Is the US really in decline?
Is the US really in decline?
It seems like in the last few years, the cracks were really starting to show in American dominance. The bungling of the COVID response, the BRI and BRICS chipping away at US trade and currency dominance, the failure of Ukraine to repel Russia, inflation and shortages in the imperial core, etc.
But it seems like many of these cracks have been patched up this year. I’m not sure how much is just propaganda, but economic indicators show that inflation in the US has cooled, unemployment is the lowest and the labor force participation rate is the highest they’ve been in decades (even accounting for underemployment/gig work), and real wages have increased amongst the poorest and richest alike (albeit unequally so).
US energy prices are dropping. US oil production is at an all time high, and the US is refilling its strategic reserves at a lower prices than it released them for. OPEC can’t retaliate without taking a huge hit to their economy.
Infrastructure, historically a big issue for the US, has been looking better as the Biden administration passed several huge spending packages to improve train networks and other things.
Ukraine is losing but the US has only spent a small fraction of what they did in Afghanistan, and they’ve debt trapped Ukraine in the process. The Israel-Palestine conflict has certainly turned sentiment against the US but it hasn’t resulted in any material change in relations.
China’s economy is stumbling; although there’s not a recession per se, unemployment is sky high, consumer confidence has taken a hit, and investment has slowed. Interest rates are about 3.5% in China while they’re about 5% in the US, which means China has less room to perform expansionary monetary policy than the US.
The US seems to have gained ground in trade relations. Several countries have pulled out of the BRI. Countries like Mexico, which for a while had China as their biggest trade partner, once again have the US as their biggest trade partner. FDI in China has slowed. “De-risking” and “friendshoring” have started yielding results. I know in the long run this will also weaken imperialism as it develops the productive forces of countries like India, Mexico, and Vietnam, but it might take a long time; even highly-industrialized countries like Japan, Germany, and south Korea are still subservient to the US.
People have completely forgotten about the US’ shit COVID response, but Chinese citizens still bear resentment towards Xi and the central gov for the zero-COVID policy, and the uncertainty over lockdowns was a contributing factor towards the reduction in investor confidence in China.
So overall, things don’t look too bad for the US, while they’re looking a bit uncertain for the other emerging “poles” like China, Russia, and the Middle East. I suppose the silver lining is that a lot of these gains came at the expense of gutting the economies of “allies” like Europe and south Korea, which means that the US won’t have as much to easily prey on next time.
What are your thoughts?
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The US can't address its issues without creating further contradictions. I think the biggest success they've had is definitely sucking Europe dry, but that's just kicking the can down the road really. Domestically, conditions continue to decline at an accelerating rate. There is no plan to address this. That's a major contradiction right there. When the next major crisis happens, who are they gonna steal from? I feel like if they had to turn to other countries in the imperial core for wealth extraction, doesn't that say a lot about the long-term viability of their economy? How will Europe function as they decline from relative prosperity into a hellhole similar to modern America? Will people take it lying down? People in the global south have also definitely taken notice of the Ukraine war and how weak America actually is at defending its interests militarily. Can the US prevent the decolonization of West Africa and the Middle East forever? Will bigger holes start to form in South America or other parts of the world?
The US has definitely taken notice of the seeds of its destruction i.e. de-dollarization and growing Chinese and Eurasian hegemony and taken some measures to address this. However, the contradictions of neoliberalism and financialization have not changed. There is nothing they can do to change them. The death of the U.S. is a process that will take some time and there will be ebbs and flows. Unfortunately, even 100 years is a relatively short period of time in terms of human development, so we could go our whole lifetime without seeing America destroyed even if we can see its inevitability. Also, economic indicators are essentially religious divinations designed to prop up the system, so unless it's coming from a Marxist or at least some non-mainstream source they really can't be taken at face value.
How will Europe function as they decline from relative prosperity into a hellhole similar to modern America? Will people take it lying down?
Yeah, they will. They'll blame foreigners and immigration from Africa, the Middle East, Ukraine, etc. Those are things that won't really stop anytime soon, and thanks to the wonders of climate change, will even increase. The fash will be given an evergreen source of scapegoats for the lack of success of the nation.
I just feel like America's history as a settler nation made it much more ripe for this kind of insane neoliberal society to be tenable than even modern Europe. Not that I don't think they will be mostly successful doing this to Europe, but I feel like it is such a big contradiction for peoples that still have a much stronger connection to their history and cultural identities, as bastardized as they've become in recent times; add on to the fact that much of Europe is build on a pride that they are at least not as terrible as America. Making sure the growing rage can successfully form a revolutionary movement is one thing, but for the most part Americans don't even have rage at all towards the absolute shitshow that is their daily life. I'm not saying Europe will suddenly be where it was at pre-World War but it can still create massive problems for the US empire. I mean look at the relative resistance to NATO that we see in Hungary and Austria, two of the most fascistic European countries. Can the US really keep ~800 million people pacified across the ocean the same way they do at home? I just think that it could pose a massive problem.