Do you believe the United States (as we know it) will fall in the next 60 years?

I do not think the US is in danger of falling in the next 60 years.

Fall where?

I don’t think so, at least not in 60 years. I hope not anyway, I live here dammit!

Hasn’t it already?

No. Not in the least. We will however have to figure out where we fit in a world where we are no longer the dominant economic power. China’s rise is inevitable, and it has nothing to do with internal politics in the U.S. Hopefully that will make us a bit more humble and interested in getting along with others rather than angry and petulant.

Uh…no. But if it does, we could always move to Canada.

That would be falling up.

Duh. Its the circle of Life.

I’m with @jeffgoldblumsprivatefacilities on this one.

(Kkkkkkkkk) Is that how you translate a snicker noise? I never saw V for vendetta, but uh, yeah, complacency catches up with everyone at some point. So we can’t puff out our chests and say that we’re the biggest and baddest.
Don’t worry. We’ll find something else to idolize and feel good about. We can throw away our foam number one hands and get new ones with the middle finger sticking up. They can have silly slogans on them like; “That for you, China.” and “Outsource this, India”!

sort of i think we will keep a high standard of living and eventually become a scocialised economy such as sweden or germany but we will no longer be #1, Can You as an American accept that?

Naomi Wolf certainly thinks so!
“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance”

can’t remember who said that!

i dont agree with a socialist economy.

@RomanRealtors I personally don’t care what happens, as long as I don’t die. This whole conversation began with gay marriage by the way.

This book makes a good argument that we might end up like your friend fears, I’d highly recommend reading it. Basically, the main concern is that we’re essentially being funded by China buying our T-bills at this point, and we’re getting dangerously close to those T-bills not being worth the paper they’re printed on. If China gives up on us, our economy collapses. If our economy collapses, people will be angry, they will look for scapegoats, and the truly despotic will play on people’s fears in order to seize power. He bases his arguments on our culture and how similar it has become to the great cultures which have fallen throughout history, most notably the Romans. When their populace became too distracted by spectacle (such as feeding Christians to the lions…very similar in concept to the types of spectacle we see today such as reality television and blogs masquerading as news), we become less informed about what is really happening. We don’t worry about big picture problems, we worry about what’s happening with Jon and Kate or whatever, and that allows us to be hoodwinked by people who don’t have our best interests at heart.

Though I personally am more optimistic than that, I think it would be foolish to dismiss the idea out of hat, I think the best defense to keep something like this from having any possibility of happening is to keep ourselves in touch with reality and informed about what is really going on. Look for facts, not conjecture, and don’t let trivial matters overshadow what is really important.

@dalepetrie Sure, if China gives up on us our economy will collapse and all hell could break loose. But the only way that happens is if China offloads her U.S. debt. If they were to do that with enough speed to cause an economic collapse in the U.S. they would also cause an economic collapse in China (and the rest of the world to boot). Ultimately a strong U.S. economy is crucial to China and to the global economy. That will continue to be the case for a long time to come.

That argument also rests on the premise that something has actually changed in the extent to which people are prone to spectacle, or that any association with spectacle is actually causal and not just coincidence. I would argue that Americans have loved spectacle for a long time. We are no more distracted than we have ever been, and I would bet that the Roman’s level of distraction didn’t change much either. Besides, which is more distracting, watching a spectacle in your free time, or not having any free time because you are too busy with the ox and the plow?

I don’t think so, but one can never be sure with any country. We cannot take democracy for granted. It is a very recent phenomena with only 200 years of history (Athenian democracy wouldn’t be called democracy today.). It’s not a natural system, but a system one has to support and fight for. We can see how hard it is in other parts of the world, as these countries are being pushed and hurried where ours took a long time to develop.

America will probably have it’s ups and downs, but all in all, I think the country is in a better shape now than let’s say 60 years ago.

Betting against America has always been a losing proposition. Politicians have to constantly re-learn that the best way for America to prosper is for them to get out of the way of the creative energies of the people. When we elect politicians who realize that they truly DON’T know better than we do what’s best for us, we always do well.

America’s capacity for self-renewal is amazing. If we finally elect politicians who shut up, sit down and let the people do it, we’re good for another 60 years easily.

@CaptainHarley Do you think Obama fits that description?

If Americans reengage in the process of choosing their leaders and if they demand from them the best conduct, the most faithful representation of their needs and hopes, they a second American Revolution can occur bloodlessly.

When the government serves at the pleasure or the people instead of the reverse (present situation) America will avoid the inevitable collapse that follows from the present situation where party dogma dictates the kind of blind obstruction of ideas for which the current majority in the House and Senate and the President in the White House were elected.
You can vote to support more obstructionist in the Senate to cripple any chance for change or you can throw out enough of their kind and elect strong leaders who can move the country forward. Of course, most Americans won’t bother to get off their behinds and vote. So the decline will probably continue.

@mowens

Obama is a liberal Democrat. Traditionally, liberal Democrats believe they are the only ones with enough sense to make decisions for the rest of us. Unfortunately, there are now almost as many Republican politicians who feel the same way, although they tend to be further to the right. I truly believe that what we desperately need is a thrid way, a party or a series of candidates who want to reinstill a sense of personal responsibility in the general population, as opposed to making people more and more dependent upon the government ( ref. the Democrats ), or on corporate decisions ( ref. the Republicans ).

We will change. Are we the same as we were 60 years ago? My hope is that we will become a better place.

@Snarp – I agree with you that this argument is somewhat overblown for many of the reasons you stated (I was presenting it as a counterpoint to demonstrate one at least plausible coherent argument). I do believe that China would be shooting itself in the foot to cut off our credit, and I believe China knows this, but of course that does not make it impossible to foresee a series of events in which it could happen. You think about large companies that have customers who owe them way more money than the company ever wanted to give that customer, but that customer may account for so much of the well being of the company itself that they have to keep upping the credit limit far beyond their comfort zone. But there will ALWAYS come a point where someone will say, enough is enough, we have to cut our losses, and therein lies that danger.

As for spectacle, I believe humans are ingrained with the desire to consume spectacle, I don’t feel our appetites have gotten more voracious, but what has changed is the supply side of the equation. It used to be that prurient interests needed to search to satisfy that all too human need for observing the unimaginable, but our culture in pursuit of the largest profit has become all too indulgent in creating spectacle. Wherein with past generations we had real news coverage from real journalists who did not take sides and sought out the truth, now we have news that is designed for maximum shock value in order to achieve the highest ratings, only the most sensationalistic stories pass as actual news today, and whereas say 50 years ago, one was inundated with facts and data and information and had to search long and hard for spectacle, the difference is that today one is inundated with spectacle and has to search long and hard for facts and data and information.

In ancient Rome, certainly people didn’t just wake up one day with the desire to see a lion eat a person, that is something that throughout history would have drawn an audience…it was only when the powers that be realized they could make money and gain power by providing this spectacle that it became a commonplace part of life. When that happened, the people were too driven to distraction, too bloodthirsty from whetting their appetites, too out of touch with reality…having had reality supplanted by spectacle…to realize how despotic the ruling class was becoming, and this is what led to the cultural fall of the Roman Empire and the ensuing “dark ages”. That is what the book argues, and I think it makes a valid point, though in my opinion, there are enough of us still who do care nothing for this type of spectacle, who are willing to put in the time and effort to seek out the truth, to keep this society from falling.

That said, at this point, I believe it could go either way.

I don’t think so but we are heading in a financial emergency of enormous proportions if we don’t find a way to stabilize our spending. If we get to a point where our currency isn’t worth anything it will cause severe shockwaves through our society and there is a chance that our economy will just fall apart. It will make this recession seem like a small bump in the road. I wish the world would just get rid of the entire money system. I think money is stupid but unfortunately we really can’t live without it =\ it’s lame that all of our creation, or innovation, is hampered because people need money to do anything.

@dalepetrie I just think that as a general rule, every generation feels that things are going downhill in some way, particularly as relates to the issue of spectacular entertainment. Each generation feels that things were better before than they are now, and for the most part, every generation is wrong. Sure we can point out individual examples of extreme entertainment, and there does seem to be a tendency to increase the level of violence, sex, and gore to continue to create shock value, but there are plenty of examples in the past as well, and just because they are hard to find records of doesn’t mean they were particularly hard to find. You mention news, and it’s an interesting example. Early television news was certainly subdued compared to news now, but there are a lot of reasons for that, including fewer sponsors making it hard to find advertisers who won’t cut you off for being sensationalist and the technological difficulty of getting cameras to every possible event to broadcast live. But if you look back before broadcast news, there is nothing about modern journalism that is any worse than the yellow journalism of the early 1900s.

@Snarp – you make a good point re the yellow journalism. If I had to bet on the continued “success” of the US, I’d bet we’re not going down in flames. But I still would not be shocked if we did. Like I said, I’m really trying to encapsulate this book into a fairly compact summary, and I’d say the book is worth a read nonetheless because it does point out a systemic combination of factors that in tandem paint a more bleak picture than the sensationalistic top line arguments that I’ve regurgitated. I’d love to hear your opinion on the author’s arguments should you ever get a chance to read it.

@dalepetrie I understand, I just really like to point out flaws in the whole “fall of Rome” conceit since it is so generally assumed to be true.