It's been inevitable for decades, but it really gained momentum with the rise of the Internet and the globalization of knowledge work.
Is there an end game? I think there are several being played by different parties in the international community. Take OPEC. Nominally, OPEC has a goal of maintaining price stability in oil in order to give the modern world a reliable supply of energy. But within OPEC, member states are all over the map politically in their affiliation with the United States. Russia, our former Cold War rival, distrusts us and sees danger in every eastern advance of NATO and US power. Hugo Chavez in Venezuela wants to see US hegemony overturned and socialism triumphant (good luck with that project, by the way, not that it hasn't been tried before to utterly disastrous results). Because the US protects the Saudi monarchy from Iran, Saudi Arabia wants to see US hegemony preserved. That goes double for Kuwait. Libya, who knows? Iraq? It's complicated. And the list goes on. What about China and India? The two most populous states on the planet, each with over a billion people, are emerging from rural poverty into modern urban life, and that emergence is creating a huge demand for raw materials and resources like food and oil. China's leaders are not stupid. They see the success of post-war American dominance of the sea lanes as a key to the stability of American society, and I wager they are aiming to replicate our stewardship of the seas when the American project literally and figuratively runs out of gas. Let's be clear though, China is not America. American post-war dominance was driven by the desire to see a peace earned with the blood of millions of lives maintained, and for the victims of the war to be protected. China's desire to maintain global stability comes from its desire for internal stability. I don't see Chinese troops putting boots on ground in foreign lands to help protect innocent civilians against human rights violations. If they can't respect human rights internally, how can they be trusted internationally? China has some growing up to do if it plans on one day playing superpower. They still have a problematic tendency to see global relations as a zero sum game. India's goals are clearly less directed at military might. Much of India is still very poor and ignorant of what is going on in the outside world. As in China, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty carries huge risks of instability as poor people become truly aware of just how poor they are. The cultural remains of the caste system work to keep people in place to some extent, but it isn't going to last forever. Sooner or later those people are going to demand equal treatment. Even with its relative rise in incomes, India ranked 137 last year on the list of per capita GDP at $1,176: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29_per_capita China's per capita GDP is more than three times India's. Is it because India has been less aggressive about building a middle class? I don't know, but somehow I don't see a big internal push in India to bring the very poorest people out of such abject poverty. I see Indians building a bunch of monuments to excess, like the high-rise being built in Mumbai for a single family. Indians are also partly driving the rise on gold prices, BTW, as they are the biggest market in the world for gold. It is compact, easily transportable wealth that has a specific value anywhere in the world. For the discerning traveler who wants to discretely move money from one country to another, gold is perfect. As for the people in the US who participated in this mess, it comes down to the socialists and the capitalists. Unfortunately we're still fighting the same tired battles of the last century. Socialists want to break the US financially so they can get free rein to re-make society like Chavez got in Venezuela. There is an argument that Obama is in this camp, but I'm not so sure. Capitalists want to force the government to go on a diet and become small enough that industry can control every aspect of government - a situation I see as effectively deferring our sovereignty to a bunch of globalized, undemocratic, semi-feudal non-state actors. Our two choices today are government taking more and more power (I've seen this film, it ends badly), or ceding power to the pharaohs, to use a term Bill Gates once used by way of comparison for his position as head of Microsoft. I prefer option three. On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 6:43 PM, Vivec <[email protected]> wrote: > > Robert, > > With the current economic model..wasn't this inevitable? > I've been reading about this happening for the last 10 years, and seen > articles for years before that. > > The people who maneuvered the economy to this point MUST have known > what the outcome would be. > > Do you think there is no end-game? > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:335978 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
