America's Decline: Learning from the British Empire

by Palden Jenkins		print version
		print version (graphics)

What goes up must come down. Every empire suffers an urge for posterity, and every powerful, well-to-do nation and class has sought to perpetuate its position. This tendency is unique to no particular country or time. But something larger inevitably overrides it. The ascendancy of the powerful can be painful for those who are conquered, enslaved, colonised, co-opted or just affected. But a nation's descendancy can be equally tricky, for it and for them.

There comes a time when the structures, values and assets by which a great nation is built simply become outmoded by other developments elsewhere. There is choice in the manner of a nation's decline, and a graceful decline starts with a recognition that the game is changing and we've lost the plot.

Arnold Toynbee, in his Study of History, written during WW2, noted that when a culture reaches a peak of creativity, vigour and 'florescence', it is faced with an identity crisis. Where to go next? He wrote that, at such a point, a culture may opt to reproduce its successful formula, leading to an incremental loss of vigour, creativity and leadership, or to follow a path of transformation and rebirth, re-engaging the energies of new generations. It may choose, at its time of wealth, power and fortune, to create an entirely new quest. Not just a series of glitch-fixes, but a fundamental change in the aims and rules of the game it has won.

America's zenith came in the 1940s-1970s. With the 1960s came a transformative burst, born within the heart of modern American culture. It came in many forms, in culture, science, social movements and forward thinking. You Americans reached for the Moon. The heart and soul of your nation brought forth music, films and ideas to which the world paid rapt attention. Its most visionary form came as 'flower power', an outpouring which indeed could have fuelled a transformation.

This transformation was not to be, and today we pay the price. During the 1970s, vested interests clawed back control through diversion, co-option, suppression and corruption. In the Reagan period, this take-back was consolidated - a surreptitious systemic coup d'etat of which the arranged election of George Bush in 2000 was but a consequence. The powers-that-be re-captured the agenda. They resorted to increasingly formulaic reiteration of the nation's strong points, appearing innovative and radical yet really largely a multiplying and replicating what went before. A cult of consumptive materialism and hyperactive public acquiescence came to pass, in which everyone tried to rake off their cut. This doesn't work longterm. The buzz wears off, and then there's a sluggish, heavy, day-after feeling. And self-interest gets too firmly rooted, weakening the solidarity that can otherwise pull a nation through a crisis.

After Vietnam, a new perception emerged worldwide, especially amongst its victims, questioning American hegemony. The murmuring grew in Reagan's time. It quietened during Clinton's watch: the causes had not gone away but we wanted to give America a chance. After 9/11 it erupted as a dismayed-to-angry world consensus of doubt in the American monolith. The intense events following 9/11 turned the key: we saw a rapid transition from human pathos and family spirit in New York City to a state of accusing, hard-hearted, paranoiac warmongering. The wisdom and heart of the American people was quickly wrenched from it. The contrast was acute. The world's responses shifted rapidly. How could Americans indulge so much in the loss of their own people and security, when they didn't bat an eyelid to similar loss or devastation in Guatemala, Palestine or Bangladesh?

Salt was rubbed in when we were told that if we weren't for you, we were against you. This alienating declaration rested on an outward projection of badness on foreigners, an enemy out there. We had had enough of this in the Cold War, and here it was again. This projection was at best an exaggeration, at worst an attempted hostile takeover of the world agenda. It didn’t hold water.

Over the decades, the world had looked on in horror, fascination and disbelief as we saw killers, lawyers, evangelists, executives, pornstars, rednecks, coke-sniffers and glitzy stars strutting their stuff in America. Perhaps they would come to their senses sometime. USA had wondrous aspects too, with its high ideals, its freedom ideology, technical wizardry and rags-to-riches success stories. But really, we were watching a nation ill at ease with itself, domestically and internationally violent, and we vainly hoped all this would go away.

Much of the world didn't concur with American claims that it had won the Cold War. The Soviets had had the courage to recognise something America could not. They initiated its end and became the heroes. Perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness) were relevant to the West as much as to the USSR. But the 'free' West had sufficient wealth and ingenuity to carry on as if it had won. A clock started ticking in the 1990s, and the West soon showed signs of Soviet sclerosis, increasingly ruled by a nomenklatura (a privileged class of well-dressed managers) whose control and interests became all-important.

We heard the same old riffs and special effects from America, amped up higher each time. Sure, box office takings grew, as did stock market values and the millionaire class, but these are not everything. The materialism-cult of USA made it sound as if they were everything: we all bowed to trickle-down development, the 'Washington Consensus'. American power, here to save us, would be extended by innovating and investing so hard that no one else could catch up. Failing that, armed power-projection would fix things, cleanly and surgically.

The sheer creativity of America was dwindling, and its lead was increasingly propped up with tech developments, financial leveraging, marketing ploys, legal twists and immigrant labour. But these were all extensions of the same old gargantuan story - and it eventually took a little outfit like al Qaeda to puncture the glittering balloon. Something had come seriously unstuck.

Bush and the neo-cons have made America's decline blatantly obvious, but all the signs were there beforehand. The capture of democracy and freedom since the arrival of George Bush has led to serious internal schism, worrying rest-of-the-worlders more than it seems to worry Americans. The greatest threat to the world and to itself had clearly become the United States.

Here we are, watching a nation split down the middle. Whoever wins the presidency will leave half the nation angry, left out and ready for a showdown. We don't want to see a second American Civil War. We don't want to receive its fall-out. We don't want such a potential nightmare to develop. Yet we see before us the division of a manic-depressive nation talking to itself, 'doing oppo', tragically forgetting that something else is going on across the world.

The future is not one of American hegemony. The more USA tries to assert this, the more hegemony evades it. This is an historic change, quickened by near-sighted politics in DC. The perception that America has 'lost it' is now widespread worldwide, aided by USA's alienation of its own very supporters.

Now it's not that America has become our bad guy and the rest of us are good guys. The world is not as black-and-white as that. It's relative. The sheer scale on which USA makes its assertions, errors and omissions is dangerous for the world. It has the biggest arsenal of weapons, its government has lost its sense of proportion, and its tentacular hold is such that an American advance or a retreat will have an enormous effect on the world, either way. We've lost our trust. We don't believe God likes you more than everyone else.

So be it. We've had enough. We badly need America to step back and listen. Its dramas threaten to drown out the other tunes and noises going on around the world. Some of these are more relevant and important than America's pet themes. The international community, such as it is, stands at a delicate stage in which it is facing up to its interdependence. Americans want exceptionalism, as well as to interfere and dominate. Please decide: in or out! This is important, because you Gringos are outnumbered, and you need to do the right thing. We won't fight or invade you - it's just that, well, we surround you.