But you can’t say the same of ancient Egyptian or Mesopotamian civilization.
And that culture/community question is tougher for America than just about any other nation (exceptions would be Canada and Australia, I guess) because our national identity is not tied to an ethnicity.
Generally I’ve always thought you’d eventually see the U.S. absorbed into some sort of global super-government. I mean, eventually the U.S. is going to have zero manufacturing base but will still play a heavy hand in agriculture, technology, service, finance and information production/distribution. The U.S. and nations like it will have to forge very close ties to the countries where manufacturing takes place. In all liklihood, those nations won’t simply be subjugates, because unlike colonial times they’ll have an empowered middle class (we can already see this happening in India).
Economic walls will collapse around the world between the Western World and the former 3rd World. Economic alliances would eventually give way to political ones (though there’s no guarantee of this; just look at the European Constitution). The scariest thing that could come about from this is you would essentially have corporations that supercede national boundaries treating the weakened national governments like puppets.
The big variable in this, as I see it, is China. If they ever adopt Western-style democracy and some form of regulated capitalism, I think things could go pretty well. If they remain a dictatorship with a laissez-faire, bloodthirsty economy, things could go very, very badly.
Anyway, as this process happens, I think you might also see more and more Arab nations come under the rule of Hamas-type organizations as a result. They, too, would eventually form an alliance. So now you have your WWIII scenario… and I think whatever way China goes could make all the difference.
This is how I envision the fall of the US. I can not see our creditors allowing us to spend at this astronomical rate for much longer and with little industry, I’m certain that the US will fall into an economic depression. I am assuming that the US will have outsourced everything that is currently manufactured to foreign countries.
While I’m certain our downfall will be via an economic depression, I’ve thought of a few alternatives as to what causes it:
- The loss of oil as an energy source,
- Every US company has inflated their earnings to show a profit and every American company has an Enron style collapse
- The rest of the world places economic sanctions on us:
[list=a]
[li] for harboring terrorists or others that are to be charged in the worldwide court for crimes against humanity,[/li][li] for not destroying our stock piles of nuclear weapons, [/li][li] for invading Canada and/or Mexico,[/li][li] for continuing capital punishment,[/li][li] for not allowing our robots to vote,[/li][li] for not upholding worldwide tolerance of sexual orientation,[/li][li] for not enforcing worldwide environmental laws,[/li][li] for having undemocratic elections,[/li][li] for being an agressive state constantly at war with other nations[/li][/list]
I’m sure there are many more that I’ve missed, but having dealt with creditors I suspect they’ll be our downfall. And considering I’m no historian, I say that with complete certainty. 
Tell that to the senators selected by your state legislature.
Because without muscular labor the US simply HAS to go into a depression…right? 
Since we are down to nearly no manufacturing these days shouldn’t the depression be starting, well, soon? Is the current economic expansion in the US due solely to companies doing Enron style book keeping?
Wouldn’t this be a world wide problem? Unless you are saying we’ll simply be too poor to continue to buy oil of course…
:rolleyes:
Though I’m sure most of these were a joke (well, I hope so), I can’t see the world putting economic sanctions on the US for any of them. What good would economic sanctions do in any case if the US is in the grip of a depression as you envision it, bankrupt with only corrupt companies left, etc etc? Since if that happened the entire worlds economy would most likely have already collapsed at that point since they won’t be able to sell many of the goods they manufacture if we aren’t there to buy them?
Man, these threads are really instructional in how people perceive the US and the future of the country. Its interesting that the one person (well, I said it too but in a more convoluted way) who outright said that the US will continue to exist and thrive has been ridiculed several times…while the gloom and doomer types who are predicting US collapse in a couple of decades or a century or two are given pretty much a pass. Interesting.
-XT
4 - Conquest. Somewhere between 2050 and 2100 China attacks. They don’t bother with a land invasion until the end: they simply nuke America and Canada then come and clear up the mess. America retaliates, of course, but the Chinese simply shrug off the losses. Over the next decade or so China sends a modest part of its burgeoning population - a mere 100 million or so - to colonise the continent.
[QUOTE=gooftroopag]
This is how I envision the fall of the US. I can not see our creditors allowing us to spend at this astronomical rate for much longer and with little industry, I’m certain that the US will fall into an economic depression. I am assuming that the US will have outsourced everything that is currently manufactured to foreign countries.
While I’m certain our downfall will be via an economic depression, I’ve thought of a few alternatives as to what causes it:
- The loss of oil as an energy source,
- Every US company has inflated their earnings to show a profit and every American company has an Enron style collapse
- The rest of the world places economic sanctions on us:
[list=a]
[li] for blah blah blah[/li][/quote]
I don’t really think you understood my post.
I don’t think economic depression will cause the government to fail (if and when it does.) General apathy towards the goverment and mass civil disobedience will, with the ease of avoiding income taxation contributing heavily.
Also…it seems like you don’t understand the reasons why there would be a huge economic depression, which would increased government intervention and increased inflation. (Do some reading on the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations to see what I mean.) Just to respond to your specific points:
- Losing oil as an energy source will be an interesting few years…but the market will adjust. As oil becomes more and more expensive, more and more capital will be shifted to alternative energy research. This conceivably could continue until all the world’s capital is invested in energy research…put enough pressure on the dam and the dam breaks. Also, as oil gets more and more expensive, more capital will be shifted into making the machines we use more efficient, and into making the alternative energy sources we already have (hydrogen, ethanol et al.) more efficient, so the transition from oil to whatever alternative energy will be softer than you imagine.
In any event, losing oil will almost certainly not cause the government to collapse.
-
Ridiculous. Honestly just think about what you are talking about. You realize that Enron is one corporation out of millions right?
-
Also ridiculous. No country is going to bankrupt all its companies in order to take some silly political stand…just as we may be dependent on their production, they are dependent on our consumption.
They’ll definitely be the final nail in the coffin.
[mercifully snipped]
Where’s my post? Damn hamsters!
To all those people hyping the fall of the US to economic sanctions, please note, that every other country except for maybe the oil nations that aren’t completely third world but for oil exportation, will feel the economic crunch much, much worse than the US will (in absolute terms, I make no claim what another person may feel relative to another). Those nations that export oil and are not exactly third world nations (ex. Venezuela) and are not too in debt due to socialist-type enactments, will feel it just as bad as the US.
Many nations support their assets with or hold US Treasury bonds. Many financial markets are modeled after the US Treasury bonds. The scenario of great economic upheavel and depression are the same whether the US defaults on its bonds, or even, if they pay them all off (especially if paid early, and no new bonds were issued).
The US is so far ahead economically, its labor is so diverse, that any major shock to the global economy, while very damaging, can still be overcome by the US.
Oh, and to the OP: assuming a world-wide global economic collapse, it is conceiveable that a one-nation/one-world scenario exists, except for a few holdouts (I’m looking at you Upper Timor :)). If the US were to end, I suspect that whatever took its place would be very similar.
Yes, of course, didn’t you know? :rolleyes: They were simply alternatives of what could happen, not suggesting that they would or are all occurring as we speak; not to mention that some of the suggested alternatives were put there in jest.
I truly believe that there will come a time when others will stop lending us money because we are unable to repay it. That doesn’t make me a doom and gloom type but realistic. As a country we can not continue to spend more than we produce, nor can the government spend more than it gains in taxes.
I understood, that’s why I sniped your cause and replaced it with what I believe will happen, the end result is the same with the government selling of its land, etc.
xtisme and WillMagic, perhaps I should have been more specific in referencing which were in jest and which we just blanket ideas, but I didn’t think they would be nitpicked for their unlikelihood, particularly when speculating on the future. The future is filled with a number of “what if’s” and to disregard potentials as impossible is to ignore history, let alone the lesson of Atlantis. I am not suggesting that oil will be our downfall, nor that all American companies are Enron-like, but that it could happen.
It is possible that the market will not adjust to energy demands quickly enough. While I hope it will, it’s definitely possible that it will not and considering how important the oil and gas industry is to our daily life, it’s certainly possible that the end result could be the end of the US government. Knowing the end of oil is coming, is it not possible that our biggest suppliers would limit our supply significantly to lengthen their own supply to give them with a smoother transition into the use of alternative fuels? I mentioned it as a possibility, not a certainty.
I agree that a US wide Enron type corruption is unlikely; but you act as if it could never happen. If that were true there would be no need for laws that are used to keep such a thing from occurring. In stating this, I was merely suggesting something that would cause an economic collapse, not something I saw as occurring.
WillMagic, you suggest that US consumption will continue unchallenged. Do you not think it’s possible that the amount we presently consume could be overtaken by increased consumption from other countries? Imho, it’s certainly possible that the world’s consumption could greatly out pace our own and that the world could use the high demand we place on goods against us at some point in the future. Again, it’s a possible scenario, not the event I see as occurring, which I have stated is an economic depression caused by our creditors being unwilling and/or unable to continue to loan us money.
mazinger_z, just because we are currently on top economically doesn’t mean we will remain so forever. My opinion of how the US falls assumes the US will not remain on top financially.
Interesting responses. I think many posters are projecting their own hopes/fears of the near future.
Here’s how I would categorize a possible radical change in the American state:[ol]
[li]Internal reform/revolt: a sufficient mass of citizens desires change, and a new constitution is written. Example: collapse of USSR. My over/under time: 200 years (i.e., I’d give even odds it happens within this time).[/li][li]Tyranny/coup: a small minority restructures the state to their advantage. Example: collapse of Weimar Germany. My over/under: 400 years.[/li][li]Annexation/absorption: the state/people willingly gives sovereignty a larger entity. Example: formation of European Union. My over/under: 600 years.[/li][li]External coercion: foreign entities impose changes. Example: surrender of Imperial Japan. My over/under: 600 years.[/li][li]Rebellion/dissolution: ideological and geographical differences (in either order) divides the citizens sufficiently separate the terrirory. Example: collapse of Yugoslavia. My over/under: 1000 years.[/li][li]External destruction: foreign entities forceably annex the state. Example: annexation of Austria by the German Reich. My over/under: 2000 years.[/li][/ol]
I think America (the country) will still be around up to the point that countries begin to form together into a more world-wide government. However, I don’t think it would be an America that any of us would recognize.
I use my grandfather’s hammer while I’m at work. My father used it before me. Now, through all those years of work, the hammer has been a little damaged. My dad managed to snap the handle when he was building a deck, so we got that replaced. I was prying an old, rusty nail out of a board and snapped one of the claws off, so I replaced the head. Last year, the wooden handle snapped again, so I replaced that. It’s still my grandfather’s hammer, but if he were to see it today, he wouldn’t recognize it.
Here are a couple of things to consider:
Language and Culture: English is on the march. 10,000 years from now, it’ll probably have snuffed every other language. With a common world language, we get much closer to a common culture. There’s already been a lot of cultural convergence among the prosperous countries of the West. If you go to France, for instance, it’s not all that different from the U.S. Prosperity imposes its own kind of culture. In the future, as every nation achieves prosperity, nations will resemble each other more than ever before, particularly abetted by a common language, as well as mobility. After all, don’t you think that 10,000 years in the future, you’ll be able to get from New York to Tokyo in 15 minutes? If you can even be bothered, that is.
Political and Economic Integration: This is already happening. Think GATT, think the European Union, think of all the currencies pegged to the U.S. dollar. Think of multilateral protocols such as the Kyoto Treaty. We already know the issues are bigger than one nation. Take the oceans – there has to be a multilateral approach to their management. To some extent, there already is – see the International Whaling Commission, for instance.
Are all of these trends suddenly going to come to a halt, or reverse? Of course not. We’re moving, slowly but inevitably, toward the One World Government so feared by the John Birch society. Perhaps 10,000 years from now, there’ll still be a role for a U.S. government – analogous, perhaps, to the role played by the states in the current U.S.
But count me as a skeptic of the notion that we’ll endure economic or ecologic collapse, or political meltdown, or invasion by China or Iran or sentient jellyfish. The U.S. is made of rugged stuff.
A possible scenario is that technology becomes so advanced that there is no need for government anymore. Government is largely a mixture of a social safety net and a protection and infrastructure force (fire dept, highway development, medicine, police, military). Perhaps someday these things wouldn’t be necessary due to privitization and as a result gov. would cease to exist. Thousands of years ago you had to go to a stadium to hear music, now you can carry an Ipod with ten thousand songs on it in your pocket. Perhaps in the future technology will advance to the point that there is no need for taxation to meet infrastructure, public protection and social safety nets.
Another likely scenario is the collapse of the US due to a major terrorist attack. Perhaps a nuclear war or nuclear explosion from N. Korea or Al Qaeda turns the US into a bunch of small states instead of a federal government. Or perhaps the terrorist attack leads to massive curtailment of civil rights that eventually leads to revolt.
We will end thusly:
Our economy will collapse because it’s been set up to collapse for the longest time. The housing bubble, derivatives, hedge funds, and so many other aspects of our economy have slowly been crumbling around us and soon everyone in America will realize the truth. The suburban sprawl, it’s related components, and everything our nation depends on to function has been set up on the assumption that cheap oil will last forever.
Soon, some sort of crazy middle east conflict is going to come up and we will have to fight for access to that delicious black gold. Perhaps we’ll invade Iran, and the people of Saudi Arabia rise up against the puppet government and force them to not sell to us any longer? That’d be like a double whammy right there, Venezuela probably won’t stand for that crap and will stop selling to us too.
So now you got the entire third world uniting for a cause against the big, bad, fat, stupid, arrogant United States. Throw in a little climate collapse, a little Earth-dying because of the climate collapse, religious war sparked over the earth-dying and oppression felt throughout all the years,
Heh. The blind belief in American exceptionalism reigns supreme, even as everyone flogs their pet theory about why America is heading down the tubes. See, when WE collapse, we’ll make all your pathetic FOREIGN collapses look like the day li’l Suzy’s dollhouse tipped over. No way we could experience the normal ups and downs that normal countries do. Right?
It is also possible that we and the whole industrialized world will run up against an absolute real-world limit in the supply of usable energy resources that neither “market adjustment” nor technological progress will be able to remedy.
In the Conservatory, with a candlestick.
I think Colonel Mustard did it.
… what???
Our sense of national identity might be more closely bound up with political ideas than most other nations’, but the American ethnocultural nation still exists, and has an identity independent of our Constitution or system of government. The United States is a real nation-state like France – not an idea-state like the Soviet Union, which ceased to have any relevance or command any loyalty once its people lost faith in Communism.
“Ethnocultural” does not imply “monoracial.” From The Next American Nation: The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution, by Michael Lind (The Free Press, 1995), Chapter 7, “Liberal Nationalism: The Trans-American Melting Pot”:
Hit submit too soon – the point being, if our government collapsed, and if the ensuing events did not involve massive destruction of the population or prolonged occupation by a foreign power, then the people on this territory a hundred years later, from sea to shining sea, would still think of themselves as, would still be, “Americans.” Whatever kind of government, or governments, they might have.