What does the speedometer read in empire collapse?
Rome took 400 years. Britain collapsed in a couple of decades. The USSR almost overnight. What is your prediction for the USA?
It is often said the US Empire is in collapse.
The liberals, perhaps merely because Trump is in office with no plan to reclaim power.
The conservatives because of the uncontested rise of China.
The left, because wealth inequality is unmaintainable.
Economists because domestic economic growth isn’t sustainable.
Etc. Perhaps they’re all wrong, but let’s assume for a second the premise is correct. Why is it that people think, like Rome, the collapse of the American world order and Empire will take 400 years? This is a bizarre conclusion.
One method of coming to this long-sundown is to assume the empire is dead when the GDP (PPP) per capita of its nearest peer competitor exceeds its own. In other words, when the average Chinese person makes more than the average American.
Granted that’s a ceiling because at that point, we’re all getting up and moving to China. But that seems bizarre to me.
Equally bizarre would be to look at the GDP (PPP) where China has already surpassed the United States. The United States is still unquestionably the global hegemon.
So what measure decides when the collapse is complete? And how far away is it? No idea. However, the height of British power was 1890-1910. Somewhere thereabout it controlled 1/4 of the world, and was more powerful than the next couple of nation states combined.
20 years later it couldn’t hold its own against Germany.
60 years later it was a joke of an old empire known for Monty Python.
For another example of an expedient demise look at the USSR. This could go downhill much faster than people assume.1 From my perspective, if I thought economic conditions provided for a certain retirement, I would at the very least be considering the what-ifs there. Imagine getting caught up in an ex-Soviet country when the economic powers determine you need to undergo Shock Therapy.
And while this article isn’t about the end result, good. It would be a total waste of space to concern ourselves with the domestic conditions of an empire in collapse when it’s perpetuating a genocide. We’ll find a way to manage.
It’s a good question. I suppose it’s tempting to say that things just happen faster now due to things like communication technology and transportation technology.
I would question the 400 year period for the collapse of Rome actually. Where is the high water mark? The Teutonberg forest battle? Rome may have stopped expanding but it didn’t look like a collapsing empire until maybe 300. So on that measure the collapse period was similar to the Yookay Empire.
And it’s arguably cherry picking with hindsight to just measure to the end of the Western empire rather than the Eastern 700 years later.
With equal distance of years, the American Empire may be seen as the equivalent of the Byzantine Empire, with respect to the British Empire/ Western Empire. That is, as a surviving and prospering extension of the original Empire.
But yes interesting question. My guess would be: quicker rather than slower.