Is America An Empire In Decline?

perspective.

So perhaps I'm more inclined to say that it's too early to tell.

American culture is still dominant in many ways.

Is our Petrocivilization (that being a civilization based on the intense use of petrochemicals as an energy base) declining? As the pinnacle culture in that civilization, we should be worried.

worried.

But people simply refuse to believe that there will be a time when all the profitably accessible petroleum resources are gone. Indeed, we are already in a delcining profile and have been for years.


ETA the words "profitably accessible"

:shrug:

except for the tanks. The oligarchs are rapidly moving in. The public square will be sold off rapidly.

China probably isn't in a position to take our place, and I don't see anybody else stepping up either. Unless we are moving into a post empire phase of history.

Bryant

We were declining in the 70's. Now we're just rotting.

It is a republic in decline, on its way to being an empire.

Empire and democracy are mutually exclusive. As the imperialists have gained in power, since the end of WW2, democracy has been in decline. The permanent war footing, the security state, the economic stratification, these run counter to the democratizing movements of the past several decades - civil rights, women's movement, GLBT movement. And what we've seen recently, since the MIC and security state are now firmly in place, is a rolling back of those movements. Women's rights are being curtailed across the country; the economic collapse is disproportionately impacting on minority communities, gay rights LOOK like they are expanding, but only because they are being used to fan the flames of the right - a constitutional anti-marriage amendment is not beyond the realm of possibility.

We are Rome in 30 BCE, waiting for our Caesar.

Same dynamics involved -- expensive losing wars, declining yeoman (middle) class and rule by oligarchs, immense systemic corruption, imperial overreach, rise of armed militias and the start of civil wars - what else is new?

America is in a transition economy.