Читать книгу The coming end of an Empire - Markus Eder - Страница 4

I am writing this political essay with a somewhat divided heart. Socially, I am a conservative man, whose views on the handling of crime, on family, abortion and same sex marriage are close to those of the US-Republican Party, whose neoliberal adherents I am going to attack in this essay.

I am also well aware, that there will be many people in the United States of America, who will ask themselves why I, a German, is writing an essay of that kind.

The answer to these questions is twofold. First of all, I think, that the neoliberal creed, as it presently rules in America, has already brought much damage not only to America itself but economically, environmentally and socially, to the rest of the world, too. The consequences of this damaging neoliberal creed are therefore no mere internal affair of the United States but of interest to the world as a whole. Secondly, the highly problematic neoliberal sections of US- American society, who are in many cases not really social conservatives but just short-sighted, money greedy individuals, will, in my opinion, bring in the future still far greater damage on America and the rest of the world than they already have done in the last two decades.

Although I am very well aware, that despite this reasoning of mine, I will in all probability nevertheless incur the hatred of xenophobic and nationalist US-American circles, I see, for the reasons given above, no alternative to bringing my views to the attention of the world through the publication of this essay.

Nearly thirty years ago, the famous American historian Paul Kennedy expressed in his book The rise and fall of the Great Powers the hope, that the United States of America, while losing some power in relationship to such rising nations as China or India, would nevertheless be in a position to preserve for the future its position as a leading world power.(1)

While from the perspective of the year 2012, America has indeed managed to preserve this position, we nevertheless have to acknowledge, that the fundaments of its power have become increasingly fragile and even morbid. Due to the momentum of this decay, the probability must appear very great, that at least at some point in the following century, e.g. 2101 to 2200, America will suffer the fate of the Roman Empire and will disintegrate. Several factors are likely to pave the way for such a dramatic development.

1 The destructive neoliberal creed

2 A lacking preparedness to tax the rich and affluent higher for the sake of infrastructural investments, higher spending on social security and balancing the budget

3 Over-proportional representation of the rich in the US-Parliament and in the US-Administration

4 Blockade of legislation through filibustering in the Senate

5 Short sighted share holder value mentality and permission of derivates

6 Insufficient efforts on the integration of minorities

7 Unpreparedness to restructure the energy policy in favour of alternative, cleaner energy

8 Increasing external aggressiveness as a ventil for internal failure

9 The likely nuclear Armageddon