It was inevitable and kind of expected.
The US wasn't built on that solid of a foundation. In fact the founding fathers have said explicitly that said foundation - the Constitution itself - should be a living document updated regularly by the people, for the people, to reflect the changes in the world and in the people themselves. It was literally written at one of the most prominent times of change, so of course those who saw said change and were responsible for enacting it, weren't idiots who thought things would never change!
The first cracks appeared in the US a hundred years later with the industrial revolution kicking into high gear and transforming the so far mostly rural, self-sufficient communities into manufacturing giants. That's when factory and mining towns began to boom, and when the US truly began to claim its world power status - without adjusting the laws of course since it benefited the handful few who managed to get their fingers deep into those oh so lucrative pies.
And it's not like there haven't been warning signs of the impending capitalist doomsday. Capitalism was literally built on the back of the industrial revolution (which allowed the means of production to transfer into and concentrate in private hands), and immediately people saw the issue with it - no wonder Marx saw the need to work out a competing socioeconomic system that, if you think about it, was truly in the spirit of the American independence and the US Constitution (aka by the people, for the people).
All that capitalist rush? That allowed a handful of people to become obscenely rich, without the curtails of previous obscenely rich (aka kings, royalty, nobles), allowing them to grab power without any of the responsibility. Kings paid with their heads for their wrong decisions, but in the US, that was deemed excessive, so instead y'all elected people who then got paid off by said obscenely rich to go against the people electing them... and the worst that happens was that the elected official got rich, then got replaced by another who got bought out the same way.
And all that money/power concentrated in such a small number of hands would ALWAYS lead to them wanting more and more until they sucked the host dry like a parasite. There's no symbiosis with capitalists because wealth (resources and man-hours) are finite, unlike their greed. And since the US made it harder and harder to amend the constitution, to make that document truly living and serve the people... The fall thus became inevitable.
WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 2 weeks ago
It was not unexpected. Most big powers in history end like that. The rich always want more and eventually start taking it from everybody else, even if it’s detrimental to the future if they nation.
Buffalox@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Oh I absolutely expected USA to be surpassed by China at some point. And for USA to gradually lose international dominance.
But the shit USA is making for itself is turbocharging that process by at least a factor 10.
Some might say it doesn’t really make much difference because the end result remains the same. But the problem is that this doesn’t give the world the same amount of time to adjust. Disruption is generally bad, and disruption of world power is no exception.
Of course the worst disruption is to USA, and that will have a serious negative impact on American business, and if the US dollar loses the position as the world reserve currency, the significance of the American debt will be way more serious.
garretble@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
We always heard that this would be China’s century, and for the most part I assumed “maayybe. We’ll see. It’d take a while for the US to decline.”
Little did I know the US would very quickly shoot both its feet off on its own.
I thought that if China were to become the dominant country it’d be through years and years of steady growth while the US was doing the same. They’d just end up overtaking in the long run — not that the US would actively sabotage itself via bigotry and stupidity and greed.
Complete self own. And everyone in charge is a giant coward. We could start righting the ship today, but all the elected gop (and some dem) officials are greedy cowards.
WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 2 weeks ago
It feels like the elite are doing one last big haul before they’re out of there, looking for new regions to exploit.
Olhonestjim@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The USA is falling like an angry giant on a beanstalk.
But China has engineered its own collapse through fraud, incompetence, corruption and hubris. Young people aren’t having kids. They’re lying flat. So much of their growth has been nothing but waste and tofu dregs. Even their population may in reality be hundreds of millions fewer than reported.
And Russia has proven itself no superpower.
I guess this may be a new century for Europe. Australia is looking good. Ukraine is clearly demonstrating their quality. Personally, I hope South America and Africa finally get to flourish.
Buffalox@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
If USA falls completely it may be both a blessing and a curse. But yes USA is falling like an angry giant.
But I wouldn’t underestimate China, they came from next to nothing half a century ago, to now being a global power in many ways equal to USA, leading in production but also many scientific fields and having one of the worlds 3 biggest economies while still growing their economy faster than USA and EU. They have been doing just about all the right things, investing heavily in education and infrastructure, while also improving living conditions and creating a huge middle class.
I agree 100% that Russia is no super power, Russia is way worse off than China regarding incompetence and corruption, and they are merely the 4th biggest economy in Europe. IMO The only thing really scary about Russia is that they have nukes.
Best wishes to South America and Africa.
If we could have a world order built around the values of EU, based on the concept of prosperity through cooperation and mutual respect, that would be awesome. If we can agree among the different parts of the world on how to coexist, it doesn’t matter who is at the center of it or has the leadership. But as things are looking now, it can’t be USA. USA is way to disruptive to be a plausible world leader anymore.
arrow74@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Unless the EU gets rapidly closer to China I doubt it. We’ll probably see the general Euro Zone vs. China for the century.
IronBird@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
biggest thing for the rest of the world is the sovereign debt crisis. greece nearly drug down the EU when theirs popped off and their entire economy is just sxporting crude and ripping off the occasional tourist.
USD is the cornerstone to the entire western financial system, not to mention international trade as a whole…
Buffalox@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Erh no! Don’t trust the sensationalist stories about the Euro collapsing for this or that reason. Those stories are always without merit, my guess is they serve a purpose for speculation or are just sensationalist stories.
What are you smoking? It doesn’t make a hoot of difference to the rest of the world to trade in another currency. But more likely than not, it won’t be a single currency replacing USD, it will be a basket of currencies where USD will probably be a part.