The United States might be stumbling toward a decline from which few great powers have ever recovered.
The United States might be stumbling toward a decline from which few great powers have ever recovered.
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What has led to “the relative decline in U.S. standing,” as the report asks? The opening chapter explains America’s problem starkly: “Its competitive position is threatened both from within (in terms of slowing productivity growth, an aging population, a polarized political system, and an increasingly corrupted information environment) and outside (in terms of a rising direct challenge from China and declining deference to U.S. power from dozens of developing nations).”
This decline is “accelerating,” warns the study. ...
What causes national decline? The Rand authors cite triggers that are all too familiar in 2024. “Addiction to luxury and decadence,” “failure to keep pace with … technological demands,” “ossified” bureaucracy, “loss of civic virtue,” “military overstretch,” “self-interested and warring elites,” “unsustainable environmental practices.” Does that sound like any country you know?
The challenge is “anticipatory national renewal,” argue the authors — in other words, tackling the problems before they tackle us. Their survey of historical and sociological literature identifies essential tools for renewal, such as recognizing the problem; adopting a problem-solving attitude rather than an ideological one; having good governance structures; and, perhaps most elusive, maintaining “elite commitment to the common good.”
No chance in hell on that last one, so here's hoping the rest of their analysis is right.
Exactly, there's no path towards turning things around politically. I think the last chance to save capitalism was the whole green new deal thing that Sanders was pushing. These were minimally necessary changes to arrest the decline, and the establishment soundly rejected that idea. So, we know for a fact that it's not possible to do anything differently.
I think the last chance to save capitalism was the whole green new deal thing that Sanders was pushing.
Capitalism is doomed?
It's not a good thing, at least in the short term. Without the right intervention, the decline of capitalism is the rise of fascism.
This is the wrong way to think about things. The task of communists is not to save capitalism from itself (as the social democrats wish to do) out of fear of fascists taking over. It is to build a disciplined, militant and class conscious revolutionary movement such that when the time comes it is us and not the fascists who will lead the masses. It is a complete waste of your energies to worry about whether capitalism is declining too quickly. If it is declining quickly that just means we have a better opportunity to educate, agitate and organize, taking advantage of the discontent that the decline is causing. The more the collapse accelerates the more we must redouble our efforts.