Will the US decline soon?
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People's Daily, January 11, 2012
In recent years, the world has witnessed the decline in the United States’ international influence since the financial crisis happened. The Wall Street giants did not get any punishment, instead, they beneficiated in this crisis, which induced the Occupy Movement. And media said that the decline era has really come this time. Will US decline soon?
It is too early to answer this question. Unlike China, the United States is a country as young as 235 years old since its birth in 1776.
The United States emerged as the world’s sole superpower after the Cold War. Considering itself the “world leader”, it keeps vigilant to any potential challengers. Meanwhile, it keeps up expanding its arsenal and increasing defense spending, waged wars against Afghan and Iraqi after the September 11 attacks. Back in 1955, the then outgoing President Eisenhower issued in his farewell speech warning about the impact of the U.S. military-industrial complex to politics, which now appear ubiquitous.
The greedy Wall Street capital tycoons, along with the promotion from the Internet, boost various so-called financial innovation products—financial derivatives—for the lack of supervision from government, which led to the financial crisis in 2008. Wall Street financial cliques, the military-industrial complex, and the shortsighted partisan politics have enslaved the real interests of the American people.
Although the United States has a short history, it has an effective mechanism that enables it shield from social turmoil and violence when facing approaching crisis. Where did this effective mechanism originate? It remains an open question in the academic world.
Many scholars say the United States is the only one in the Western countries that has not gone through feudalism and it boasts mature market economy and democracy. But others say that it is a Christian country under the influence of the religion.
In his book The Fourth Great Awakening and the Future of Egalitarianism, Nobel Prize winner, Robert Fogel, said that the Great Awakening is its religious revival movement, and generally seen as the revolutionary thought of the religion that followed Protestantism.
Fogel said that American religious revival forms a cycle, with a period of roughly 100 years. The cycle begins with the revival, heightening people’s belief and generating new ethics and faith. When the religious revival is over, a new stage will be started, and this time the new ethics will lead to massive political reforms.
As for whether the mechanism can bring the country out of crisis again, you are well-advised to read what Fareed Zakaria said in “Yes, America Is In Decline”, the cover story of Time Magazine, No. 10, 2011. He said that, it is the country’s drunkenness with success that results in today’s social laxity, internal conflicts and heavy debts. The only way to get out of this is to review the past and face the reality.
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