"Imagine a city where there are some men and women whom everyone recognizes as honest, kind-hearted and educated, as true benefactors of humanity. Every old man, every small child knows who they are. They are central to the city's life and they give it meaning and beauty. They write books, they contribute to scientific journals and workers' newspapers. They work and struggle for the working class. They are in the public eye from morning until late in the evening. They are everywhere, in schools, factories and lecture halls, on the streets, in the main squares. At night other people appear, but hardly anyone knows about them. Their lives are secret and murky. They are afraid of the light. They are used to stealing through darkness, in the shadow of large buildings. But then something changes - and Hitler's dark power bursts into the world. Those who are honest and kind, those who bring light to the world are flung into camps and prisons. Some die fighting, others go underground. These people are no longer to be seen in schools, factories and lecture halls, or taking part in workers' demonstrations. Their books are cast into the flames. And of course, a few turn out to be traitors. A few become Brownshirts, followers of Hitler. As for those who used to lurk in the shadows, they become prominent figures. Their deeds fill newspapers. And it seems as if reason, science, humanity and honour have all died, as if they have vanished from the face of the earth. It seems as if the nation has degenerated, as if it has lost all sense of goodness and honour. But that's not true! It's simply not true! The strength and good sense of people , their morality, their true wealth - all this will live forever, no matter who hard fascism tries to destroy it."
Imo, the difference between America and previous empires is that talent and wealth are far more mobile than ever before. That means the old 3 century limit could be keep going — assuming we don’t mess it up.
Being on the outside and looking into the USA, its decline to me is palpable and very dramatic, but many in America seem to be totally oblivious to it.
There are many characteristics of a failed state, that was once an unimaginable statement to make or sentence to write.
The USA can make it to 250, but major celebrations after that date without a significant level of repair and healing is highly problematic.
>>>Bernie Sanders, who focused on health care much more than any other major politician, had a plan that would have increased spending but left the cost problem mostly untouched<<<
I'm not a healthcare economist (nor any kind of economist) so I possess zero specialized knowledge in this area, but I've read numerous (and seemingly credible) claims that US healthcare costs aren't, in the main, rising faster than the rich world average but that, in fact, the healthcare cost issue in the US is mainly a legacy problem (ie, healthcare inflation in the US was high through much of the post-war period, and that left American paying a lot for its healthcare, but this is mostly water under the bridge at this point).
Anyway, if the above is valid, the main problem as I see it for US healthcare costs is one of poor value: for the inordinate share of output America devotes to healthcare, results should be better (at minimum every resident of the country should have genuinely robust coverage that never lapses). Doing something about the "cost problem" — if by that one means pushing America's health care expenditure downward, toward the rich country average — is simply not in the cards. Unless one can convince fifteen million workers to take biggish pay cuts.
I certainly wouldn't put us in Crisis of the Third Century territory yet. We're still more in Storm Before the Storm, Grachii brothers territory, I think. Hopefully the big storm can still be avoided.
Yeah, I'm not sure how useful comparisons with societies from 2 millennia ago are. In general, the Roman Empire was a much more violent, brutal, insecure, poorer place . A huge percentage of the populace in the Roman Empire died during the Crisis of the Third Century. As for the Gracchii, do we have any politicians killed by mobs yet? And Rome had frequent wars (some existential) and civil wars both before and after.
But the Grachii similarity points would be the ratcheting up of polarization and the consistent loosening of political norms to gain political advantage with the autogolpe and 1/6 as the most vivid examples. Not predicting anything from it. Just saying if I WAS going to pick a Roman comparison that'd be my pick.
Okay, but how do you avoid a storm when so many in leadership positions - public and private - refuse to see the dark clouds on the horizon? Both of our political parties and most corporate/civic leaders are focused on short-term issues or - worse yet - their own personal interests or - even more worse - distracting culture war nonsense. The same is true of most regular folk. Although the pandemic brought out the best in some, it also brought out the worst in others. Imagine the civil unrest and violence that will erupt when we experience the real scarcity (not just of TP and sanitizer) that climate change will increasingly cause.
There are 2 variables. Climate change brings more in uncertainty, but progress brings more means to deal with that uncertainty. People don't tend to live more than 80-100 years and most people don't read history, but skip back by a hundred years at a time and life would have been more brutal. Noah has a tweet about what living through the '80's was really like. A nuclear Holocaust was a realistic threat.
The first response to this is "who is the 'we' here who needs to dig deep and work to get the US out of this hole dug by the white New Right?" At this point, what is the practical, pragmatic benefit for the historic and contemporary subaltern groups in the US (Black, Indigenous, LGBT/queer, non-Christian, disabled people and all overlaps thereof) to have even basic active commitment to the project of the American experiment? And for the historic default group, white Christian abled straight men, what is the benefit, or at least the non-loss, of ceding their overwhelming power?
So, the cultural and political shifts are just ... here to stay. A major overlooked factor is globalization But the "it has never stopped being 1968" doom-loop of progressives emphasizing loathing of the US and desire for its collapse because of (white) American genocide, slavery, rabid capitalism, and imperialism, to which reactionaries and their allies respond with denial and forced patriotic submission ...I don't think you break that without more open conflict in the short to medium term, and there is a huge part of the center-left./"moderate" part of the country that loathes conflict more than anything.
I think a general societal return to pragmatism would help with a LOT of this. The "we may have come here on different boats but we're all in the same boat now" line gets at it. I think to the degree that your dismal science can help, it's in the way that Brad deLong talks about in his excellent book Concrete Economics: we have goals X and Y -- political and social goals, but we will pragmatically use economic development to achieve them. Part of this should involve a return to a focus on *production* and research and development as the core policy principles, not "jobs" or this or that social insurance system: what does the US make, why, and where in the country? Part of the perception of US weakness is "why is America rich? it doesn't have any factories."
In terms of social attitude changes, white Americans need to seriously (be forced to) reconsider the narrative of the US' actions in the 20th century. You naturally have less of an identity-forming attachment to your country as a global hegemon if you don't think the war that kicked all that off was 1) a great glorious triumph 2) fought well 3) something that had much to do with your country or 4) something your country needs to get into a *ahem* credit-measuring contest with other countries over. Relocate white Americans' patriotism in the Union victory in the Civil War, in loathing of the Confederacy, in the promise of Reconstruction (and properly targeted anger at its overthrow), in the American and Harlem Renaissances, in the New Deal itself, and in the Civil Rights Movements. These all are unrelated to acting outside its borders.
It makes it less threatening to then acknowledge how imperialistic and cruel and just dickish the US has been in its actions outside its borders for at least 120 years now.
I think this is a sound take. Still, both those countries enjoyed the "luxury" of the emergence of a hegemon, that, for all its faults, possessed broadly similar values and provided a degree of stability in the long decades after the Second World War (and indeed intervened decisively in that conflict). Who is the liberal democratic world going to rely on if the US slips irredeemably behind China in geopolitical power? India? A revitalized EU?
the gop is less at odds with the us' constitutional republic than the current arcane brand of demos influencing applied by the ruling demoocrats in the captitol and white house. everyone should read the constitution. and stop trying to villify those who understandthe perils of the demos which is more easily duped than the gang that ran the peloponnesian wars
By coincidence a few days ago I was listening to a podcast with Jim Collins, and he spoke, and reminded me, of the so-called Stockdale Paradox: Face the brutal facts, but keep unwavering faith that you will prevail.
A sclerotic government destroying the vitality of the private sector is a recipe for doom. I don’t see many even recognizing the problem let alone doing anything about it. People looking to the New Deal as a model policy is particularly dismaying.
The Great Depression was created by monetary policy and ended by changes in monetary policy. All the new deal did was make things a bit worse - but not so much worse that it couldn’t be ended by deficit spending and loose money in world war two.
Nobody (outside of ideologues) actually thinks that the New Deal made any sense as a way to recover from the depression. We have moved way past that. When people talk about the New Deal and FDR they're talking about his leadership, rally the nation, boost morale and a bunch of other fuzzy things that us analytical types kind of scoff at, but which like 90% of people really appreciate for whatever reason. The point isn't to suggest that culling herds to induce price inflation is good fiscal policy lol
If that's the case, then we can spend as much as we did during WWII with the same government command structure except on stuff like clean energy instead of weaponry and we'd do even better, right?
Growth rates are well below historical levels and have been for decades, while government control has grown. Now the government feels the need to pump trillions into the economy under their direction. But you see no problem?
In general, developed economies since 2000 have been growing more slowly than they were in the decades immediately following the Second World War*, and this is substantially attributable to demographics. If you want a younger, more vigorous workforce and stronger growth, you'll have to let in more immigrants. I personally favor such an approach, but most so-called "conservatives" are rarely fans of this idea. Funny, that.
And no, I don't see a "problem" with the government trying to run the economy hot right now. It appears to be paying off. The consensus is that US GDP Q2 is likely to have grown at an annualized rate in the ten percent range. And we appear to be seeing the strongest wage growth since the 1980s.
*The golden age of US prosperity was unleashed following a period of massive public sector spending and borrowing (WW2) that served in the aggregate to repair private sector/household balance sheets after the Great Depression; and sustained during a three decade era that saw a steady growth in the state's share of the economy, much of that funded with a relatively progressive taxation system. Far from showing that Keynesian policy is bad for the macroeconomy, most of the evidence suggests in fact it's instrumental in boosting living standards and ensuring that the gains from economic growth are broadly-shared (and a broadly shared economy tends to be a strong economy, because adequate demand ensures steady support for yet more growth, as well as provides an inducement to innovate).
Corporate profits and sales are at all time highs. America has super expensive private health care system unique in the world. The Supreme Court is stacked with pro-business, libertarian lawyers.
You are making some very bizarre claims. You are mentally ill dude. You can't even recognize reality.
> Does our post 9-11 over militarization represent a Marius or Sulla style degradation of our representative institutions? (Not as bad yet, but I would say definitely).
This comparison seems inaccurate. The reason the Roman military under Marius & Sulla (& later Caesar & his successors) caused degradation of representative institutions was that these leaders were directly in command of part of the military, which they used to effect military coups to put them in power & fight civil wars to keep them there. Nothing remotely similar has happened in US history since at least the Civil War, & the US is much less vulnerable to such a coup or conflict because its military hierarchy is separate from the elected government & subordinate to it by law & commonly accepted tradition, rather than the elected politicians directly commanding armies as in Republican Rome. Also, because of the advance in technology, the US military is unlikely to be defeated by any domestic opponent, unlike Rome where the private armies of, e.g., Pompey or Catiline were actual threats to the government.
> I think a much more active and vicious empire is far more likely.
What sequence of events do you expect might lead to this scenario?
"Imagine a city where there are some men and women whom everyone recognizes as honest, kind-hearted and educated, as true benefactors of humanity. Every old man, every small child knows who they are. They are central to the city's life and they give it meaning and beauty. They write books, they contribute to scientific journals and workers' newspapers. They work and struggle for the working class. They are in the public eye from morning until late in the evening. They are everywhere, in schools, factories and lecture halls, on the streets, in the main squares. At night other people appear, but hardly anyone knows about them. Their lives are secret and murky. They are afraid of the light. They are used to stealing through darkness, in the shadow of large buildings. But then something changes - and Hitler's dark power bursts into the world. Those who are honest and kind, those who bring light to the world are flung into camps and prisons. Some die fighting, others go underground. These people are no longer to be seen in schools, factories and lecture halls, or taking part in workers' demonstrations. Their books are cast into the flames. And of course, a few turn out to be traitors. A few become Brownshirts, followers of Hitler. As for those who used to lurk in the shadows, they become prominent figures. Their deeds fill newspapers. And it seems as if reason, science, humanity and honour have all died, as if they have vanished from the face of the earth. It seems as if the nation has degenerated, as if it has lost all sense of goodness and honour. But that's not true! It's simply not true! The strength and good sense of people , their morality, their true wealth - all this will live forever, no matter who hard fascism tries to destroy it."
Thanks for making the real pro-America case.
Imo, the difference between America and previous empires is that talent and wealth are far more mobile than ever before. That means the old 3 century limit could be keep going — assuming we don’t mess it up.
Great take Noah!!!
Being on the outside and looking into the USA, its decline to me is palpable and very dramatic, but many in America seem to be totally oblivious to it.
There are many characteristics of a failed state, that was once an unimaginable statement to make or sentence to write.
The USA can make it to 250, but major celebrations after that date without a significant level of repair and healing is highly problematic.
Thanks Noah
>>>Bernie Sanders, who focused on health care much more than any other major politician, had a plan that would have increased spending but left the cost problem mostly untouched<<<
I'm not a healthcare economist (nor any kind of economist) so I possess zero specialized knowledge in this area, but I've read numerous (and seemingly credible) claims that US healthcare costs aren't, in the main, rising faster than the rich world average but that, in fact, the healthcare cost issue in the US is mainly a legacy problem (ie, healthcare inflation in the US was high through much of the post-war period, and that left American paying a lot for its healthcare, but this is mostly water under the bridge at this point).
Anyway, if the above is valid, the main problem as I see it for US healthcare costs is one of poor value: for the inordinate share of output America devotes to healthcare, results should be better (at minimum every resident of the country should have genuinely robust coverage that never lapses). Doing something about the "cost problem" — if by that one means pushing America's health care expenditure downward, toward the rich country average — is simply not in the cards. Unless one can convince fifteen million workers to take biggish pay cuts.
I certainly wouldn't put us in Crisis of the Third Century territory yet. We're still more in Storm Before the Storm, Grachii brothers territory, I think. Hopefully the big storm can still be avoided.
Yeah, I'm not sure how useful comparisons with societies from 2 millennia ago are. In general, the Roman Empire was a much more violent, brutal, insecure, poorer place . A huge percentage of the populace in the Roman Empire died during the Crisis of the Third Century. As for the Gracchii, do we have any politicians killed by mobs yet? And Rome had frequent wars (some existential) and civil wars both before and after.
Well, Noah started it.
But the Grachii similarity points would be the ratcheting up of polarization and the consistent loosening of political norms to gain political advantage with the autogolpe and 1/6 as the most vivid examples. Not predicting anything from it. Just saying if I WAS going to pick a Roman comparison that'd be my pick.
Okay, but how do you avoid a storm when so many in leadership positions - public and private - refuse to see the dark clouds on the horizon? Both of our political parties and most corporate/civic leaders are focused on short-term issues or - worse yet - their own personal interests or - even more worse - distracting culture war nonsense. The same is true of most regular folk. Although the pandemic brought out the best in some, it also brought out the worst in others. Imagine the civil unrest and violence that will erupt when we experience the real scarcity (not just of TP and sanitizer) that climate change will increasingly cause.
There are 2 variables. Climate change brings more in uncertainty, but progress brings more means to deal with that uncertainty. People don't tend to live more than 80-100 years and most people don't read history, but skip back by a hundred years at a time and life would have been more brutal. Noah has a tweet about what living through the '80's was really like. A nuclear Holocaust was a realistic threat.
The first response to this is "who is the 'we' here who needs to dig deep and work to get the US out of this hole dug by the white New Right?" At this point, what is the practical, pragmatic benefit for the historic and contemporary subaltern groups in the US (Black, Indigenous, LGBT/queer, non-Christian, disabled people and all overlaps thereof) to have even basic active commitment to the project of the American experiment? And for the historic default group, white Christian abled straight men, what is the benefit, or at least the non-loss, of ceding their overwhelming power?
So, the cultural and political shifts are just ... here to stay. A major overlooked factor is globalization But the "it has never stopped being 1968" doom-loop of progressives emphasizing loathing of the US and desire for its collapse because of (white) American genocide, slavery, rabid capitalism, and imperialism, to which reactionaries and their allies respond with denial and forced patriotic submission ...I don't think you break that without more open conflict in the short to medium term, and there is a huge part of the center-left./"moderate" part of the country that loathes conflict more than anything.
I think a general societal return to pragmatism would help with a LOT of this. The "we may have come here on different boats but we're all in the same boat now" line gets at it. I think to the degree that your dismal science can help, it's in the way that Brad deLong talks about in his excellent book Concrete Economics: we have goals X and Y -- political and social goals, but we will pragmatically use economic development to achieve them. Part of this should involve a return to a focus on *production* and research and development as the core policy principles, not "jobs" or this or that social insurance system: what does the US make, why, and where in the country? Part of the perception of US weakness is "why is America rich? it doesn't have any factories."
In terms of social attitude changes, white Americans need to seriously (be forced to) reconsider the narrative of the US' actions in the 20th century. You naturally have less of an identity-forming attachment to your country as a global hegemon if you don't think the war that kicked all that off was 1) a great glorious triumph 2) fought well 3) something that had much to do with your country or 4) something your country needs to get into a *ahem* credit-measuring contest with other countries over. Relocate white Americans' patriotism in the Union victory in the Civil War, in loathing of the Confederacy, in the promise of Reconstruction (and properly targeted anger at its overthrow), in the American and Harlem Renaissances, in the New Deal itself, and in the Civil Rights Movements. These all are unrelated to acting outside its borders.
It makes it less threatening to then acknowledge how imperialistic and cruel and just dickish the US has been in its actions outside its borders for at least 120 years now.
Are things this dire really? As in risk of break up? Or more just a gradual comfortable decline like France and Britain?
I think this is a sound take. Still, both those countries enjoyed the "luxury" of the emergence of a hegemon, that, for all its faults, possessed broadly similar values and provided a degree of stability in the long decades after the Second World War (and indeed intervened decisively in that conflict). Who is the liberal democratic world going to rely on if the US slips irredeemably behind China in geopolitical power? India? A revitalized EU?
Average living standards have gone up nearly everywhere. Thank capitalism. How are the Brits relative to the rest of the world during and post-empire?
Indeed.
We might well be vassals off China or another entity, however. Do you think they’d leave us alone to prosper quietly?
the gop is less at odds with the us' constitutional republic than the current arcane brand of demos influencing applied by the ruling demoocrats in the captitol and white house. everyone should read the constitution. and stop trying to villify those who understandthe perils of the demos which is more easily duped than the gang that ran the peloponnesian wars
By coincidence a few days ago I was listening to a podcast with Jim Collins, and he spoke, and reminded me, of the so-called Stockdale Paradox: Face the brutal facts, but keep unwavering faith that you will prevail.
A sclerotic government destroying the vitality of the private sector is a recipe for doom. I don’t see many even recognizing the problem let alone doing anything about it. People looking to the New Deal as a model policy is particularly dismaying.
Feel like we did ok then tho
The Great Depression was created by monetary policy and ended by changes in monetary policy. All the new deal did was make things a bit worse - but not so much worse that it couldn’t be ended by deficit spending and loose money in world war two.
Nobody (outside of ideologues) actually thinks that the New Deal made any sense as a way to recover from the depression. We have moved way past that. When people talk about the New Deal and FDR they're talking about his leadership, rally the nation, boost morale and a bunch of other fuzzy things that us analytical types kind of scoff at, but which like 90% of people really appreciate for whatever reason. The point isn't to suggest that culling herds to induce price inflation is good fiscal policy lol
New Deal got saved by WWII.
If that's the case, then we can spend as much as we did during WWII with the same government command structure except on stuff like clean energy instead of weaponry and we'd do even better, right?
Yes, and with the rationing and wage and price controls, too. It would be lovely I’m sure.
Sacrifice for the future. Who is willing?
😂
I see little to no evidence America's private sector has a "vitality" problem.
Growth rates are well below historical levels and have been for decades, while government control has grown. Now the government feels the need to pump trillions into the economy under their direction. But you see no problem?
In general, developed economies since 2000 have been growing more slowly than they were in the decades immediately following the Second World War*, and this is substantially attributable to demographics. If you want a younger, more vigorous workforce and stronger growth, you'll have to let in more immigrants. I personally favor such an approach, but most so-called "conservatives" are rarely fans of this idea. Funny, that.
And no, I don't see a "problem" with the government trying to run the economy hot right now. It appears to be paying off. The consensus is that US GDP Q2 is likely to have grown at an annualized rate in the ten percent range. And we appear to be seeing the strongest wage growth since the 1980s.
*The golden age of US prosperity was unleashed following a period of massive public sector spending and borrowing (WW2) that served in the aggregate to repair private sector/household balance sheets after the Great Depression; and sustained during a three decade era that saw a steady growth in the state's share of the economy, much of that funded with a relatively progressive taxation system. Far from showing that Keynesian policy is bad for the macroeconomy, most of the evidence suggests in fact it's instrumental in boosting living standards and ensuring that the gains from economic growth are broadly-shared (and a broadly shared economy tends to be a strong economy, because adequate demand ensures steady support for yet more growth, as well as provides an inducement to innovate).
So how come after all this deficit spending, inequality is greater than ever?
America has too much inequality because it doesn't engage in enough redistribution.
Corporate profits and sales are at all time highs. America has super expensive private health care system unique in the world. The Supreme Court is stacked with pro-business, libertarian lawyers.
You are making some very bizarre claims. You are mentally ill dude. You can't even recognize reality.
> Does our post 9-11 over militarization represent a Marius or Sulla style degradation of our representative institutions? (Not as bad yet, but I would say definitely).
This comparison seems inaccurate. The reason the Roman military under Marius & Sulla (& later Caesar & his successors) caused degradation of representative institutions was that these leaders were directly in command of part of the military, which they used to effect military coups to put them in power & fight civil wars to keep them there. Nothing remotely similar has happened in US history since at least the Civil War, & the US is much less vulnerable to such a coup or conflict because its military hierarchy is separate from the elected government & subordinate to it by law & commonly accepted tradition, rather than the elected politicians directly commanding armies as in Republican Rome. Also, because of the advance in technology, the US military is unlikely to be defeated by any domestic opponent, unlike Rome where the private armies of, e.g., Pompey or Catiline were actual threats to the government.
> I think a much more active and vicious empire is far more likely.
What sequence of events do you expect might lead to this scenario?