Surviving Capitalism (Not) : The World Consequences of U.S. Decline

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, September 15, 2011

The World Consequences of U.S. Decline

Click here to access article by Immanuel Wallerstein from his blog.

Politicians and journalists are talking openly of the “dysfunctionality” of the U.S. political situation. But what else could it possibly be but dysfunctional? The most elementary fact is that U.S. citizens are stunned by the mere fact of decline. It’s not only that U.S. citizens are themselves suffering materially from the decline, and are deeply afraid that they will suffer even more as time goes on. It’s that they have deeply believed that the United States is the “chosen nation” designed by God or history to be the model nation in the world.

This distinguished liberal sociologist doesn't seem to realize that we are now entering into an era of globalized capitalism. National boundaries are irrelevant to capitalist elites because they have removed all impediments to their investment activities. Boundaries are now only used to control the movements of workers. Capitalists can and do move workers across boundaries whenever they see profit opportunities, but workers find it very difficult on their own initiative to move across boundaries for better opportunities.

Western capitalist ruling classes have decided on a merger just like corporations have merged with each other to provide more capital and power to extract more profits. The new empire that has formed out of the former Western countries is called NATO, and it is very much in the ascendancy. All the other capitalist countries such as China, Russia, Brazil, Japan, etc. are competitors, but pose little threat to NATO at the present time. Okay, I know that cartographers haven't changed their maps, but this is because NATO's ruling elites want to preserve some fictions about national identity just like they preserve fictions about democratic rule.

Although US and citizens of many other Western capitalist countries are experiencing decline in their living standards, the wealthy elites have never had so much wealth and power. They are clearly in the ascendancy.

We are now entering a world where extremely wealthy people live on well guarded, gated communities like islands in a sea of poor workers. This is the dismal world we are entering and must resist with all of our imagination and courage.