A SUPERPOWER’S DECLINE – IS AMERICA NEXT?

A longtime reader of thepolicycenter.org has sent us his comments on the State of America. His comments are very interesting and worth repeating especially considering the present state of our financial and political institutions.

A SUPERPOWER’S DECLINE – IS AMERICA NEXT?

History documents that all major civilizations, or superpowers, go through varying stages — from birth, to flourishing, to standardization and then ultimately onto their final demise. None escaped or were immune from the process. From Pharaonic Egypt, to Ancient Greece, to the Roman Empire and to the Dynasties of China, these and other great civilizations lasted on the average between 200 to 500 years before they died out to be replaced by another. Not to mention the mystical disappearance of the USSR emanating from the collapse of Russia’s preceding czarist regime and which is still a work in progress. In almost all cases their demise was marked by an internal collapse stimulated by a breakdown in the visionary stagnation of their leaders. Yet during their epic ascendancies few of their leaders would sense that they too would succumb to the vagaries of history. But that they did paving the way for a new socioeconomic order that wiped the slate clean and started the process anew.

Pause right here before you read further. Given the preceding, does anyone recognize similarities in America that are reflected in the behavior of our two party system of governance? Or the fact that America’s infrastructure of education, finance, energy use and production, and our healthcare system are in active stages of becoming irrelevant in meeting our present and future needs? If you’re not imprisoned in the partisan rhetoric of left or right, chances are you’ll agree. The connection between a dysfunctional political system and the breakdown of America’s key institutions is profound…with the inevitable decline of America the end by-product?

Yet suddenly, something else has entered the picture that is even of equal or greater significance to the future of America. We are entering a computerized technological world based on our evolving insatiable demand for efficiencies we’ve yet to fully comprehend. The Earth is running out of natural resources we’ve been accustomed to during the Industrial Revolution to where nothing now can be wasted. The slightest margin of error could produce catastrophic results on food, water and energy resources, along with pandemic consequences of global warming on virtually every other aspect of our existence. These stringent efficiencies can only be achieved by subservience to computer-enhanced decision-making we’ve ironically created to serve ourselves. In the process will we lose some of our cherished individuality? Undoubtedly.

The risk of producing major demographic change increases the already quantum disparity between rich and poor threatening upward mobility of people that has been a hallmark of our democracy. Escalating costs of higher education now becomes the exclusive realm of the privileged; which effectively creates the same autocratic monarchies that presently prevail in the Middle East that are currently under widespread internal revolt. Thanks in part to the recent Supreme Court decision permitting special interest out-of-control anonymous political contributions will transform wealth into a dominant minority cast system.

Overall, the Technological Revolution we’re entering is inescapable. It will end up forcing an accommodation on behalf of our people and our nation that will transform both beyond our present imaginations. Yet how much longer can we tolerate a two party system that is more part of the problem than the solution? How much longer can they vacillate, for right or wrong, over raising the national debt ceiling, privatizing Medicare and Social Security or strengthening the internal cost-containment capabilities of the Affordable Care Act; which could be readily resolved if they could get beyond conflicting schisms that never seemingly die? How much longer can we permit external actuarial parasitic practices of commercial insurers to consume around 20% of healthcare dollars that are required for providing needed care for all Americans; when no practical or moral imperative exists for their continuance? These are but examples.

The message for our future should be quite clear. Unfortunately it’s not. Outcomes are never fully predictable. But history, inertia, time and circumstance are not on our side. Given the unknowns, requires our ability to remain vigilant. Even though elected disciples of our two political parties are crammed aboard two brakeless freight trains racing to dismantle each other…and with both on the same track.

Lawrence Newell
Lns1newell@aol.com