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The end of dollar supremacy The West's imperial lifecycle is drawing to a close

A demonstration outside the former US embassy in Tehran (Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images)

A demonstration outside the former US embassy in Tehran (Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images)


May 26, 2023   5 mins

In January 1999, in a Washington of bustling bars and soaring stock markets, Bill Clinton rose to deliver his State of the Union address. America was so untroubled by threat or misfortune that it had spent the previous year debating the precise significance of fellatio. But Clinton, who had survived the scandal, exuded unshakeable personal and civilisational self-confidence. Declaring “a new dawn for America” and a future of “limitless possibility”, he called on Congress to decide how to spend all the record surpluses the government was soon going to enjoy. America’s only inconvenience, it seemed, was too much money. Today, as America struggles to support a crumbling dollar, marshal allies against Russia, ward off a rising China, it’s easy to forget that barely two decades ago it strode the planet like a colossus.

But pride before a fall has an ancient lineage, and only the arrogance of the historical present could treat American imperial decline as a novel phenomenon, let alone mere metaphor. Some 16 centuries before Clinton, in an uncannily similar setting of domes and colonnades, a Roman orator stood before the imperial Senate to deliver an equally triumphal speech. It was 1 January 399, inauguration day for the latest in a millennium-old line of consuls, the most prestigious Roman office. This year’s candidate was Flavius Mallius Theodorus. After rising to praise his audience — “here I see gathered all the brilliance of the world” — he went on to proclaim the dawn of a new Golden Age, celebrating the unparalleled prosperity of the Empire.

Rome’s rapid comeuppance is now a historical parable that America can learn from in real-time. Because the rhetoric of Clinton and his ancient predecessor was spoken from atop the crest of the same wave: an identical process of rise and decline which Peter Heather and I, in our new book, call “the imperial lifecycle”. Empires grow rich and powerful and attain supremacy through the economic exploitation of their colonial periphery. But in the process, they inadvertently spur the economic development of that same periphery until it can roll back and ultimately displace its overlord.

America has never thought of itself as an empire, mainly because with the exception of the few islands in the Pacific and Caribbean, it has never accumulated a large network of overseas territories. But this modern European model, in which colonies were (and in a few cases, still are) administered by governors who answered directly to the imperial capital, was but one of many. The late Roman Empire, for instance, functioned as an “inside-out” empire — effectively run from the provinces, with Rome serving more as a spiritual than administrative capital. What held it all together was the shared culture of the provincial nobility that ran it, most of whom has provincial origins but had been socialised into what Peter Heather has called the imperial culture of “Latin, towns and togas”.

The American Empire — or more accurately the American-led Western empire — mirrors this confederal model, with an updated cultural-political glue that we might call “neoliberalism, Nato and denim”. Under this regime, the nation-state was primary, borders were inviolable, relatively open trade and capital movement prevailed, governing elites  were committed to liberal principles, and bureaucracy was based on increasingly standardised education systems (with economics training assuming an increasingly central role as the century progressed). But since its establishment in 1944 at the Bretton Woods conference, its fundamental economic model has been in the timeless imperial mould: exploitation of the periphery to the benefit of the imperial core.

The great wave of decolonisation that followed the war was meant to end that. But the Bretton Woods system, which created a trading regime that favoured industrial over primary producers and enshrined the dollar as the global reserve currency, ensured that the net flow of financial resources continued to move from developing countries to developed ones. Even when the economies of the newly-independent states grew, those of the G7 economies and their partners grew more. And while the treaty arrangements that cemented this system were periodically updated at international summits, even then the US and its main trading partners would typically draft a deal for sign-off by everyone else. As a result, the gap between rich and poor countries grew bigger than ever.

Clinton was speaking at the all-time peak of this American imperial order. Two years earlier, a financial crisis that had begun in Asia had ricocheted across the developing world. And when protesters filled streets and governments across the Global South collapsed, the rich in developing countries panicked and sent their money into the safe haven of US Treasury paper. That influx of cash sent the late Nineties US economy into overdrive, creating the abundance that Clinton took to be endless.

In fact, as he was speaking, the overall flow of global capital had already begun moving the other way. By this time, quietly but steadily, developing countries like China and India had shaken off the torpor of earlier decades and were starting to grow in leaps and bounds. The brief recessions induced in developing countries by the Asian Crisis and the consequent boom in the West obscured the fact that the really dynamic economies of the world were now in what was called the Third World. Once the protests died down and normal business resumed there, investors in the developing world — followed by fund-managers in Western countries — sent their money back to the growing economies of the global periphery.

In the Roman Empire, peripheral states developed the political and military capacity to end Roman domination by force. In the modern case, the conflict was fought through diplomatic, economic and political channels. The year of Clinton’s panegyric now looks pivotal — not only for the changing capital winds, but because of what happened at that year’s World Trade Organization summit in Seattle. After decades in which they’d more or less signed off on done-and-dusted deals, delegations from some of the big developing countries got together, refused to go along and brought the negotiations to a halt. As their diplomatic and political capacity rose to match their economic heft, developing countries were now demanding, and getting, better deals.

The Third World was rising, and it quickly showed in the economic data. On the eve of the millennium, the cusp of its supremacy — a supremacy no other empire in history had come remotely close to matching — the West accounted for four-fifths of the global economy. Today, that’s down to three-fifths, and falling. The fastest-growing economies in the world are now all in the old periphery; the worst-performing economies are disproportionately in the West. These are the economic trends that have created our present landscape of superpower conflict — most saliently between America and China. A once-mighty empire is now challenged and feels embattled. Taken aback by the refusal of so many developing countries to join in isolating Russia, the West is now waking up to the reality of the emerging, polycentric and fluid global order.

These trends are only set to continue. But this is where America and Rome diverge. The Roman Empire existed at a time where there was one fixed factor of production: land. The economy was therefore necessarily steady-state and overwhelmingly agricultural. For the periphery to rise, the core had to fall, as the barbarian invaders seized physical Roman real estate. But in the modern world, where continued technological progress means economies can keep moving forward, if more slowly, decline may only need to be relative. The West can continue to grow, and to play a pre-eminent role in global governance.

But meek acceptance isn’t what builds empires in the first place. The danger is that, obsessed with past glories and tempted by a desire to turn back the clock, Western countries attempt to restore their greatness. Since its own imperial marginalisation, Britain has been possessed by a manic and counter-productive declinism, most recently responding to the 2008 crash with a programme of austerity that has sunk its economy into what may become a permanent decay. America’s interminable annual wranglings over debt ceilings could, if they continue, diminish the attractiveness of the dollar, at a time when developing countries are looking for alternatives.

The fate of the West hangs in the balance, and it must stop drawing the wrong lessons from Roman history, not the least of which is a stubborn refusal to accept a diminished role in its world. After all, the Roman Empire might have survived had it not weakened itself with wars of choice on its ascendant Persian rival. By finding a way to coexist peacefully with its own rival China, however uncomfortable that may be, the US could do itself and the world a favour.


John Rapley is an author and academic who divides his time between London, Johannesburg and Ottawa. His books include Why Empires Fall: Rome, America and the Future of the West (with Peter Heather, Penguin, 2023) and Twilight of the Money Gods: Economics as a religion (Simon & Schuster, 2017).

jarapley

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Jim R
Jim R
1 year ago

Somehow it was slipped into this article that ‘austerity’ or debt ceiling worries are causing the decline. This is bizarre. One of the key features of every collapse in history is reckless spending and debt accumulation. Backed up by a magical belief (apparently shared by this author) that one never has to pay back what is borrowed, and that there is no surrender of sovereignty implicit in becoming heavily indebted and beholden to creditors. “Modern monetary theory” is the equivalent of the French King sacking every finance minister who tells him he’s broke until he finds one who says more spending is the answer.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim R

I took it that debrt ceilings and austerity were dymptrather than causes.. in any event the decline seems irreversible as long as those inane distractions referred to persist; and that, sadly seems to be likely. Rearranging the deck chairs seems to be growing ever more popular in the West with a corresponding decline in reason, fiscal responsibility, and commonsense.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim R

I took it that debrt ceilings and austerity were dymptrather than causes.. in any event the decline seems irreversible as long as those inane distractions referred to persist; and that, sadly seems to be likely. Rearranging the deck chairs seems to be growing ever more popular in the West with a corresponding decline in reason, fiscal responsibility, and commonsense.

Jim R
Jim R
1 year ago

Somehow it was slipped into this article that ‘austerity’ or debt ceiling worries are causing the decline. This is bizarre. One of the key features of every collapse in history is reckless spending and debt accumulation. Backed up by a magical belief (apparently shared by this author) that one never has to pay back what is borrowed, and that there is no surrender of sovereignty implicit in becoming heavily indebted and beholden to creditors. “Modern monetary theory” is the equivalent of the French King sacking every finance minister who tells him he’s broke until he finds one who says more spending is the answer.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
1 year ago

Alongside issues with the US dollar, the same old trope is brought out about the UK responding to the end of empire with “a manic and counter-productive declinism”, citing the so-called “austerity” period during the 2010s. It was “austerity” by political jibe, characterised as such by HM Opposition (which includes the BBC), an argument which also omits the obvious non-declinism of periods such as the mid/late 1980s.
The vast majority of “cuts” the Opposition railed against were, in fact, merely smaller rises in spending than under the profligacy of the previous government which had resulted in the infamous note left in the Treasury about “nothing left in the coffers” to be found by the new Chancellor.
When such economic and (i suspect) politically-motivated nonsense is used as the basis for making one’s case, it brings into question the entire thesis.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

..and furthermore, the Emperor’s outfit is quite nice if looked at in a certain light.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
1 year ago
Reply to  Steve Murray

..and furthermore, the Emperor’s outfit is quite nice if looked at in a certain light.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
1 year ago

Alongside issues with the US dollar, the same old trope is brought out about the UK responding to the end of empire with “a manic and counter-productive declinism”, citing the so-called “austerity” period during the 2010s. It was “austerity” by political jibe, characterised as such by HM Opposition (which includes the BBC), an argument which also omits the obvious non-declinism of periods such as the mid/late 1980s.
The vast majority of “cuts” the Opposition railed against were, in fact, merely smaller rises in spending than under the profligacy of the previous government which had resulted in the infamous note left in the Treasury about “nothing left in the coffers” to be found by the new Chancellor.
When such economic and (i suspect) politically-motivated nonsense is used as the basis for making one’s case, it brings into question the entire thesis.

Emil Castelli
Emil Castelli
1 year ago

Yawn….. Oh, I am sorry – did you say something? Some old, dusted off, fall of Rome meme perhaps?

‘America’s interminable annual wranglings over debt ceilings could, if they continue, diminish the attractiveness of the dollar, at a time when developing countries are looking for alternatives.”

Sure… But what replaces it? Yes, China can pay Brazil for Bauxite in Yuan… Maybe Brazil can pay Iran for oil with those Yuan, and Iran can use it to buy refrigerators from Vietnam…..

This is Barter. Who ever ends up at the end of the hot potato passing, and wants to then stick it in the bank as it is surplus…..what then? They sell the Yuan on the global currency market for USA $ and buy Treasuries. Yuan is not a store of value. It is not reserves, it is hot potato barter tokens. The $ is still reserve. Global debt is still owed in $.

Only USA has the securities system in place, the 4 month to 30 year treasuries. No other currency can do this, none. US Bonds, Treasuries..good as gold as Bretton Woods said.

Then there are EuroDollars, Trillions and Trillions of them. They are created by international Non-American Banks by the process of ‘Loaning Them Into Existence, same as all currency is created.

A Company wants to open a Peruvian copper mine. They have the licenses and proven metals to collateralize the loan for the $70,000,000 to buy the heavy equipment and staffing and build a dock to load it. They go to a Cayman Island Bank who have no relation to the USA – and that banks loans them $70,000,000, US Dollars. They created seventy million Dollars – pow, ‘Loaned it into existence’. No one is selling Cat Diggers in Peruvian money; Indian engineers and Pakistani heavy equipment mechanics, they are paid in $ – so they need to borrow $.

Now they have to service this debt in $s to the Cayman Bank – so they have to sell the copper in ‘US’ $…haha – they are called ‘Euro-Dollars’. They never saw the USA, or the FED or the US Treasury – but there they are – out there, making money, and requiring huge $ amounts to pay the loans every month….$ created outside of America, haha, and this is just one of the Huge Madness which is the Global economy. What, $400,000,000,000,000, four hundred Trillion perhaps? so a total default of the USA Federal debt – what, $32 Trillion? 12.5% It is survivable – only it will be paid by inflation rather that default – and more debt. The $ is the prettiest mare in the glue factory as Rick Rule says. But every nation is a horse in the glue factory too, just not pretty ones, haha…

It all is crazy shi*. The Dollar has escaped ‘Into The Wild’, as AI will one day – and it is run amok……. and it is like the rats in New York City – you are not getting rid of them……

haha, just having fun – but as the cliche goes, and the Dollar may say it too, in 30 years…..

”Twain had told the reporter, “Just say the report of my death has been grossly exaggerated.”.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
1 year ago
Reply to  Emil Castelli

No mention of the vast quantities of gold now in the hands of Russia and China? ..irrelevant? I fear much of your case is mere wishful thinking. All the Chinese ducks are quacking.. they merely need to be put in a row.. The cost of the Ukraine proxy war is damaging the US in several ways but it will pale into insignificance when the war with China is started. China, like Russia will be fighting in its own backyard with all the logistical and financial benefits that accrues to China while the US, as usual will be 5,000+ miles from home. As with Vietnam when the body bags start arriving the American moms won’t pit up with it..

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
1 year ago
Reply to  Emil Castelli

No mention of the vast quantities of gold now in the hands of Russia and China? ..irrelevant? I fear much of your case is mere wishful thinking. All the Chinese ducks are quacking.. they merely need to be put in a row.. The cost of the Ukraine proxy war is damaging the US in several ways but it will pale into insignificance when the war with China is started. China, like Russia will be fighting in its own backyard with all the logistical and financial benefits that accrues to China while the US, as usual will be 5,000+ miles from home. As with Vietnam when the body bags start arriving the American moms won’t pit up with it..

Emil Castelli
Emil Castelli
1 year ago

Yawn….. Oh, I am sorry – did you say something? Some old, dusted off, fall of Rome meme perhaps?

‘America’s interminable annual wranglings over debt ceilings could, if they continue, diminish the attractiveness of the dollar, at a time when developing countries are looking for alternatives.”

Sure… But what replaces it? Yes, China can pay Brazil for Bauxite in Yuan… Maybe Brazil can pay Iran for oil with those Yuan, and Iran can use it to buy refrigerators from Vietnam…..

This is Barter. Who ever ends up at the end of the hot potato passing, and wants to then stick it in the bank as it is surplus…..what then? They sell the Yuan on the global currency market for USA $ and buy Treasuries. Yuan is not a store of value. It is not reserves, it is hot potato barter tokens. The $ is still reserve. Global debt is still owed in $.

Only USA has the securities system in place, the 4 month to 30 year treasuries. No other currency can do this, none. US Bonds, Treasuries..good as gold as Bretton Woods said.

Then there are EuroDollars, Trillions and Trillions of them. They are created by international Non-American Banks by the process of ‘Loaning Them Into Existence, same as all currency is created.

A Company wants to open a Peruvian copper mine. They have the licenses and proven metals to collateralize the loan for the $70,000,000 to buy the heavy equipment and staffing and build a dock to load it. They go to a Cayman Island Bank who have no relation to the USA – and that banks loans them $70,000,000, US Dollars. They created seventy million Dollars – pow, ‘Loaned it into existence’. No one is selling Cat Diggers in Peruvian money; Indian engineers and Pakistani heavy equipment mechanics, they are paid in $ – so they need to borrow $.

Now they have to service this debt in $s to the Cayman Bank – so they have to sell the copper in ‘US’ $…haha – they are called ‘Euro-Dollars’. They never saw the USA, or the FED or the US Treasury – but there they are – out there, making money, and requiring huge $ amounts to pay the loans every month….$ created outside of America, haha, and this is just one of the Huge Madness which is the Global economy. What, $400,000,000,000,000, four hundred Trillion perhaps? so a total default of the USA Federal debt – what, $32 Trillion? 12.5% It is survivable – only it will be paid by inflation rather that default – and more debt. The $ is the prettiest mare in the glue factory as Rick Rule says. But every nation is a horse in the glue factory too, just not pretty ones, haha…

It all is crazy shi*. The Dollar has escaped ‘Into The Wild’, as AI will one day – and it is run amok……. and it is like the rats in New York City – you are not getting rid of them……

haha, just having fun – but as the cliche goes, and the Dollar may say it too, in 30 years…..

”Twain had told the reporter, “Just say the report of my death has been grossly exaggerated.”.

Brian Villanueva
Brian Villanueva
1 year ago

I believe it was Mary Harrington in these very pages just a few weeks ago that that suggested we have the wrong Roman comparison in mind. Everyone is talking like it’s 475 AD, but what if it’s actually BC 51? What if what we see coming over the horizon isn’t barbarian hordes but Caesar’s army? Mary specifically suggested that the those who fear a near-term American collapse are likely to be disappointed. As Adam Smith said, “there’s a lot of ruin in a nation”. The American Republic is almost certainly coming to an end, but the American Empire may well be just beginning.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
1 year ago

..really? ..and what, pray tell will sustain that American Empire? ..its manufacturing base is gone, its vassal states are rebelling, it’s running out of resources and it’s a political basket case.. Sounds like the Fall of the RE to me.. and whether it’s the Barbarian hoards or Caesar’s army (Donald Trump’s insurrection army) the result will be the same. Down the tubes..

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
1 year ago

..really? ..and what, pray tell will sustain that American Empire? ..its manufacturing base is gone, its vassal states are rebelling, it’s running out of resources and it’s a political basket case.. Sounds like the Fall of the RE to me.. and whether it’s the Barbarian hoards or Caesar’s army (Donald Trump’s insurrection army) the result will be the same. Down the tubes..

Brian Villanueva
Brian Villanueva
1 year ago

I believe it was Mary Harrington in these very pages just a few weeks ago that that suggested we have the wrong Roman comparison in mind. Everyone is talking like it’s 475 AD, but what if it’s actually BC 51? What if what we see coming over the horizon isn’t barbarian hordes but Caesar’s army? Mary specifically suggested that the those who fear a near-term American collapse are likely to be disappointed. As Adam Smith said, “there’s a lot of ruin in a nation”. The American Republic is almost certainly coming to an end, but the American Empire may well be just beginning.

Paul T
Paul T
1 year ago

Every couple of weeks one of these articles comes up…

Paul T
Paul T
1 year ago

Every couple of weeks one of these articles comes up…

R S Foster
R S Foster
1 year ago

If and when people start buying boltholes in Beijing, confident in the knowledge their money will be safe in the Bank of China…because they know for sure the Celestial Emperor Xi and his heirs and successors would not dream of confiscating it and shooting them…and will honour contracts and allow disputes to be settled by due process of Law within an independent judiciary…possibly.

… Until then, maybe not…

Nell Clover
Nell Clover
1 year ago
Reply to  R S Foster

Looking at the analogy with Rome: Rome didn’t collapse because there were better places to live, work or invest. It collapsed because its internal economy was weakened and its purpose was lost. There doesn’t have to be something better in place before what is OK is destroyed.

P Branagan
P Branagan
1 year ago
Reply to  R S Foster

Your money is much safer in Beijing or maybe Singapore or UAE than in New York or London. Those Western cleptocrats steal your money. Ask the Afghans. Iranians, Venezuelans, Russians etc.

Last edited 1 year ago by P Branagan
Nell Clover
Nell Clover
1 year ago
Reply to  R S Foster

Looking at the analogy with Rome: Rome didn’t collapse because there were better places to live, work or invest. It collapsed because its internal economy was weakened and its purpose was lost. There doesn’t have to be something better in place before what is OK is destroyed.

P Branagan
P Branagan
1 year ago
Reply to  R S Foster

Your money is much safer in Beijing or maybe Singapore or UAE than in New York or London. Those Western cleptocrats steal your money. Ask the Afghans. Iranians, Venezuelans, Russians etc.

Last edited 1 year ago by P Branagan
R S Foster
R S Foster
1 year ago

If and when people start buying boltholes in Beijing, confident in the knowledge their money will be safe in the Bank of China…because they know for sure the Celestial Emperor Xi and his heirs and successors would not dream of confiscating it and shooting them…and will honour contracts and allow disputes to be settled by due process of Law within an independent judiciary…possibly.

… Until then, maybe not…

Amos Farrell
Amos Farrell
1 year ago

I’ve read some version of this article every year, for forty years.

Nell Clover
Nell Clover
1 year ago
Reply to  Amos Farrell

I once attended a lecture by a Jewish survivor of the holocaust. The idea of an anti-semitic pogrom wasn’t new to the world, but in Germany in the modern era?! And then it happened.

In many ways the decline of the dollar has begun, but incremental decline is hard to see over just 40 years. Rome didn’t fall in a year.

40 year trends include: the American middle class is declining; American quality of life is now very far from the best in the world, the dollar share of reserves has been falling; the USA’s share of global GDP has been in retreat; and the USA government has – along with its defacto dominions like the UK – resorted to the printing of money to finance deficits that the bond markets cannot.

Sure, the dollar won’t collapse overnight, but neither did the denarius. I’m pretty sure no one generation noticed the decline. It was only after the fact that it became possible to see what had gone before – and wouldn’t be coming back.

Last edited 1 year ago by Nell Clover
Nell Clover
Nell Clover
1 year ago
Reply to  Amos Farrell

I once attended a lecture by a Jewish survivor of the holocaust. The idea of an anti-semitic pogrom wasn’t new to the world, but in Germany in the modern era?! And then it happened.

In many ways the decline of the dollar has begun, but incremental decline is hard to see over just 40 years. Rome didn’t fall in a year.

40 year trends include: the American middle class is declining; American quality of life is now very far from the best in the world, the dollar share of reserves has been falling; the USA’s share of global GDP has been in retreat; and the USA government has – along with its defacto dominions like the UK – resorted to the printing of money to finance deficits that the bond markets cannot.

Sure, the dollar won’t collapse overnight, but neither did the denarius. I’m pretty sure no one generation noticed the decline. It was only after the fact that it became possible to see what had gone before – and wouldn’t be coming back.

Last edited 1 year ago by Nell Clover
Amos Farrell
Amos Farrell
1 year ago

I’ve read some version of this article every year, for forty years.

Josh Allan
Josh Allan
1 year ago

America’s rivals – namely China and Russia – are in far direr straits than the US. Predictions of American decline and fall have been around for the past century. I’ll only start to worry when people *stop* predicting it.

Last edited 1 year ago by Josh Allan
Peter B
Peter B
1 year ago
Reply to  Josh Allan

Agreed.
But I think you have a typo – you meant “China and Russia” ?
China actually doesn’t want the Yuan to be anything close to a reserve currency – their system requires they tightly control their currency. Hardly any is held outside China.

Josh Allan
Josh Allan
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter B

Oops, corrected it now. Although you could argue America is its own worst enemy…
And yes, you’re right about the Yuan. As it stands, even the pound and the yen are used more widely.

Tom Condray
Tom Condray
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter B

Indeed, all the chatter about China’ s currency becoming the new go to ignores the reality that China’s leaders would never cede to the world’s markets the valuation of Chinese currency.

Josh Allan
Josh Allan
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter B

Oops, corrected it now. Although you could argue America is its own worst enemy…
And yes, you’re right about the Yuan. As it stands, even the pound and the yen are used more widely.

Tom Condray
Tom Condray
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter B

Indeed, all the chatter about China’ s currency becoming the new go to ignores the reality that China’s leaders would never cede to the world’s markets the valuation of Chinese currency.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
1 year ago
Reply to  Josh Allan

..yes and the Emperor’s clothes look fine to me!

Peter B
Peter B
1 year ago
Reply to  Josh Allan

Agreed.
But I think you have a typo – you meant “China and Russia” ?
China actually doesn’t want the Yuan to be anything close to a reserve currency – their system requires they tightly control their currency. Hardly any is held outside China.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
1 year ago
Reply to  Josh Allan

..yes and the Emperor’s clothes look fine to me!

Josh Allan
Josh Allan
1 year ago

America’s rivals – namely China and Russia – are in far direr straits than the US. Predictions of American decline and fall have been around for the past century. I’ll only start to worry when people *stop* predicting it.

Last edited 1 year ago by Josh Allan
Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

Whilst US Treasuries remain the world’s no 1 investment asset, something people on this medium seem unable to comprehend, all will continue to be well, but the decline of the US will one day in the near future, bring this to an end.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

Whilst US Treasuries remain the world’s no 1 investment asset, something people on this medium seem unable to comprehend, all will continue to be well, but the decline of the US will one day in the near future, bring this to an end.

Mike Doyle
Mike Doyle
1 year ago

Oh, ffs, not another economist desperate to prove the end of the American hegemony. All of whom are simply iterations of, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:9

Mike Doyle
Mike Doyle
1 year ago

Oh, ffs, not another economist desperate to prove the end of the American hegemony. All of whom are simply iterations of, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:9

B Timothy
B Timothy
1 year ago

I completely agree the USA is an Empire, but completely disagree that it’s been geared to send wealth back to the interior. It was a model to contain a rival economic system by promising the periphery protection and the ability to trade in exchange for being on the “western” side of the wall.
It’s literally a model to curtail the USA’s massive advantages for political alliance, and is completely obsolete today. It was obsolete when Clinton was giving that speech in ’99, although he didn’t know it.
S Korea has no energy, raw materials, agriculture, and relies on exports for its economy. It also has no Navy (edit ok it does, but nothing that is going to protect the sea lanes needed for the civilization to survive on its own). At no point in history would Korea be able to prosper outside of The Empire. In fact, we know exactly what S Korea would look like without the Empire: North Korea. Ditto most East Asian countries, other than Japan– who would simply dominate the region under almost any other ruling Imperium.
China still relies on millions of barrels a day of oil from the Middle East. Do they have a Navy that could protect this? No. Would previous Empires have allowed this trade? Not without mammoth cost. If China did not agree, they would de-industrialize. The US Navy insures all of their shipping— For Free! Why?
For the vast majority of history, shipping was the most expensive part of international trade, by far. Today it’s less than 1%. Why? The US Navy kills anyone who disrupts it.
Meanwhile, as a % of GDP, the US trades the least of any G7 member. And most of our international trade is with our North American neighbors.
It’s time to end the Global Empire and refocus on a core “US Friends and Family” model:
NAFTA, AUKUS, Japan, S Korea, Most of the Western Hemisphere. Anyone messes with our trade we kill ’em dead.
To the rest: Good luck!

Last edited 1 year ago by B Timothy
B Timothy
B Timothy
1 year ago

I completely agree the USA is an Empire, but completely disagree that it’s been geared to send wealth back to the interior. It was a model to contain a rival economic system by promising the periphery protection and the ability to trade in exchange for being on the “western” side of the wall.
It’s literally a model to curtail the USA’s massive advantages for political alliance, and is completely obsolete today. It was obsolete when Clinton was giving that speech in ’99, although he didn’t know it.
S Korea has no energy, raw materials, agriculture, and relies on exports for its economy. It also has no Navy (edit ok it does, but nothing that is going to protect the sea lanes needed for the civilization to survive on its own). At no point in history would Korea be able to prosper outside of The Empire. In fact, we know exactly what S Korea would look like without the Empire: North Korea. Ditto most East Asian countries, other than Japan– who would simply dominate the region under almost any other ruling Imperium.
China still relies on millions of barrels a day of oil from the Middle East. Do they have a Navy that could protect this? No. Would previous Empires have allowed this trade? Not without mammoth cost. If China did not agree, they would de-industrialize. The US Navy insures all of their shipping— For Free! Why?
For the vast majority of history, shipping was the most expensive part of international trade, by far. Today it’s less than 1%. Why? The US Navy kills anyone who disrupts it.
Meanwhile, as a % of GDP, the US trades the least of any G7 member. And most of our international trade is with our North American neighbors.
It’s time to end the Global Empire and refocus on a core “US Friends and Family” model:
NAFTA, AUKUS, Japan, S Korea, Most of the Western Hemisphere. Anyone messes with our trade we kill ’em dead.
To the rest: Good luck!

Last edited 1 year ago by B Timothy
Kent Ausburn
Kent Ausburn
1 year ago

The US must learn to peacefully live with its rival, China? It takes two to tango, as they say, and it’s very clear that China has no intention if living peacefully with their western rivals, unless, of course, the US just surrender and hand over the keys to the kingdom without resistance.

Kent Ausburn
Kent Ausburn
1 year ago

The US must learn to peacefully live with its rival, China? It takes two to tango, as they say, and it’s very clear that China has no intention if living peacefully with their western rivals, unless, of course, the US just surrender and hand over the keys to the kingdom without resistance.

Liam F
Liam F
1 year ago

There’s some sweeping generalisations made here in relation to the US-led “Empire” post World War II “Exploitation of the periphery for the benefit of the Imperial core”
What did America gain from rebuilding Korea, Japan and indeed Europe via the Marshall plan post WWII?
It willingly developed competitors rather than colonies. Indeed many would say the EU’s primary raison d’etre is to act as a competitor to USA (while happily allowing USA to subsidise its own security)

Sure, there’s plenty evidence of decline in democratic institutions in the West, but the dollar can’t be replaced as a reserve by China until China changes and removes capital controls, free stock market, floating currency. Ie.Until it becomes more like America. Not likely.

David Harris
David Harris
1 year ago
Reply to  Liam F

“What did America gain from rebuilding Korea, Japan and indeed Europe via the Marshall plan post WWII?”
Allies to keep the USSR at bay.

David Harris
David Harris
1 year ago
Reply to  Liam F

“What did America gain from rebuilding Korea, Japan and indeed Europe via the Marshall plan post WWII?”
Allies to keep the USSR at bay.

Liam F
Liam F
1 year ago

There’s some sweeping generalisations made here in relation to the US-led “Empire” post World War II “Exploitation of the periphery for the benefit of the Imperial core”
What did America gain from rebuilding Korea, Japan and indeed Europe via the Marshall plan post WWII?
It willingly developed competitors rather than colonies. Indeed many would say the EU’s primary raison d’etre is to act as a competitor to USA (while happily allowing USA to subsidise its own security)

Sure, there’s plenty evidence of decline in democratic institutions in the West, but the dollar can’t be replaced as a reserve by China until China changes and removes capital controls, free stock market, floating currency. Ie.Until it becomes more like America. Not likely.

nigel taylor
nigel taylor
1 year ago

To think someone who can produce an article like this is let loose at Cambridge to educate our future elite.

Andrew Boughton
Andrew Boughton
1 year ago

Ha! Bill the emperor really did have no clothes. All 100% accurate.

Alan Gore
Alan Gore
1 year ago

It doesn’t help that we used to have just one anti-science party, but since the pandemic we now have two. “Technocrat” – i. e. leaders who actually know stuff and can get big things done – is now a dirty word. In this week’s news, the chair of the Georgia GOP literally believes that the Earth is flat. I take it that this woman proudly struts around unvaccinated.

michael harris
michael harris
1 year ago
Reply to  Alan Gore

Gosh, Alan, if she can ‘strut’ around she must be healthy, vaccinated or not. You know her vaccination status, I take it.

michael harris
michael harris
1 year ago
Reply to  Alan Gore

Gosh, Alan, if she can ‘strut’ around she must be healthy, vaccinated or not. You know her vaccination status, I take it.

Alan Gore
Alan Gore
1 year ago

It doesn’t help that we used to have just one anti-science party, but since the pandemic we now have two. “Technocrat” – i. e. leaders who actually know stuff and can get big things done – is now a dirty word. In this week’s news, the chair of the Georgia GOP literally believes that the Earth is flat. I take it that this woman proudly struts around unvaccinated.