# Is the US becoming a banana republic? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 10, 2013, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-becoming-a-banana-republic/675976 "2013-12-10T14:29:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![dataguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eada6e/32.png) [@dataguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dataguy)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2013, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-becoming-a-banana-republic/675976/61 "2013-12-10T20:49:57Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > You’re using “world leader” to mean “nation which is leading in category x”; most people use it to mean “nation which is powerful and influencial”. This explains part of the disconnect here. > > Perhaps you’re too close to American culture, like someone in a tub who stops feeling “wet” after a few minutes, it’s too familiar to you to stand out. Maybe consult some non-Americans on what they consider American culture to be? > > And one more: the U.S. is number one in [foreign aid disbursed.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_governments_by_development_aid) For the first part, you are absolutely correct. I’ve been trying to clarify my usage of terms, including “leadership” and “world leader” for pretty much the entire thread–to little effect, it seems. Also, I’d love for some non-Americans to pipe up about their impressions of what “American culture” is to them. And the foreign aid figure is fine. I’ll add that to the list. ---
**Author:** ![Oldeb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ea666f/32.png) [@Oldeb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oldeb)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2013, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-becoming-a-banana-republic/675976/62 "2013-12-10T21:01:16Z")
> [@dataguy](#): > > As for American “culture” being dominant, this seems to mean American “products” (such as movies). This is not what I think of when I use the term culture, and when I think of the characteristics of American culture, it mostly comes down to excessive material consumption. > > Whereas, when I think of French culture, I think of food and art. This is an aggressively cynical double standard of what constitutes culture. According to you American products such as movies are not culture. But then when you talk about France how are food and art not as much French products as American movies and therefore not culture? ---
**Author:** ![dataguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eada6e/32.png) [@dataguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dataguy)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2013, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-becoming-a-banana-republic/675976/63 "2013-12-10T21:06:16Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > Dataguy, > > What do you want out of this discussion? You ask if the US is or will be a banana republic which is at best hyperbole. It isn’t. > > Now, what do you want? You seem to be trying to find an indirect way to engage in venting/axe grinding about something. but you’re trying to find a clever way of doing it indirectly. Unfortunately, you are not succeeding. Why don’t you just do it directly and without hyperbole instead of asking if the US is becoming a banana republic? Well, as someone else posted, the volume of traffic is much more than I expected, and no, I haven’t kept up with every single post. My interest in the Banana Republic question is more focused on the consequences to the society, as mentioned in the body of the Wikipedia discussion I posted( It typically has stratified social classes, including a large, impoverished working class and a ruling plutocracy that comprises the elites of business, politics, and the military.[1] This politico-economic oligarchy controls the primary-sector productions and thereby exploits the country’s economy.) In this aspect, none of the data presented is convincing, because almost none of it addresses this dimension. As for the discussion about the US remaining a world leader, in traditional power terms, of course it is. And will probably remains so for awhile, if not forever. But that’s not the discussion I’ve been trying to have. I’ve been trying to have a discussion about “leadership” not “power”. But it seems impossible to separate the two here. I’m talking about the distinction between a “leader” and a “boss”. Like in management textbooks where they distinguish between formal authority and leadership. Maybe we can have that discussion in another thread. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2013, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-becoming-a-banana-republic/675976/64 "2013-12-10T21:16:54Z")
> [@dataguy](#): > > I’ve been trying to have a discussion about “leadership” not “power”. But it seems impossible to separate the two here. Can you give any examples in history in which those were distinguishable? If not, maybe you need to rethink your stance that they are separate. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2013, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-becoming-a-banana-republic/675976/65 "2013-12-10T21:19:41Z")
Or even quantifiable in any meaningful way. How do you measure “leadership” if you are going to ignore statistics and data that show that an entity has the ability to exert such? ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2013, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-becoming-a-banana-republic/675976/66 "2013-12-10T22:10:38Z")
**dataguy** , the main problem here is that you’re locked into thinking about the US in a way that depends on the fallacy of composition. For example: let’s say that I think that the BMW 3 series is the best overall car around. Even if that is true, it does not mean that every aspect of the BMW 3 series exceeds all of its competition: BMW radios may not be as good, the tire wear has problems, the insurance costs more than for comparable cars, etc. Even if you add up all those components in ways that the 3 series isn’t a perfect car, you have neither proven that the car is headed for the quality of a Yugo, nor have you disproved that it is all around the best car available. Same thing with, say, athletes. A lot of people think that Willie Mays was the best baseball player, or that Tiger Woods is the best golfer ever. One can look at a whole raft of statistics and find evidence that other athletes are better that they are/were: Babe Ruth hit more homers, Bubba Watson drives the ball further, Rickey Henderson stole more bases, Phil Mickelson has a better short game, etc. However, if you look at the totality of all the statistics, there’s no doubt that Willie Mays and Tiger Woods are the top one or two all time athletes in their sports. You’re making a similar error with the United States. With 200 nations in the world, the United States does not have to have the biggest supercomputer, the best math scores, the sweetest honey, and the fastest cars in order to still rank overall very highly. Let’s use another comparison: immediately after WW2, the United States was responsible for something like half of the world’s economic product. Yes, something around 50% of the world’s economic activity was based in the US. In the years that followed, the US share of world GDP dropped significantly. Does this mean the US was getting worse? No! In fact, the US economy got even stronger as its share of world economic production lessened. The lesson to be learned is, see the forest for the trees. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2013, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-becoming-a-banana-republic/675976/67 "2013-12-10T22:31:44Z")
> [@dataguy](#): > > I think this pretty much sums things up. All of these “quality of life” things are totally irrelevant. Nothing to be gained by demonstrating leadership in any of those areas, huh? Nothing gained does not equal whether we do or don’t hold a world leadership position. They basically ARE irrelevant to whether or not the US is either a banana republic OR whether the US is or isn’t a or the world leader. Because, say, Sweden has the best quality of life (no idea if they do or don’t, just pulled that out of my ass) does not make Sweden a world leader. > [@](#): > > As for American “culture” being dominant, this seems to mean American “products” (such as movies). This is not what I think of when I use the term culture, and when I think of the characteristics of American culture, it mostly comes down to excessive material consumption. Now what YOU think of as culture does not equate to what actually is or isn’t culture wrt penetration in the rest of the world. As another poster said up thread, you don’t see it because you are most likely an American. Go to another country and take a look around. You see examples of US culture everywhere, if you take the blinders off and simply look. Want to know my own wtf moment? I was in India doing some telco work (and this was over 10 years ago, mind) and a kid was humming the tune to a US commercial for a product they didn’t even HAVE in India at the time. US products are part of US culture, though it goes deeper than that. You have to understand the why. Why, for instance, are there over 200 KFC restaurants in India? Why is there a freaking Taco Bell in China, of all places? Why is McDonald’s a household name throughout the world…even in countries that are predominantly vegetarian? Why do US movies dominate even on the world market? Why does anyone outside of America give a flying fuck who the US President is, or even who he is? Why do they care about scandals in the US, or news in the US, or sports in the US (another disconnect…seeing a Dallas Cowboys tee shirt on a kid in Hong Kong…a kid who probably didn’t even know the rules or maybe ever seen a game of US Football)? There are US cultural examples in nearly every country out there, and you can usually find such examples in even remote parts of the world. > [@](#): > > Whereas, when I think of French culture, I think of food and art. When I think of German culture I think of finely engineered machines. Just as examples. And I consider them both leaders in that aspect of their culture–world leaders. But you don’t see examples of French or German culture as predominantly throughout the world as you do of US. Certainly you see some French cultural examples in their former colonies, but it’s not everywhere, much as it galls (:p) the French. Same with German. Same with every other country. YOU might consider them leaders, and to a certain extent they are (i.e. they have some penetration world wide), but they aren’t THE leader…we are. You might not like US culture (or, most likely, you don’t even recognize it when you see it because you are so incorporated into it that it’s invisible to you), but the fact is it’s one of the most striking examples of how dominant we are as a country during this time period. Eventually that will change and we will lose that dominance…probably in the lifetimes of some on this board. But today, right now, we are the dominant nation on this planet in every metric that’s meaningful for such things. Economic, cultural, militarily, politically. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2013, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-becoming-a-banana-republic/675976/68 "2013-12-10T22:49:04Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > The U.S. is number one in [new books published per year.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_published_per_country_per_year) Apropos of nothing much at all, I’m surprised that here in the UK we managed 149,000 new titles in 2011. I wonder what the breakdown by category for that is? (It’s also about 3 times the amount that the US managed, adjusted for population. 😉 ) ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2013, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-becoming-a-banana-republic/675976/69 "2013-12-10T23:36:54Z")
> [@dataguy](#): > > You could consider technological leadership, where we once reigned supreme. Now, the [fastest supercomputer is produced in > China](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercomputer). 47% of the total processing power on the [TOP500](http://www.top500.org/lists/2013/11/) list comes from American computers. 19% is Chinese. Also, the top Chinese supercomputer uses largely American processing units, which are the real high technology in supercomputers. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2013, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-becoming-a-banana-republic/675976/70 "2013-12-10T23:37:21Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > Apropos of nothing much at all, I’m surprised that here in the UK we managed 149,000 new titles in 2011. I wonder what the breakdown by category for that is? (It’s also about 3 times the amount that the US managed, adjusted for population. 😉 ) Well, that’s different. You’re British, you have nothing better to do. We have sex. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2013, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-becoming-a-banana-republic/675976/71 "2013-12-11T05:40:22Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > dataguy, the juxtaposition of your post and JohnT’s post is ironic. Your argument fails because you fail to prove your point that the U.S. was ever number one in the world in any of these measures. Nor do you ever give any time period for this supposed decline so that we can go back and test the theory. There is one area where the US clearly had a considerable leadership role following WWII, and has lost it subsequently: its influence on constitutional developments in other countries. Following WWII, the US Constitution served as an important role model for new countries in the post-colonial era, and for existing countries which were developing new constitutional structures. That trend continued throughout the 1960s and 1970s, but reversed sharply in the 1980s and 1990s. The constitutions of the world’s democracies are now less similar to the US model than they were at the end of WWII. The country that has replaced the influential role of the US as the constitutional model, primarily among the common law countries, and to some extent other countries? Canada - to the point that Canada has been referred to as the “new constitutional superpower.” See: NY Times: “We the People” Loses Appeal With People around the World" > **[‘We the People’ Loses Appeal With People Around the World (Published 2012)](https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/us/we-the-people-loses-appeal-with-people-around-the-world.html?ref=adamliptak)** > > The United States Constitution was once a model for charters around the world, but its influence is waning, according to a new study. Wall Street Journal blogs: “Canada: Constitutional Superpower?” [http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/BL-LB-41891](http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/BL-LB-41891) Law & Veersteg, “The Declining Influence of the United States Constitution” (2012) 87 NYULR 762 [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract\_id=1923556](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1923556) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2013, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-becoming-a-banana-republic/675976/72 "2013-12-11T06:58:09Z")
The U.S. is more of a banana _democracy_. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2013, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-becoming-a-banana-republic/675976/73 "2013-12-11T11:32:11Z")
It’s unfortunate that the Alternet article insisted on putting the nonsensical “Banana Republic” into its title. It’s also unfortunate that OP chose to copy that silly claim into his OP. _ **But especially unfortunate is that Dopers continue their practice of attacking a stupid “headline” so they can ignore the substance of an article.** _ Yes, America is still #1 in many ways; and No, it’s obviously not a “banana republic.” But in some important ways, it has fallen behind the rest of the developed world. Where once it was a shining beacon, it is increasingly becoming a pariah and a laughingstock. > [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > Apropos of nothing much at all, I’m surprised that here in the UK we managed 149,000 new titles in 2011. I wonder what the breakdown by category for that is? (It’s also about 3 times the amount that the US managed, adjusted for population. 😉 ) Nitpick: I assume “new titles” includes books which originated in other countries, but which have UK editions. If so, a raw _per capita_ figure would NOT be a proper basis for comparison. ---
**Author:** ![iLemming](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90db22/32.png) [@iLemming](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iLemming)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2013, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-becoming-a-banana-republic/675976/74 "2013-12-11T12:29:01Z")
> [@dataguy](#): > > Is the US becoming a banana republic? More like a ‘ **burger** republic’. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2013, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-becoming-a-banana-republic/675976/75 "2013-12-11T13:14:15Z")
I thought the franchise in the US has been gradually extended beyond burghers? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2013, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-becoming-a-banana-republic/675976/76 "2013-12-11T14:26:32Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > It’s unfortunate that the Alternet article insisted on putting the nonsensical “Banana Republic” into its title. It’s also unfortunate that OP chose to copy that silly claim into his OP. > > _ **But especially unfortunate is that Dopers continue their practice of attacking a stupid “headline” so they can ignore the substance of an article.** _ Yes, America is still #1 in many ways; and No, it’s obviously not a “banana republic.” But in some important ways, it has fallen behind the rest of the developed world. Which ways are those? > [@](#): > > Where once it was a shining beacon, it is increasingly becoming a pariah and a laughingstock. I’d be interested in seeing how you support that claim, partly because it looks like the sort of claim that can’t actually be validated. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2013, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-becoming-a-banana-republic/675976/77 "2013-12-11T14:35:00Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Which ways are those? The article contained some flawed claims but … Did you even condescend to read it? Anyway, I’ll answer your question here … if/when you answer my question to you in “Republicans are taking away my unemployment for my own good.” ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2013, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-becoming-a-banana-republic/675976/78 "2013-12-11T14:40:57Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > The article contained some flawed claims but … Did you even condescend to read it? > > Anyway, I’ll answer your question here … if/when you answer my question to you in “Republicans are taking away my unemployment for my own good.” :rolleyes: I doubt I’m the only person interested in having you substantiate your claims. If not, then I guess I’ll just have to suffer through not knowing. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2013, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-becoming-a-banana-republic/675976/79 "2013-12-11T14:41:08Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > There is one area where the US clearly had a considerable leadership role following WWII, and has lost it subsequently: its influence on constitutional developments in other countries. Interestingly, the U.S. still has this influence, it just puts its weight behind Constitutions [other than our own:](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/11/the-us-needs-a-new-constitution-heres-how-to-write-it/281090/) > [@](#): > > Almost nobody uses the U.S. Constitution as a model—not even Americans. When 24 military officers and civilians were given a single week to craft a constitution for occupied Japan in 1946, they turned to England. The Westminster-style parliament they installed in Tokyo, like its British forebear, has two houses. But unlike Congress, one is clearly more powerful than the other and can override the less powerful one during an impasse. > > The story was largely the same in defeated Nazi Germany, and more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan, which all emerged from American occupation with constitutions that look little like the one Madison and the other framers wrote. They have the same democratic values, sure, but different ways of realizing them. [Ruth Bader Ginsburg](http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/ginsburg-likes-s-africa-as-model-for-egypt/) advised the people of Egypt: > [@](#): > > Asked by the English-speaking interviewer whether she thought Egypt should use the Constitutions of other countries as a model, Ginsburg said Egyptians should be “aided by all Constitution-writing that has gone on since the end of World War II.” > > “I would not look to the U.S. Constitution, if I were drafting a Constitution in the year 2012. I might look at the Constitution of South Africa,” says Ginsburg, whom President Clinton nominated to the court in 1993. “That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights, had an independent judiciary. … It really is, I think, a great piece of work that was done. Much more recent than the U.S. Constitution.” ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2013, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-becoming-a-banana-republic/675976/80 "2013-12-11T14:42:41Z")
The article makes some good points but is mostly full of shit. > [@](#): > > IKEA has set up a factory in Virginia. Volkswagen has set up in Tennessee, and the likes of Hyundai, KIA, BMW, Honda, and Toyota have all set up in the South to take advantage of the world’s latest cheap labor source. Foreign automakers aren’t setting up factories in the US to take advantage of our cheap labor. They’re setting them up here to avoid import restrictions and tariffs and because we’re their biggest market. It costs Hyundai less to build a car in the US than it does in South Korea, but it costs twice as much for them to build here than in Brazil or China. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-becoming-a-banana-republic/675976.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-us-becoming-a-banana-republic/675976.md?page=5)