41–50 of 171 posts
wow "when the United States is a service and information economy; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues"
Americans may not think of themselves as an “empire,” but much of the world does. The average age of empires, according to a specialist on the subject, the late Sir John Bagot Glubb, is 250 years. After that, empires always die, often slowly but overwhelmingly from overreaching in the search for power. the US is 249 years old.
Average implies that it’s not a hard and fast rule they die at that particular point — as the following sentence implies.
"It’s a capitalism of higher-order production. It no longer buys raw materials and no longer sells the finished products: it buys the finished products or assembles parts. What it wants to sell is services and what it wants to buy is stocks. This is no longer a capitalism for production but for the product, which is to say, for being sold or marketed."
'The conquests of the market are made by grabbing control and no longer by disciplinary training, by fixing the exchange rate much more than by lowering costs, by transformation of the product more than by specialization of production. Corruption thereby gains a new power. Marketing has become the center or the “soul” of the corporation. We are taught that corporations have a soul, which is the most terrifying news in the world. The operation of markets is now the instrument of social control and forms the impudent breed of our masters.'
"There is no need to fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons."
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/gilles-deleuze-posts...
From a geopolitical perspective, the real concern isn’t just whether America is in decline, but whether we are witnessing a broader cycle of decline across Western civilization, or even globally. While competition between nations is important, it isn’t enough on its own. What we truly need is a world where the average person has more viable options, economically, politically, and technologically. If our current syste…
> The focus should be on creating new pathways for individual prosperity rather than just shifting power between competing states. I'd argue that the focus should be on creating prosperous communities, of mutual benefit to their individual members. But maybe that's just a "pathway" to individual prosperity.
But people don’t exist for the benefit of communities.
Americans may not think of themselves as an “empire,” but much of the world does. The average age of empires, according to a specialist on the subject, the late Sir John Bagot Glubb, is 250 years. After that, empires always die, often slowly but overwhelmingly from overreaching in the search for power. the US is 249 years old.
Uh — Roman Empire lasted in part something like 1500 years and imperial China around 2100 years. Average implies that it’s not a hard and fast rule they die at that particular point — as the following sentence implies.
The more important idea isn't the 250 years (I agree), the idea is that it's not unreasonable to model aspects of America as an empire.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the people are capable, given the right environment. I think what destroys it is not letting people in Congress write laws in relative secrecy. When the most powerful, including the political parties, can monitor how every Congress person votes in committee, they can micro-manage and micro-terrorize them into doing what they want. Let them deliberate without us watching over their shoulders (because it's most…
Bernie said it best. Get money out of politics. Full stop.
But someone has to seed them
Americans may not think of themselves as an “empire,” but much of the world does. The average age of empires, according to a specialist on the subject, the late Sir John Bagot Glubb, is 250 years. After that, empires always die, often slowly but overwhelmingly from overreaching in the search for power. the US is 249 years old.
Don’t forget to read the comments of the article.
>February 4, 2025 at 11:07 am
>In the immortal words of Ghandi “When an idiot is elected to power, the people who voted for him is well represented.”
I think the only people denying the decline of the US are the same people that think the US can be as powerful and respected as it was in the 50s, i.e. not the most well informed crowd. It really is crazy to see the way the US is going. I remember reading every time in history an emerging superpower was replacing a declining power, the declining power got antsy and shot first, leading to them getting whooped by the e…
"Nah, we'll rise again like some mythical bird," said a voice in Arizona.
Don’t say that. Nothing says “thoroughly defeated” quite as well as people lacking in self-awareness running around shouting, “The South shall rise again!”.
Let’s just put our heads down and come up with some ideas on how we can better operate in the newly leveling global context.