel and later automobiles for the United States and industrial chemicals for Germany.

The history books record that World War I broke out in 1914 and ended in 1918 and that World War II lasted from 1939 to 1945. However, it makes more sense to consider the two as a single, continuous “30 years’ war” between the United States and Germany, with truces and local conflicts scattered in between. The competition for hegemonic succession took an ideological turn in 1933, when the Nazis came to power in Germany and began their quest to transcend the global system altogether, seeking not hegemony within the current system but rather a form of global empire. Recall the Nazi slogan ein tausendjähriges Reich (a thousand-year empire). In turn, the United States assumed the role of advocate of centrist world liberalism—recall former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “four freedoms” (freedom of speech, of worship, from want, and from fear)—and entered into a strategic alliance with the Soviet Union, making possible the defeat of Germany and its allies.

World War II resulted in enormous destruction of infrastructure and populations throughout Eurasia, from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, with almost no country left unscathed. The only major industrial power in the world to emerge intact—and even greatly strengthened from an economic perspective—was the United States, which moved swiftly to consolidate its position.

But the aspiring hegemon faced some practical political obstacles. During the war, the Allied powers had agreed on the establishment of the United Nations, composed primarily of countries that had been in the coalition against the Axis powers. The organization’s critical feature was the Security Council, the only structure that could authorize the use of force. Since the U.N. Charter gave the right of veto to five powers—including the United States and the Soviet Union—the council was rendered largely toothless in practice. So it was not the founding of the United Nations in April 1945 that determined the geopolitical constraints of the second half of the 20th century but rather the Yalta meeting between Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin two months earlier.

The formal accords at Yalta were less important than the informal, unspoken agreements, which one can only assess by observing the behavior of the United States and the Soviet Union in the years that followed. When the war ended in Europe on May 8, 1945, Soviet and Western (that is, U.S., British, and French) troops were located in particular places—essentially, along a line in the center of Europe that came to be called the Oder-Neisse Line. Aside from a few minor adjustments, they stayed there. In hindsight, Yalta signified the agreement of both sides that they could stay there and that neither side would use force to push the other out. This tacit accord applied to Asia as well, as evinced by U.S. occupation of Japan and the division of Korea. Politically, therefore, Yalta was an agreement on the status quo in which the Soviet Union controlled about one third of the world and the United States the rest.

Washington also faced more serious military challenges. The Soviet Union had the world’s largest land forces, while the U.S. government was under domestic pressure to downsize its army, particularly by ending the draft. The United States therefore decided to assert its military strength not via land forces but through a monopoly of nuclear weapons (plus an air force capable of deploying them). This monopoly soon disappeared: By 1949, the Soviet Union had developed nuclear weapons as well. Ever since, the United States has been reduced to trying to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons (and chemical and biological weapons) by additional powers, an effort that, in the 21st century, does not seem terribly successful.

Until 1991, the United States and the Soviet Union coexisted in the “balance of terror” of the Cold War. This status quo was tested seriously only three times: the Berlin blockade of 1948–49, the Korean War in 1950–53, and the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. The result in each case was restoration of the status quo. Moreover, note how each time the Soviet Union faced a political crisis among its satellite regimes—East Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Poland in 1981—the United States engaged in little more than propaganda exercises, allowing the Soviet Union to proceed largely as it deemed fit.

Of course, this passivity did not extend to the economic arena. The United States capitalized on the Cold War ambiance to launch massive economic reconstruction efforts, first in Western Europe and then in Japan (as well as in South Korea and Taiwan). The rationale was obvious: What was the point of having such overwhelming productive superiority if the rest of the world could not muster effective demand? Furthermore, economic reconstruction helped create clientelistic obligations on the part of the nations receiving U.S. aid; this sense of obligation fostered willingness to enter into military alliances and, even more important, into political subservience.

Finally, one should not underestimate the ideological and cultural component of U.S. hegemony. The immediate post-1945 period may have been the historical high point for the popularity of communist ideology. We easily forget today the large votes for Communist parties in free elections in countries such as Belgium, France, Italy, Czechoslovakia, and Finland, not to mention the support Communist parties gathered in Asia—in Vietnam, India, and Japan—and throughout Latin America. And that still leaves out areas such as China, Greece, and Iran, where free elections remained absent or constrained but where Communist parties enjoyed widespread appeal. In response, the United States sustained a massive anticommunist ideological offensive. In retrospect, this initiative appears largely successful: Washington brandished its role as the leader of the “free world” at least as effectively as the Soviet Union brandished its position as the leader of the “progressive” and “anti-imperialist” camp.

One, Two, Many Vietnams

The United States’ success as a hegemonic power in the postwar period created the conditions of the nation’s hegemonic demise. This process is captured in four symbols: the war in Vietnam, the revolutions of 1968, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the terrorist attacks of September 2001. Each symbol built upon the prior one, culminating in the situation in which the United States currently finds itself—a lone superpower that lacks true power, a world leader nobody follows and few respect, and a nation drifting dangerously amidst a global chaos it cannot control.

What was the Vietnam War? First and foremost, it was the effort of the Vietnamese people to end colonial rule and establish their own state. The Vietnamese fought the French, the Japanese, and the Americans, and in the end the Vietnamese won—quite an achievement, actually. Geopolitically, however, the war represented a rejection of the Yalta status quo by populations then labeled as Third World. Vietnam became such a powerful symbol because Washington was foolish enough to invest its full military might in the struggle, but the United States still lost. True, the United States didn’t deploy nuclear weapons (a decision certain myopic groups on the right have long reproached), but such use would have shattered the Yalta accords and might have produced a nuclear holocaust—an outcome the United States simply could not risk.

But Vietnam was not merely a military defeat or a blight on U.S. prestige. The war dealt a major blow to the United States’ ability to remain the world’s dominant economic power. The conflict was extremely expensive and more or less used up the U.S. gold reserves that had been so plentiful since 1945. Moreover, the United States incurred these costs just as Western Europe and Japan experienced major economic upswings. These conditions ended U.S. preeminence in the global economy. Since the late 1960s, members of this triad have been nearly economic equals, each doing better than the others for certain periods but none moving far ahead.

When the revolutions of 1968 broke out around the world, support for the Vietnamese became a major rhetorical component. “One, two, many Vietnams” and “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh” were chanted in many a street, not least in the United States. But the 1968ers did not merely condemn U.S. hegemony. They condemned Soviet collusion with the United States, they condemned Yalta, and they used or adapted the language of the Chinese cultural revolutionaries who divided the world into two camps—the two superpowers and the rest of the world.

The denunciation of Soviet collusion led logically to the denunciation of those national forces closely allied with the Soviet Union, which meant in most cases the traditional Communist parties. But the 1968 revolutionaries also lashed out against other components of the Old Left—national liberation movements in the Third World, social-democratic movements in Western Europe, and New Deal Democrats in the United States—accusing them, too, of collusion with what the revolutionaries generically termed “U.S. imperialism.”

The attack on Soviet collusion with Washington plus the attack on the Old Left further weakened the legitimacy of the Yalta arrangements on which the United States had fashioned the world order. It also undermined the position of centrist liberalism as the lone, legitimate global ideology. The direct political consequences of the world revolutions of 1968 were minimal, but the geopolitical and intellectual repercussions were enormous and irrevocable. Centrist liberalism tumbled from the throne it had occupied since the European revolutions of 1848 and that had enabled it to co-opt conservatives and radicals alike. These ideologies returned and once again represented a real gamut of choices. Conservatives would again become conservatives, and radicals, radicals. The centrist liberals did not disappear, but they were cut down to size. And in the process, the official U.S. ideological position—antifascist, anticommunist, anticolonialist—seemed thin and unconvincing to a growing portion of the world’s populations.

The Powerless Superpower

The onset of international economic stagnation in the 1970s had two important consequences for U.S. power. First, stagnation resulted in the collapse of “developmentalism”—the notion that every nation could catch up economically if the state took appropriate action—which was the principal ideological claim of the Old Left movements then in power. One after another, these regimes faced internal disorder, declining standards of living, increasing debt dependency on international financial institutions, and eroding credibility. What had seemed in the 1960s to be the successful navigation of Third World decolonization by the United States—minimizing disruption and maximizing the smooth transfer of power to regimes that were developmentalist but scarcely revolutionary—gave way to disintegrating order, simmering discontents, and unchanneled radical temperaments. When the United States tried to intervene, it failed. In 1983, U.S. President Ronald Reagan sent troops to Lebanon to restore order. The troops were in effect forced out. He compensated by invading Grenada, a country without troops. President George H.W. Bush invaded Panama, another country without troops. But after he intervened in Somalia to restore order, the United States was in effect forced out, somewhat ignominiously. Since there was little the U.S. government could actually do to reverse the trend of declining hegemony, it chose simply to ignore this trend—a policy that prevailed from the withdrawal from Vietnam until September 11, 2001.

Meanwhile, true conservatives began to assume control of key states and interstate institutions. The neoliberal offensive of the 1980s was marked by the Thatcher and Reagan regimes and the emergence of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a key actor on the world scene. Where once (for more than a century) conservative forces had attempted to portray themselves as wiser liberals, now centrist liberals were compelled to argue that they were more effective conservatives. The conservative programs were clear. Domestically, conservatives tried to enact policies that would reduce the cost of labor, minimize environmental constraints on producers, and cut back on state welfare benefits. Actual successes were modest, so conservatives then moved vigorously into the international arena. The gatherings of the World Economic Forum in Davos provided a meeting ground for elites and the media. The IMF provided a club for finance ministers and central bankers. And the United States pushed for the creation of the World Trade Organization to enforce free commercial flows across the world’s frontiers.

While the United States wasn’t watching, the Soviet Union was collapsing. Yes, Ronald Reagan had dubbed the Soviet Union an “evil empire” and had used the rhetorical bombast of calling for the destruction of the Berlin Wall, but the United States didn’t really mean it and certainly was not responsible for the Soviet Union’s downfall. In truth, the Soviet Union and its East European imperial zone collapsed because of popular disillusionment with the Old Left in combination with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s efforts to save his regime by liquidating Yalta and instituting internal liberalization (perestroika plus glasnost). Gorbachev succeeded in liquidating Yalta but not in saving the Soviet Union (although he almost did, be it said).

The United States was stunned and puzzled by the sudden collapse, uncertain how to handle the consequences. The collapse of communism in effect signified the collapse of liberalism, removing the only ideological justification behind U.S. hegemony, a justification tacitly supported by liberalism’s ostensible ideological opponent. This loss of legitimacy led directly to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein would never have dared had the Yalta arrangements remained in place. In retrospect, U.S. efforts in the Gulf War accomplished a truce at basically the same line of departure. But can a hegemonic power be satisfied with a tie in a war with a middling regional power? Saddam demonstrated that one could pick a fight with the United States and get away with it. Even more than the defeat in Vietnam, Saddam’s brash challenge has eaten at the innards of the U.S. right, in particular those known as the hawks, which explains the fervor of their current desire to invade Iraq and destroy its regime.

Between the Gulf War and September 11, 2001, the two major arenas of world conflict were the Balkans and the Middle East. The United States has played a major diplomatic role in both regions. Looking back, how different would the results have been had the United States assumed a completely isolationist position? In the Balkans, an economically successful multinational state (Yugoslavia) broke down, essentially into its component parts. Over 10 years, most of the resulting states have engaged in a process of ethnification, experiencing fairly brutal violence, widespread human rights violations, and outright wars. Outside intervention—in which the United States figured most prominently—brought about a truce and ended the most egregious violence, but this intervention in no way reversed the ethnification, which is now consolidated and somewhat legitimated. Would these conflicts have ended differently without U.S. involvement? The violence might have continued longer, but the basic results would probably not have been too different. The picture is even grimmer in the Middle East, where, if anything, U.S. engagement has been deeper and its failures more spectacular. In the Balkans and the Middle East alike, the United States has failed to exert its hegemonic clout effectively, not for want of will or effort but for want of real power.

The Hawks Undone

Then came September 11—the shock and the reaction. Under fire from U.S. legislators, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) now claims it had warned the Bush administration of possible threats. But despite the CIA’s focus on al Qaeda and the agency’s intelligence expertise, it could not foresee (and therefore, prevent) the execution of the terrorist strikes. Or so would argue CIA Director George Tenet. This testimony can hardly comfort the U.S. government or the American people. Whatever else historians may decide, the attacks of September 11, 2001, posed a major challenge to U.S. power. The persons responsible did not represent a major military power. They were members of a nonstate force, with a high degree of determination, some money, a band of dedicated followers, and a strong base in one weak state. In short, militarily, they were nothing. Yet they succeeded in a bold attack on U.S. soil.

George W. Bush came to power very critical of the Clinton administration’s handling of world affairs. Bush and his advisors did not admit—but were undoubtedly aware—that Clinton’s path had been the path of every U.S. president since Gerald Ford, including that of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. It had even been the path of the current Bush administration before September 11. One only needs to look at how Bush handled the downing of the U.S. plane off China in April 2001 to see that prudence had been the name of the game.

Following the terrorist attacks, Bush changed course, declaring war on terrorism, assuring the American people that “the outcome is certain” and informing the world that “you are either with us or against us.” Long frustrated by even the most conservative U.S. administrations, the hawks finally came to dominate American policy. Their position is clear: The United States wields overwhelming military power, and even though countless foreign leaders consider it unwise for Washington to flex its military muscles, these same leaders cannot and will not do anything if the United States simply imposes its will on the rest. The hawks believe the United States should act as an imperial power for two reasons: First, the United States can get away with it. And second, if Washington doesn’t exert its force, the United States will become increasingly marginalized.

Today, this hawkish position has three expressions: the military assault in Afghanistan, the de facto support for the Israeli attempt to liquidate the Palestinian Authority, and the invasion of Iraq, which is reportedly in the military preparation stage. Less than one year after the September 2001 terrorist attacks, it is perhaps too early to assess what such strategies will accomplish. Thus far, these schemes have led to the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan (without the complete dismantling of al Qaeda or the capture of its top leadership); enormous destruction in Palestine (without rendering Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat “irrelevant,” as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said he is); and heavy opposition from U.S. allies in Europe and the Middle East to plans for an invasion of Iraq.

The hawks’ reading of recent events emphasizes that opposition to U.S. actions, while serious, has remained largely verbal. Neither Western Europe nor Russia nor China nor Saudi Arabia has seemed ready to break ties in serious ways with the United States. In other words, hawks believe, Washington has indeed gotten away with it. The hawks assume a similar outcome will occur when the U.S. military actually invades Iraq and after that, when the United States exercises its authority elsewhere in the world, be it in Iran, North Korea, Colombia, or perhaps Indonesia. Ironically, the hawk reading has largely become the reading of the international left, which has been screaming about U.S. policies—mainly because they fear that the chances of U.S. success are high.

But hawk interpretations are wrong and will only contribute to the United States’ decline, transforming a gradual descent into a much more rapid and turbulent fall. Specifically, hawk approaches will fail for military, economic, and ideological reasons.

Undoubtedly, the military remains the United States’ strongest card; in fact, it is the only card. Today, the United States wields the most formidable military apparatus in the world. And if claims of new, unmatched military technologies are to be believed, the U.S. military edge over the rest of the world is considerably greater today than it was just a decade ago. But does that mean, then, that the United States can invade Iraq, conquer it rapidly, and install a friendly and stable regime? Unlikely. Bear in mind that of the three serious wars the U.S. military has fought since 1945 (Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf War), one ended in defeat and two in draws—not exactly a glorious record.

Saddam Hussein’s army is not that of the Taliban, and his internal military control is far more coherent. A U.S. invasion would necessarily involve a serious land force, one that would have to fight its way to Baghdad and would likely suffer significant casualties. Such a force would also need staging grounds, and Saudi Arabia has made clear that it will not serve in this capacity. Would Kuwait or Turkey help out? Perhaps, if Washington calls in all its chips. Meanwhile, Saddam can be expected to deploy all weapons at his disposal, and it is precisely the U.S. government that keeps fretting over how nasty those weapons might be. The United States may twist the arms of regimes in the region, but popular sentiment clearly views the whole affair as reflecting a deep anti-Arab bias in the United States. Can such a conflict be won? The British General Staff has apparently already informed Prime Minister Tony Blair that it does not believe so.

And there is always the matter of “second fronts.” Following the Gulf War, U.S. armed forces sought to prepare for the possibility of two simultaneous regional wars. After a while, the Pentagon quietly abandoned the idea as impractical and costly. But who can be sure that no potential U.S. enemies would strike when the United States appears bogged down in Iraq?

Consider, too, the question of U.S. popular tolerance of nonvictories. Americans hover between a patriotic fervor that lends support to all wartime presidents and a deep isolationist urge. Since 1945, patriotism has hit a wall whenever the death toll has risen. Why should today’s reaction differ? And even if the hawks (who are almost all civilians) feel impervious to public opinion, U.S. Army generals, burnt by Vietnam, do not.

And what about the economic front? In the 1980s, countless American analysts became hysterical over the Japanese economic miracle. They calmed down in the 1990s, given Japan’s well-publicized financial difficulties. Yet after overstating how quickly Japan was moving forward, U.S. authorities now seem to be complacent, confident that Japan lags far behind. These days, Washington seems more inclined to lecture Japanese policymakers about what they are doing wrong.

Such triumphalism hardly appears warranted. Consider the following April 20, 2002, New York Times report: “A Japanese laboratory has built the world’s fastest computer, a machine so powerful that it matches the raw processing power of the 20 fastest American computers combined and far outstrips the previous leader, an I.B.M.-built machine. The achievement ... is evidence that a technology race that most American engineers thought they were winning handily is far from over.” The analysis goes on to note that there are “contrasting scientific and technological priorities” in the two countries. The Japanese machine is built to analyze climatic change, but U.S. machines are designed to simulate weapons. This contrast embodies the oldest story in the history of hegemonic powers. The dominant power concentrates (to its detriment) on the military; the candidate for successor concentrates on the economy. The latter has always paid off, handsomely. It did for the United States. Why should it not pay off for Japan as well, perhaps in alliance with China?

Finally, there is the ideological sphere. Right now, the U.S. economy seems relatively weak, even more so considering the exorbitant military expenses associated with hawk strategies. Moreover, Washington remains politically isolated; virtually no one (save Israel) thinks the hawk position makes sense or is worth encouraging. Other nations are afraid or unwilling to stand up to Washington directly, but even their foot-dragging is hurting the United States.

Yet the U.S. response amounts to little more than arrogant arm-twisting. Arrogance has its own negatives. Calling in chips means leaving fewer chips for next time, and surly acquiescence breeds increasing resentment. Over the last 200 years, the United States acquired a considerable amount of ideological credit. But these days, the United States is running through this credit even faster than it ran through its gold surplus in the 1960s.

The United States faces two possibilities during the next 10 years: It can follow the hawks’ path, with negative consequences for all but especially for itself. Or it can realize that the negatives are too great. Simon Tisdall of the Guardian recently argued that even disregarding international public opinion, “the U.S. is not able to fight a successful Iraqi war by itself without incurring immense damage, not least in terms of its economic interests and its energy supply. Mr. Bush is reduced to talking tough and looking ineffectual.” And if the United States still invades Iraq and is then forced to withdraw, it will look even more ineffectual.

President Bush’s options appear extremely limited, and there is little doubt that the United States will continue to decline as a decisive force in world affairs over the next decade. The real question is not whether U.S. hegemony is waning but whether the United States can devise a way to descend gracefully, with minimum damage to the world, and to itself.

Posted by: RL Green on December 18, 2002 04:57 AM

Straw men, every one. The title of the article makes it sound as if the nation is in collapse, yet the text, when read carefully, reads more like a history of why the US is still the most powerful nation in the world.

The media often stumble over themselves in this fashion when dealing with anything requiring a real historical perspective instead of a simple perusal of basic histories. The author is mistaking "influence" with "power", which are two different things. Influence is what you use when you want to try and get your way. Power is what you use to keep people from having their way with you. The United States does not suffer from a lack of power.

As for influence, the author is convieniently ignoring the long and storied history of nations pillorying the United States when it suited them. The 1970s, an era of real military weakness, was littered with allies seeming to turn against us, enemies triumphant, and neutrals looking toward other ideologies. And yet the United States revived, rearmed, and renewed its influence in world affairs.

This is simply more leftist angst over the failure of their own socialist agendas and collapse of their hegemonic globalist visions. We are a nation. We are powerful, well protected, and self-correcting. We have by far the world's most powerful military, the world's largest economy, and the world's most advanced higher education and research institutions. It would be nice if the author could stop obfuscating and get to the real brass tacks: How, given these strengths, can the US not be a decisive force in world affairs?

Posted by: scott on December 18, 2002 07:41 AM

Who on earth is RL Green and why is he posting a book on your blog?

Posted by: Pat on December 18, 2002 11:29 AM

The article was actually written "By Immanuel Wallerstein", and apparently first appeared in the July-August issue of Foreign Policy Magazine.

Posted by: scott on December 18, 2002 11:34 AM

No original thoughts of his own? Still a book posted on your site.

Posted by: Pat on December 18, 2002 02:33 PM

Wether the United States will fall like the Roman Empire, we shall have to wait and see. However if the United States falls it won't be just the United States that comes down. Canada, Britain and the nations of the orient depend on the United States for their trade. 85% of Canada's trade is to the United States. How will my country survive without them? I don't particularly like most Americans (not that I judge people before I meet them) but I do have to depend on them for trade.

In my opinion most Americans think themselves better then others. Well America you can't fight a war on two fronts and still come out victorious. Keep up the way you're going and we'll see what comes of it. September 11 comes once a year.

Posted by: Lewis on February 12, 2003 11:13 AM

One would expect that, like the empire, were the US to fall into chaos it would not be a quick BANG, but rather a gradual decline. It would be expected that the rest of the world would (eventually) adjust.

In fact, because we have had a global economy for at least the past 200 years, I don't think it's even possible for an industrialized nation to completely disintegrate as the empire did. As noted in the essay, we're simply nothing like them.

It has been my experience that everyone thinks everyone else is stuck up and they're the ones who are really nice. Even Germans and Japanese! You know what, they're right, and they're wrong. Mostly they're just people.

As to thinking we cannot fight a war on two fronts and win, this is a classic mistake of someone who doesn't know that much about the US. We can't *easily* fight a war on two fronts *right now* because we chose to draw down our forces. This is not a computer game where you're given a set of toys at the start and have to keep them intact through the match. Modern warfare is as much about money as it is about men. Our GDP is larger than the next three or four countries combined. I think we can afford it if we choose.

Posted by: scott on February 12, 2003 11:49 AM

I'd love to be able to say "we can all just get along", but when a country tries to take over it all (gets greedy) and force their beliefs on others (Hilter comes to mind); then someone needs to step in. I agree, that it shouldn't always be us; but I don't see any pipsqueeks making any of their own noise. So BACK-OFF!
Most of us love our own countries, but we are all just people. Sounds like a little jealously may be? Equality, we fought a ..., oh what was that word ..., WAR for it. Don't backtrack now, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but it sounds like some people don't really care and think they are better, so be it.
Scott is right; remember, we are a gentle giant, that if provoked, becomes a worst nightmare.

Posted by: Cindy on February 13, 2003 12:22 AM

Scott, I can understand why you’d want to demean "the pot smokers " who don’t realize the significance of the Industrial Revolution. (You call these people “Marxists”, but Marxists are among the last people likely to de-emphasize the importance of industrialization. Is it you who don't understand Marxism or did you know some self-proclaimed “Marxists” who didn't understand Historical Materialism?)

Anyway, while you might be able to intellectually bully this coterie of college sophomores to whom you refer, it doesn’t seem like you’d be able to counter World Systems Theory.

Theoreticians like Immanuel Wallerstein, a renowned professor of sociology at Yale (and the author of that article “Pax Americana is over”) are fully aware that Rome was a pre-industrial society. That’s why this scholar analyzes modern industrial capitalism, not ancient empires. He’s comparing Pax Americana to Pax Britannica, not to Pax Romana. Read up on World Systems theory and then you’ll be able to intelligently express your viewpoint. Right now, you’re just casting aspersions against the kinds of people whom you associate with these views.

Posted by: Dr. Abe Sokolov on March 27, 2003 08:29 AM

A hallmark of the liberal left is its inability to take a joke. Thankfully, Mr. Sokolov does nothing to disprove this.

Having been granted a liberal arts degree in the waning days of cultural materialism (the anthropological equivalent of historical materialism), I am quite well acquainted with Marxist theories, especially those that attempt to disguise themselves with different, more palatable names.

As a physical anthropologist by academic training I was not exposed to World Systems Theory, so unfortunately I am having to rely on web-based sources for my research (never a good thing).

As with most "soft" science theories, WST seems to speak as much about its times as its positions. Wallerstein himself seems to have admitted this in the mid-90s. Especially telling is his admission that WST represents little more than a destructive critique, and does not in fact attempt to replace what it sets out to destroy. Such nihilism is quite typical in western academia, and the arrogance of Mr. Wallerstein in his pride of this "achievement" is quite evident.

As to WST itself, I found this summary, which, if accurate, seems to me to represent more a re-thinking of Marxist sociological theory after the USSR's ossification and decline than a real attempt at solving the problems of the world through the social sciences.

WTS seems to be, as are most Marxist-based theories, utterly edic in its perspective, seeing humanity as a group of naked apes caught in a system they cannot understand and will never completely control. Its seemingly exclusive focus on the economic forces that shaped the rise of the west ignores vital and equally important developments in essentially all other aspects of that very human society, especially technological, political, moral, philosophical, and military ones. It seems to fall into the common Marxist trap of attempting to explain the emic, self-interested, idiosyncratic behavior of human beings with overarching mechanical economic models containing little if any relevance for the real world. It seems to be, in a nutshell, the tallest ivory tower I have personally come across in quite some time.

As to "The Eagle has Crash Landed": The eschatological tendencies of the hard left never cease to amaze me. Look folks, socialism lost. Communism lost. GET. OVER. IT. Just because your methodology of describing how it all works imploded with a "pop" in the early 1990s does not in fact mean the entire world is coming to an end. Capitalism and representational democracy reign supreme not because they are the best, but because they are the only systems that work. "If it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid" is such a self-evidently true maxim I guess I should not be surprised that most modern social academia seem completely unaware of it.

I'm hoping to get our resident military historian to disassemble "eagle", which seems to me an attempt by a Marxist economic socialist to describe military history without in fact much apparent knowledge *of* military history. Hopefully his reply won't be short in coming.

Posted by: scott on March 27, 2003 10:43 AM

Mr. Wallerstein makes some interesting observations in his article. He combines the views once espoused by Ms. Jane Fonda (When she visited Hanoi during the Vietnam war.) with bits and pieces of historical events/evidence and then largely ignores the context those bits and pieces should be in.

In his article he states that "it makes more sense to consider the two [world wars] as a single, continuous '30 years' war' between the United States and Germany, with truces and local conflicts scattered in between." While this statement is indeed considered by many experts to be true, Mr. Wallerstien leaves out the context that this statement should be included in.

The reasons WW2 is looked upon as a natural extension of WWI are not, as Mr. Wallerstein puts it,

The competition for hegemonic succession took an ideological turn in 1933, when the Nazis came to power in Germany and began their quest to transcend the global system altogether, seeking not hegemony within the current system but rather a form of global empire.

Instead it's believed by most people who espouse this view that the Versailles Treaty was too harsh to allow Germany to reintegrate itself into a "new" post-war Europe, yet too weak to completely destroy Germany's ability to make war. It is the Treaty of Versailles that most historians place the blame for Hitler's ascent and for World War II, not some hegemonic competition between Germany and the US. Had the other European countries listened to the demands of the US it is possible, perhaps even likely, that the Second World War would not have taken place (Or if it had it would have been a much different war.) Since they would not listen we decided to once again "Take our ball and go home" and Europe could do as they saw fit. The result?? WWII

At the end of WWII the United States was unmatched by any other military or economic power on the globe. Had the United States decided to we could have imposed our will on any other nation state at that time, and this perceived vulnerability was a major factor in Stalin's mistrust of the Western powers and played a significant role in establishing the Cold War.

Mr. Wallerstein's belief that the Yalta conference cemented the post power structure is interesting but it neglects to take into account the actual reasons and basis for the Cold War. It was at the later Potsdam conference that the seeds for the eventual structure of Europe, which lasted until the 1990s, were sewn. The division of Germany and the takeover of Eastern Europe by the communists was a reaction by the Soviets to the perception that the United States was taking to heavy a hand at determining what form of government the conquered nations of Europe would take.

Remember two points here: The Marxist-Leninist notion of a world divided into two hostile camps -- one capitalist, the other communist (Two guesses who Stalin wanted to win). Add the fact that it was the Soviet Union who lost at least 20 million souls during the war alone (and perhaps another 20-30 million from Stalin's decade of purge trials) and you see why the Soviets simply could not let democracy flourish in the conquered countries, because, to them, these countries served as a buffer between the perceived threat the West embodied and the traumatized Russian people and economy.

Mr Wallerstein's position that

"The United States capitalized on the Cold War ambiance to launch massive economic reconstruction efforts, first in Western Europe and then in Japan (as well as in South Korea and Taiwan). The rationale was obvious: What was the point of having such overwhelming productive superiority if the rest of the world could not muster effective demand? Furthermore, economic reconstruction helped create clientelistic obligations on the part of the nations receiving U.S. aid; this sense of obligation fostered willingness to enter into military alliances and, even more important, into political subservience."

Probably has some roots in the truth but we are left, once again, without all of the data. At the end of the first world war we decided to "Take our ball and go home" and let Europe fend for itself, and as a result 56 million people died. At the end of the Second World War we decided that it was in our best interest to not let round three start.

It's simple really; prosperous countries are much less likely to go to war than oppressed countries. Further, prosperous people are less likely to allow their leaders to launch wars of aggression against their neighbors than peoples who live in poverty and squalor. It was the rise of the Eastern block that solidified our place in Europe, not the Marshal plan. Had the threat of a takeover by Soviet Forces not existed then the role that the US played in Post War Europe would have been markedly less (It's also conversely true that had the Soviet threat not existed then the Marshal plan may not have been quite so generous).

Mr. Wallernstein's assertions that the Vietnam War was an "effort of the Vietnamese people to end colonial rule and establish their own state" is absurd. You might as well also state that the Korean War was an "effort of by the Korean people to end colonial rule and establish their own state." Both wars were efforts by the Communist regimes to consolidate their countries under Communist rule REGARDLESS of whether the people wanted it to be (and in most cases when this happened those who didn't want this to happen tended to disappear and large numbers of coffins were required).

We didn't lose the Vietnam War because of some heroic effort by the combine peoples of Vietnam to defeat of those Imperialistic Yankee Dogs. We didn't lose the war because we lacked the military power to defeat North Vietnam; we lost it because the United States did not have the political will to win. At any time during the war we could have marched north and imposed our will on the North Vietnamese and helped the "Vietnamese people to end colonial rule and establish their own state" on a Western form (It was the threat of what the Soviets would do that prevented us from doing this. Not anything that the North Vietnamese did.)

I'm running out of time so let me conclude with a few more observations. The perceived decline of the US's economic power during the 70's and 80's was due in large part to inefficiencies in our economic infrastructures (Japan and Germany took those factories that we built and paid for and did wonderful things with them). This forced us to modernize in order to be more competitive. Also the people who were working in those factories had seen what poverty truly was, had lived in the rubble and tried to get over the picture of relatives dying in large bombing raids, etc. They were highly motivated to ensure their children did not have to see this happen. Our own post-war generations quite frankly did not have this kind of ethic (The generation who fought WWII did, for the most part, have these values.)

Those so called "Pot Smokers" grew up secure in the notion that this was the greatest country on the Earth and that we held certain truths to be self evident. As far as comparing Pax Americana to Pax Britannica, the rise of American power was a direct result of our access to all of the resources on the North American continent. It was a result of the hard work by the various immigrants to exploit those resources. And finally it was a result of a system of government that ensured that no ONE person or people would ever have enough control to be able to exploit the people to the detriment of all others. There is not another nation on the face of the earth that has all of the factors needed to supplant the US as the greatest country on earth. There are several who have the potential to join us (Russia, Germany etc). But not supplant us.

Posted by: Jeff Johnson on March 28, 2003 07:28 AM

Scott:

Once again, you use name-calling and arrogance (quintessential propaganda tactics) to avoid an actual debate of ideas. You assert yourself as an authority over anyone who might not share your perspective by reminding us that you have a bachelor’s degree in anthropology (redundant, considering that that’s in your profile). Then, all you do to detract from World Systems Theory is to say that ‘socialism failed’. That’s odd, considering that Wallerstein has been quite the critic of the Old Left (the pro-Soviet left), which is quite evident in that brief article posted on this page. In that sense, your browbeating (your accusation that leftists are just wining about the collapse of Communism) is way off.

In real academic debate pointing out that someone reached the zenith of his career in the 1960s doesn’t detract from much either. I have to admit that I tend to notice Wallerstein over-emphasizing some themes that reflect the normative biases of a New Leftist. In my opinion, he’s a bit too fixated on that Old Left/New Left dichotomy, especially regarding its role in the collapse of the Soviet Union. And that’s to be expected, considering his past squabbles with rival “old leftists.” But Wallerstein is a prolific scholar who has published a lot since the 1960s, publishing impressive scholarly works since September 11th.

You seem to be making some sort of cultural attack against neo-Marxists. However, in the process you’re saying nothing; you don’t diminish their ideas by associating them with a counterculture. Are you attempting to obscure a lack of understanding of this topic by name-calling, appeals to authority, and easy, all-telling responses (like ‘socialism failed’)?

Saying ‘socialism failed’ says nothing. If you reread the article you’d notice that Wallerstein’s interested in the geo-strategic global order carved up by Yalta. In that sense, he argues that the collapse of the Soviet Union actually weakened the legitimacy of Pax Americana, which no longer is able to reach out to support abroad with the guise of anti-Communism. I haven’t made up my own mind on that analysis, but you need to address that if you’re going to be a critic of this scholar’s work. Wallerstein, counter-intuitively some might say, would say that the outcome of the Cold War was the beginning of the decline of Pax Americana, not an indication of the strength of US hegemonism.

Redress that point. Don’t just accuse this anti-Soviet scholar of lamenting the Soviet Union’s demise.

Posted by: Dr. Abe Sokolov on March 28, 2003 09:35 AM

Your sweeping, dogmatic statements have further irked me.

You state, “capitalism and representational democracy reign supreme not because they are the best, but because they are the only systems that work”. Different modes of economic organization, however, have prevailed though over thousands of years. It would be less sweeping to state that capitalism has generally been the most conducive to growth.

I have the feeling that you’re advocating an American-style model for all countries. Should there be only one mode of development, one concept of values and only one type of social system in the world? What about differences in historical conditions, social systems, development levels, cultural traditions and concepts of values? Take into consideration though that there are nearly 200 countries in the world with a population of more than 5 billion.

What do you think about the observation that I’m about to put forward? The underdeveloped countries of the Third World that have made the greatest strives in economic development since the Second World War have all done so under a period of authoritarian rule. The “East Asian Tigers” and the “Tiger Cubs” are the prime examples. So are China and Vietnam right now.

Is China's rapidly growing economy not working?

Posted by: Abe Sokolov on March 28, 2003 10:03 AM

Incorrect, on nearly every account.

As the essay posits, the rise of industrialized economies and their information and technology fueled engines represent a fundamental break with all past forms of subsistence. We *cannot* compare the economy of modern Britain with that of ancient Rome just as we *cannot* compare the economy of Rome with that of a Yanamami territory. The epochs of hunting/gathering, agriculturalism, and industrialism are fundamentally different from one another, and so holding up any pre-industrial economy to any post-industrial economy is simply invalid. I stand behind, but am willing to refine, the statement "capitalism and representational democracy reign supreme because they are the only systems proven to work over time in the modern industrialized world.

Yes, all of Asia experienced phenomenal growth under largely authoritarian rule. But what we were actually seeing was the mother of all bubble economies, and when it burst it wiped out nearly everything they had achieved. Japan's economy has never recovered (Japan being a democracy in name only at this time), and all except China have recently recorded negative economic growth.

And, of all those brilliant Tigers, which are recovering fastest of all? Taiwan, South Korea, and Hong Kong perhaps?

And I would also posit that comparing the rate of growth in a country whose per capita GDP is $910.80 with a country whose per capita GDP is $36,716.30 (40 times the difference) is perhaps less than valid. It is quite easy to increase a vehicle's speed by 12% when it is in fact only moving 8 miles per hour, but an entirely different proposition when it is going 320 miles per hour.

Wallerstein posited Yalta without a shred of evidence, an entire essay built on an egregious example of post-hoc reasoning.

I do not need to redress the point of Pax Americanum because it has already been done for me. Not just by Jeff's cogent reply (which you do not seem to have noticed), but by history.

I do not accuse you of lamenting the Soviet Union's demise, but I know for a fact that many social academics born before 1930 do. I don't know enough about you to even accuse you of being a Marxist, although the people you hold up for admiration certainly are. I merely reply to your points as best I can, considering I am a simple redneck from Arkansas with what is obviously a very poor education.

Posted by: Scott on March 28, 2003 12:19 PM

Scott:

I was referring to underdeveloped nations of the Third World that have made great strives in economic development, in either achieving industrialization in the case, for instance, of Taiwan, or in beginning the process, particularly in China’s case since 1978. Most of the world’s population right now lives in the underdeveloped countries of the Third World. So reaching the level of development of a country like Malaysia would be a great accomplishment. Incidentally, there’s a good deal of debate on the causes of the Asian Economic Crisis of the late 1990s. I don’t want to digress, but I wonder what you think of Stiglitz’s analysis of the crisis.

The PRC’s ability to chart an effective course through the recent Asian crisis was noteworthy. Against the backdrop of the Asian financial crisis (and catastrophic domestic floods) China’s GDP still grew 7.8 percent. This was achieved, partly, through active state intervention to stimulate demand through wage increases in the public sector, and other measures.

China’s economic growth and improvements in living standards refute your causal dismissals.

In China Deng sustained Mao's legacy to the extent that he stressed the primacy of agricultural output and encouraged a significant decentralization of decision making in the rural economy teams and individual peasant households. At the local level, material incentives rather than political appeals were to be used to motivate the labor force, including allowing peasants to earn extra income by selling the produce of their private plots at free market.
Like in Taiwan, land reform was an essential step in modernization. While it was the Dengist reforms that truly harnessed the producitivity of Chinese agrivulture, the revolutionary break-up of the landed estates under enabled this process to go forward in the first place.
In the main move toward market allocation, local municipalities and provinces were allowed to invest in industries that they considered most profitable, which encouraged investment in light manufacturing. Thus, Deng's reforms shifted China's development strategy to an emphasis on light industry and export-led growth.

Light industrial output was a key, and vital for a developing country coming from a low capital base. With the short gestation period, low cspital requirements, and high foreign-exchange export earnings, revenues generated by light manufacturing were able to be reinvested in more technologically-advanced production and further capital expenditures and investments. In short, Deng's reforms sparked an industrial revolution in China.

The results have been clear. Before 1949 the illiteracy rate in China was 80 percent. Now, 50 illiteracy has declined to less than seven per cent. Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, the life expectancy of the Chinese people averaged 35 years. Now it’s in the low 70s. The average life expectancy of Chinese residents was eight years lower than that of the residents of developed countries, but 10 years higher than that of the residents of other developing countries.

China's urban and rural primary health care network has persisted in prophylactic health work. China had basically eliminated snail fever by the end of the 1950s; filarial infection by 1994; and poliomyelitis by 1995. It plans to fundamentally wipe out leprosy soon, and iodine deficiency the upcoming yeard.

While China’s rapid economic growth is expected considering that its had been moving from a predominately agrarian economy toward industrialization, the accomplishments of the East Asian states would be envied in the “developing countries” going nowhere, especially the developing countries in Africa.

Authoritarian rule in China seems to have accomplished some necessary evils.
For one, economic growth on this scale obviously would have been implausible had the civil strife and disunity of the period between the Opium War and the Revolution had continued. Some governing auhortiy had to fight off the war-lords and unite the coutnry.

And there's the matter of land reform. Proven essential to China's development, what kind of government other than a revolutionary autocracy could seize large landholdings without compensation. Granted the collectivization of the Maoist era was imprudent, but by Dengist era what Mao had seized would finally make its way to individual peasant management.

China now and the Tigers in the past also harnessed their comparative advantage in labor through the suppression of the labor market, i.e. unionization. Cheep labor! Essential, considering the role of light manufacturing in all the successful developemnt strategies in the Third World since the Second World War. That’s also essential in a relatively backward but rapidly industrializing country like China where structural unemployment is a common dislocation associated with modernization and technological advancement.

China’s essentially going through its own version of the Industrial Revolution right now. In the short-run, there will be many winners as well as losers. A strong state in China, like in Taiwan and South Korea a couple of decades ago, is necessary to keep the lid on class conflict until the great migration from the countryside to the cities slows (the greatest mass-migration in history) slows.

Regulated markets and stability are the essential ingredients for progress. And the formulas for achieving these preconditions hugely vary throughout the world. "Representative democracy" and "capitalism" are the Western vairants in higly developed countries. Westerners though should learn to appreciate that and quit regarding their system as the sole workable, acceptable paradigm.

Posted by: Dr. Abe Sokolov on March 28, 2003 03:41 PM

By the way, your GDP figure for China is quite outdated. According to the purchasing power parity estimate, it’s $3,800.

And you still haven’t substantiated your violent criticisms of Wallerstein. You just call his analysis ad-hoc now.

Posted by: Dr. Abe Sokolov on March 28, 2003 03:47 PM

Figure was quoted as a 2000 year. Couldn't find a good source for GDP. Where is that sort of thing stored nowadays?

It was post-hoc, not ad-hoc.

I wasn't the one who violently criticised wallerstein. It was Jeff who compared him to hanoi jane (appropriate, but harsh).

Posted by: scott on March 28, 2003 04:07 PM

Did you want to contest any of the points I made in the last posting, particullary regarding China?

I also wanted to know what you thought of Stiglitz's analysis of the East Asian Crisis.

Posted by: Dr. Abe Sokolov on March 28, 2003 05:03 PM

I still strongly disagree with your assertions claiming that there is only one route to progress. Theres cannot be one universal mode of development for all societies even today in an age of globalization due to differences in historical conditions, social systems, development levels, cultural traditions and concepts of values.

Posted by: Dr. Abe Sokolov on March 28, 2003 05:05 PM

Scott:

Let me explain the essence of what World Systems Theroy tells us about the global economy. Then you’d see that it’s the non-Marxist civilizationists like Huntington (and Pat Buchanan) who compare Pax Americana to the Roman Empire, not Wallerstein.

The flow of capital from ‘core’ to ‘periphery’ resulted in the development of a national capitalism on a world scale, thus heralding the principal historical trend of the past two centuries. Imperialism was implemented by many different means, for many different reasons, but heralded a gradual, but inexorable extension of economic connections from the “center” of the industrial countries to an overseas “periphery”. Such a movement was the by-product of the Industrial Revolution, a movement that helped today’s ‘global economy’ and the global division of labor between Third World and First World—laying the material underpinnings of globalization and the post-Cold War Pax Americana.

Globalization is an objective trend of the world’s contemporary economic development. Since the beginning of the 1990s, along with the conclusion of the Cold War, science and technology have developed rapidly and trans-national companies have continuously expanded their scale. Globalization has obviously sped up, with conspicuous expressions found in the accelerated flow and disposition of production factors in the global sphere, the deepening of mutual influence of the economies in various countries and the strengthening of interlink.

At the same time, we should see with a cool head that the influence of the globalization on countries in different stages of development is entirely different. Economic Inequality among nations is large and growing; the international division of labor is widening. The world is stratified into several worlds of development, between First and Third Worlds, North” and South, core and semi-periphery and periphery.

Due to the disparities in the economic strength and levels of development, the "dividends" derived from globalization are not fairly distributed between the developed countries and the developing countries. The developed countries have apparent advantages in capital, technology, human resources and administration and have grasped the dominant power in formulating "the game rules" for world economy. They are the most active propellers and the biggest beneficiaries of the globalization. The developing countries on the whole are in a fairly unfavorably position.

However, Third World countries can’t afford to close themselves to the global economy. The results of that are the development experiences of North Korea and Myanmar. And it would be an understatement to characterize their experiences as less than optimal. By participating in globalization, the developing countries (countries that require more capital, human and material, than they what can provide for themselves) obtain certain foreign funds, market, advanced technologies and management experiences, thus accelerating their economic development. But they are greatly affected by the negative influence of the globalization. In the 1990s, especially in recent few years, the disparity between the North and the South has further widened. In India, for instance around half the population lives under the international poverty line of $1 a day. I believe somewhere below 90 percent lives on less than $2 a day, totaling 900 million people.

Some Third World countries have made great strives in carrying out, or beginning the process of industrialization since the Second World War, namely the newly industrialized/industrializing countries of East Asia. And because of that I can still be somewhat optimistic. But most developing countries, especially in Africa, Latin America, and South Asia are seeing per capita consumption contract. The economic sovereignty and economic security of the developing countries are confronted with enormous pressure and stern challenges. The economies of the least-developed countries have gone from bad to worse. The United Nations Report on Human Development shows that the trend of globalization has made the poor poorer and the rich richer.

Without the synchronous development of the developing countries, not only the economic development of the developing countries will be seriously curtailed, the economies of the developed countries will also faced with difficulties in achieving a steady growth. We’re seeing the destabilizing effects of economic decline and dislocation throughout the Third World already. Look at the radicalization of the Islamic World. Look at the resurgence of the left in South America (my prediction is that this region will swing to the hard left once the improvised majorities that elected Lula da Silva or Lucio Gutierrez become dissatisfied with the slow pace of change). Guess which nation would react to any such developments with a costly military solution?

While the United States and North Atlantic concentrates (to its detriment) on the military in order to crush regimes that don’t share its geo-strategic or economic interests (Iraq right now) and prop up client states and proxy states; the Pacific Rim concentrates on the economy. The Pacific Rim will likely account for an ever-grater share of the world’s economy, while the over-extended West degenerates into mercantilism. In a generation China’s economy will the world’s largest and within two generations it will likely be a developed country. There’s also the question of markets. If the periphery’s too poor to consume the goods and services of the core, you’ll see a global maldistribution of purchasing power. And an ensuing global depression.

The developing countries should choose a path of development that suits to their national situation in the light of their own conditions. They should promote reform and opening-up in an orderly way and step by step, heighten their ability to prevent risks and maintain a steady and healthy development of their economies.

The establishment of a multipolar and equitable international economic order and not hegomonism is thus essential to make it possible for the world's trend towards economic globalization to evolve in the direction favorable to common prosperity.

Instead, the global balance of power has become increasingly out of balance; hegemonism and power politics have further developed and regional crises have occurred frequently. This shows that the move towards multi-polarization of the world is a tortuous and long process.
At present, by virtue of its economic, technological and military advantages, the United States is pursuing a new "gunboat policy" in an attempt to establish a monopolar world under its guidance. This is against the tide of history and is doomed to failure. Innumerable historical facts demonstrate that hegemonism may hold away for a time, but it cannot wreak havoc for a long time.

Posted by: Dr. Abe Sokolov on March 29, 2003 03:59 AM

I've thought about your comments over the weekend, to make sure I respond not out of emotion but from reason. I think I can now confidently say your opinions seem to me flat Marxist, and reek of elitism.

Granted the collectivization of the Maoist era was imprudent. You must be a lot better educated about the Cultural Revolution than I am. The books I've read talk about thousands of people being murdered just because they had an education, and millions starving to death because of these collectivization efforts causing mass starvation. Calling this "imprudent" is rather like calling the Khmer Rouge's similar plans "poorly thought out". These were people dying, not statistics being moved from one stack to another. Dying at the whim of a madman, with no recourse or salvation.

And the formulas for achieving these preconditions hugely vary throughout the world. "Representative democracy" and "capitalism" are the Western variants in highly developed countries. So, in a nutshell, the only set of peoples who can handle self-government are western peoples? The only way for third-world countries to prosper is under the iron fist of a dictator or under tank treads commanded by oligarchs? The only method of economic prosperity for undeveloped countries is centralized planning, because the "commoners" are simply unable to handle their own prosperity?

That other forms of government can be made to work for short periods of time is a point I will not contest. Quite obviously it is true. But the peoples of such governments take an awful risk. By denying themselves the ability to alter their own governments, by removing all methods of accountability of their leaders, and by allowing those leaders to destroy any glimmer of a "loyal opposition", these people are trusting their lives and the lives of their children to others in the blind hope they will keep everyone's best interests at heart.

Sometimes they do, and in those cases positive progress is easy, especially compared with tacky, inefficient, and ignorant democracies. Without fail though, without fail, history has shown that eventually someone who doesn't have the society's best interests at heart floats to the top. Once that happens, there is nothing to stop them, and it always happens.

The Chinese love to tout their "success" as proof that not all societies are capable of self-government, and yet at every turn their success comes only from allowing individuals or small groups of people the ability to determine their own destiny. It is widely acknowledged that a primary obstacle to forward movement in the Chinese economy is endemic corruption, especially within the higer ministries and the military. Without some form of accountability, without giving the people a voice in their own destiny on a national scale, how will this ever change?

The Pacific Rim will likely account for an ever-grater [sic] share of the world’s economy, while the over-extended West degenerates into mercantilism. Such apocalypses have been predicted since at least the economic recession of the late 1970s, and yet they keep not happening. Every business cycle in the west leads to the same academic analyses which are little more than cries of "SEE! WE TOLD YOU! THE WEST IS DOOMED AND THE GREAT EAST ASIAN CO-PROSPERITY SPHERE IS ON IT'S WAY!" Of course, as with the similar eschatological doctrines in the early Christian church, the problem is it keeps not happening.

This is because such chicken-little screaming utterly ignores one of, if not the, primary reason the west is the supreme culture on the planet: its manifold and extremely powerful mechanisms for peaceful self-correction, and the utter willingness of the peoples within its sub-cultures to accept endemic change.

Regardless, we have bird walked an awfully long way from the main thrust of the original essay, that the United States of America isn't going anywhere any time soon as a world power. I have yet to see anyone provide an iron-clad reply countering this premise. The ones put forward so far have been surprisingly easy to disassemble, even when coming from distinguished academics who should know better.

Posted by: scott on March 31, 2003 10:01 AM

Scott.

First, I wasn’t making a concrete set of predictions, but offering an alternative formulation. I agree that "America isn't going anywhere any time soon as a world power." But I’m also pointing out that if the Pacific Rim emerges as a more economically productive than the North Atlantic, it isn’t unrealistic to expect the global geopolitical balance to shift. At certain points in history, remember, Manchu China and the Ottoman Empire looked a lot stronger than the West. That was only superficially, though, considering the West’s dynamic advance toward modern, industrial capitalism and greater internal productivity.

Second, you said little, if anything, to counter any of the content of what I had posted. Once again, you just seem to be going on your ad hominem attacks (calling me "chicken little", a "Marxist", and an elitist).

By the way, I wrote this earlier on this page: “However, Third World countries can’t afford to close themselves to the global economy. The results of that are the development experiences of North Korea and Myanmar. And it would be an understatement to characterize their experiences as less than optimal. By participating in globalization, the developing countries (countries that require more capital, human and material, than they what can provide for themselves) obtain certain foreign funds, market, advanced technologies and management experiences, thus accelerating their economic development.”

You also say nothing to back up your claims regarding China, which would seem to be missing the big picture without concrete substantiation, considering that China’s one of the most rapidly industrializing and urbanizing Third World countries (if not the most), sustaining average growth rates of 7-8% for the past decade. It’s also seeing rapid improvements in living standards that I illustrated concretely earlier.

If you want to strengthen you critical thinking skills and become more persuasive, you need to drop the ad hominem attacks and cultural attacks which only seem to obscure a lack of understanding.

Posted by: Dr. Abe Sokolov on April 1, 2003 04:20 PM

Manchu China and the Ottoman Empire were stronger than the west at certain points in history. As were the Mongols, the Arabs, the Visigoths, the Persians, and the Egyptians.

In the interim between your comments, a friend of mine did some research and found some extremely interesting comments with your e-mail address attributed to them, to wit, an actual defense of Stalin as someone "good" for the Russian people (note to others: you'll need to scroll down through a bunch of drivel to find them).

The intellectual standing of anyone willing to defend someone who mudered or starved an estimated 10 million of his own citizens, and was directly responsible for the debacles at the start of Barbarossa, leading to the deaths of at least that many more, speaks for itself.

I appreciate that you have kept the debate quite civil, but it doesn't make your pot any less cracked.

Posted by: scott on April 2, 2003 09:40 AM

Scott:

Congratulations! You continue with ad hominem debating!

Go to the site in which I praise Stalin. It’s an archive of Stalin photos and a biographical site. It has interesting content, but I can’t figure out if the site is seriously pro-Stalin or not. I went to the discussion board and found that most of the other comments are sexual references, especially references to oral sex. So, like other visitors I decided to make idiotic comments as well, but ones that actually pertained to Stalin.

http://www.stel.ru/stalin/guestbook/index.php

Here’s the website. Go to there and you’ll be able to figure out that I’m being facetious. In another site I praise North Korea’s leader. The text that I posted was borrowed from a North Korean propaganda site. It’s so blatantly propagandistic and cult-like that it can only reflect badly upon the North Korean dictatorship. Again, I was obviously being facetious. Also remember, I made an anti-North Korean reference on your page, which was serious in content. Take a look.

http://www.brinklindsey.com/archives/000417.php

You’re missing out on a lot if you fail to appreciate irony.

Posted by: Dr. Abe Sokolov on April 2, 2003 11:31 AM

And by the way, you still haven’t said a damn thing that was substantive in nature rather than demagogic.

Now that you’ve added ‘crack pot’ to your repertoire of insults to obscure your lack to understanding, I must say that this is only reflecting badly upon your debating skills.

Posted by: Dr. Abe Sokolov on April 2, 2003 11:38 AM

By the way, you don't have to tell me stuff like this: "Manchu China and the Ottoman Empire were stronger than the west at certain points in history. As were the Mongols, the Arabs, the Visigoths, the Persians, and the Egyptians." I have a PhD in history.

Posted by: Dr. Abe Sokolov on April 2, 2003 11:40 AM

Your sense of humor is unusual to me, but I'll take you at your word that it was all a joke. I apologize for calling you a crackpot based on your "humorous" postings in support of Stalin et. al.

Please define what you would accept as "substantive", and also please point out where, exactly, in your own comments you have engaged in said "substantive" argument so that I will understand what you are looking for.

And, if we're going to talk about insults and ad-hominem, let's not forget these gems:

Read up on World Systems theory and then you’ll be able to intelligently express your viewpoint

obscure a lack of understanding

etc. You're a lot more subtle about it, yes, but no less insulting.

A PhD in anything usually results in some sort of curriculum vitae, but I can find no references out there to you. The internet is not a particularly good reference source, so perhaps a biography of some sort would be in order?

Posted by: scott on April 2, 2003 11:57 AM

Scott:

Due to reference to the First Industrial Revolution, it’s obvious that my initial reference to the Machu and Ottoman Empires referred to around the eighteenth century.

Here’s an interesting 1776 quotation by Adam Smith:

“The great extent of the empire of China, the vast multitude of its inhabitants, the variety of climate and consequently of productions in its various provinces, and the easy communication by means of water carriage between the greater part of them, render the home market of that country so great extent as to be alone sufficient to support very great manufacturers, and to admit of very considerable subdivisions of labor. The home market of China is perhaps in extent to much inferior to the market of all the different countries of Europe put together.”

This is the time period when the West, led by Britain, was finally beginning to eclipse the East.

I was thus referring to this time period when making this reference: “But I’m also pointing out that if the Pacific Rim emerges as a more economically productive than the North Atlantic, it isn’t unrealistic to expect the global geopolitical balance to shift. At certain points in history, remember, Manchu China and the Ottoman Empire looked a lot stronger than the West. That was only superficially, though, considering the West’s dynamic advance toward modern, industrial capitalism and greater internal productivity.” Once again, that should have been obvious, given the references to industrialization that framed the time period.

Posted by: Dr. Abe Sokolov on April 2, 2003 12:07 PM

My criticisms were constructive; they were not ad hominem. It’s commonly accepted, after all, that ad hominem attacks often serve to bolster weak arguments. I wasn’t saying that you were unqualified to express yourself, but rather that you might find more advantageous means of doing so.

But not to digress from the debate, I’d like to reiterate in a nutshell what I’ve been suggesting:

I’m only saying that as one geopolitical entity emerges as a more economically productive than another, it isn’t unrealistic to expect the global geopolitical balance to shift. I’m considering this in light of trends that suggest that in a generation China’s economy, for instance, will the world’s largest and within two generations it will likely be a developed country.

I’m also offering the formulation that the polarization of North and South could render the West overextended militarily and lead to the formation of new, hostile powers and blocs, but I am not rigidly adhering to a set of concrete predictions since that would be extremely imprudent. These two formulations are commonly made by those analyzing the implications of World Systems Theory as well as other theories of sociology of development and economic history.

My evidence, though not any rigid empirical proof, is in the earlier postings.

If you firmly disagree that these formulations are plausible, then you could integrate theory with empirical evidence suggesting that the economic and geopolitical trends underpinning them are unlikely to continue. You could also offer an alternative analysis, not countering the trends, but suggesting other plausible implications even if they do go forward.

I’ve gotten a glimpse of what arguments that you might use. Here's an important suggestion: don’t lose the big picture. Don’t just look at where, for instance, China is now in relation to where the United States is now. In other words don’t forget to view China in the context of the backward state from which it is emerging.

Posted by: Dr. Abe Sokolov on April 2, 2003 12:32 PM

Scott:

I'm looking forward to your comments and analysis. Hope you find my advise regarding argumentation useful.

Posted by: Dr. Abe Sokolov on April 2, 2003 10:26 PM

I check several times a day for a response. I'm still looking forward to it.

Posted by: Dr. Abe Sokolov on April 7, 2003 10:14 PM

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