My bolding.
Wellnow…
yes, this article is pretty crap. It’s alarmist, deliberately misleading, and I have no real idea what its goal is. That said, sometimes Chicken Little is on to something. ISTM the real question this (and other polemics like it) is trying to ask is:
"Is the US in decline on the world stage, educationally, economically, and/or militarily?"
(Actually, this article begs the question, but whatever.)
Among the corollary questions would then be:
“Can we stop it?”
“Should we stop it?”
“Is it a bad thing?”
The answer to the first question is arguably “Yes.” We had a period of being the biggest kid on the block, but as other kids get bigger the size difference decreases. The US is (again, arguably) less relatively dominant worldwide than in years past.
The answers to the latter questions are far less clear. Other people being as wealthy as I am, or wealthier, doesn’t make me less wealthy, though it does remove some of my ability to impose my will. I cannot really see that as a bad thing, individually or as a nation.
Inasmuch as the “decline” of the US involves food insecurity, wealth inequality, poor health, and declining educational outcomes, then yes, it’s a really awful thing, and needs to be addressed post-fucking-haste.
But it needs to be addressed with the goal of being better as a society and taking care of our people, and not with the goal of being the biggest baddest nation on earth.
.
:dubious:
Can you give some examples of the US being in decline on the worlds stage? We are still the biggest kid on the block and will be for the foreseeable future. Countries like China are expending vast effort to even get in the same league, and they don’t wield nearly the same power that the US does on the world stage. The entire EU comes close in some aspects, but in others is not even close to our league.
It’s a total package. Other countries might be as wealthy as us (on a per capita basis), but that doesn’t equate to wielding the same amount of power and influence on the world stage. No one even comes close.
Some of these are your personal opinions on what is or isn’t important, some I’d need some cites for (we are in decline wrt ‘food insecurity’?? We are in decline wrt ‘educational outcomes’??). I’m not seeing most of them as being an ‘awful thing’ that needs to be addressed ‘post-fucking-haste’ as I think most are chicken little bullshit or a feature not a problem, but I don’t see any of them as equating to the US being a banana republic in any way, shape or form…nor indications that we are in decline.
I read the article. Its author is arguing that income inequality is ruining the overall economy and turning the United States into a third world country.
As others here have noted, income inequality does not a banana republic make. A banana republic is a weak country where outside corporations dictate to the local government. Regardless of how you feel about economic policy in America, I can’t see how you can argue it was decided outside of this country.
Where are all the bananas coming from? That’s seems to me to be a remarkable low percentage.
From wiki:
Those ten are:
India
Uganda
China
Philippines
Ecuador
Brazil
Indonesia
Colombia
Cameroon
Tanzania
Figures the Chinese would be passing off crappy plantains as bananas.
Actually, this is eye-opening for me, simply becuase I had been operating on an obviously incorrect assumption that bananas only came from the New World. And that’s not even close to being true.
Do any of those qualify for Banana Republic status?
Aren’t they all republics?
:dubious: yerownself.
I said “arguably,” not “I’m arguing it.” Sorry I didn’t make that more clear.
But sure, of course the US is still the biggest kid on the block. It is, however, slightly less relatively big. The US is–arguably–not as much bigger as it has been.
:shrug: IMO.
Of course not, and again, I sure as hell didn’t mean to suggest otherwise.
Oh my yes. All of them, actually.
I was attempting merely to work within the context of the OP’s article. These are the sorts of things the article makes reference to, and they are coincidentally the sorts of things that I a) would like to see improved in my country and b) I believe would make us stronger as a nation in the long run.
I do not, however, argue that these constitute a “decline,” which is why I put the word in quotation marks in my previous post. Again, my apologies for being unclear.
Nope, I never meant in any way to suggest that the US is, or can ever possibly become, a “banana republic.” As I said, the article in question is pretty shite on a number of levels.
What’s also interesting is that in some measurements, the US was never ahead, though our rankings in these measurements are supposed to support the idea of “decline”. For example, the US was never a top-tier educational society and in the history of international testing has always scored, at best, in the middle.
First, about the term “banana republic”. Here’s the Wikipedia definition.
“Banana republic is a political science term for a politically unstable country whose economy is largely dependent on the export of a single limited-resource product (ex. Bananas.) 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.”
Other than the part about being dependent on the export of a single product, I think the rest fairly describes where the US is headed.
World Leadership
As I mentioned upthread, the underlying question I’m interested in exploring, is by what metrics can the US still be considered a world leader.
I find it interesting that many posters equate World Leader with World Power. As I mentioned, there is no argument that the US is the dominant military power today. In my mind, the concept of leadership extends beyond physical coercion.
For example, you can consider quality of life, which has been studied using metrics such as life expectancy, infant mortality, job security, gender equality, and others. By these metrics the US does not rank in the top 10.
You could also consider a related metric of
livability.
This measures things like safety, education, health care, public transportation, and others. There are several methods that rank the livability of cities around the world. There is no US city in the Top 10 on any of the rankings. In one ranking, the Mercer Quality of Living Survey, the highest ranking US city is Honolulu at number 28.
You could consider technological leadership, where we once reigned supreme. Now, the fastest supercomputer is produced in
China.
As an American, I think that the US still has a lot of genuine accomplishments to be proud of. However, I think the majority of these are in the past. I think that it is good to be proud of your country and its accomplishments. What bothers me is thoughtlessly exclaiming “We’re Number One” at every turn, with no attempt to base that claim in fact.
So once again, by what metrics can the US claim world leadership? I’m not saying there are none, but which ones can be factually supported?
To the moderator. Can you change the title of this thread to “Is the US still a world leader?”
To call the working classes in the United States “impoverished” is not correct. Yes, the working classes clearly are not joining in the prosperity, but “impoverished” has synonyms such as poor, destitute, indigent, etc. You will have to explain why you think the American working class is headed for homelessness, basically.
The term “world leader” generally means a country that exercises considerable influence on other countries and regions. It is much less common to say that a “world leader” is one which appears on the short list of leading the globe in a lot of different statistical categories. Are you really that concerned that the US isn’t in the top 10 of every economic category you care to cherrypick?
You are chagrined at people who want to chant “we’re number one,” but you’d like to know why we’re not number one in more things? Am I getting this straight?
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.
What’s left is your cherrypicking of data. Supercomputers is your claim for our failing technology? Your own link shows that we had the fastest three of the last six years in a category of dubious importance that will change in 2014. You don’t bother to mention that software expertise is far more important and that the U.S. is dominant in that or that China has shown severe and damaging inability to innovate sufficiently to dominate in modern technologies.
You want facts? The U.S. is the world’s largest economy and the U.S. dollar is the default currency worldwide. The U.S. has the world’s largest military and is considered the arbiter of disputes whenever it wishes to involve itself. The U.S. is such a cultural powerhouse that other countries have to pass laws to keep U.S. media from dominating. That is what virtually anyone has to consider the components of a world leader.
Your cherrypicked life quality metrics are internal flaws that have little to nothing to do with world leadership. And they also fail the test of history. The U.S. has always been a diverse society without a total governmental social welfare system in which large pockets of poverty existed. Always. There is nothing new or different about this. It was true throughout any era in which anyone could claim that the U.S. was somehow superior to today.
You don’t have a case. You don’t have a logical argument. You show no understanding of history. You have no facts to back up your assertions. Your metrics are nonsensical. I’m not impressed.
I know you qualified it with “is headed”, but I’m not seeing a large impoverished working class, political instability, or an oligarchy that controls economic production at work in the U.S.
Agreed.
By their nature, these sort of composite ranking are pretty subjective. The people creating the formula have to decide the weight, and thus subjective value, to give to each metric. Is high infant mortality better than low life expectancy? To what degree? Is it better to have job security or gender equality? and so on. Adjust the weights, and you can greatly alter the rankings.
There’s also the question of how meaningful being #13 on a list like that is. Does that make life in the U.S. two-thirds as good as life in Ireland? 90% as good? 99%? I mean, Canada clocked it below the U.S., and it’s almost universally considered a pretty great place to live.
This same issues crop up when discussing test scores…the U.S. comes in middle-of-the-pack amongst first-world nations, and there’s always great gnashing of teeth about it. But coming in 30th in math doesn’t mean your students are bad at math, just like finishing 8th in an Olympic sprint doesn’t make you slow.
The same issues apply here.
Did we ever “reign supreme”, in the sense that the finest innovations invariably came from the U.S. and only the U.S.? How would you measure that?
So, you’d like objective measurements that have the U.S. in the top spot? Two have been pointed out: military strength, and box office receipts.
A third: gross domestic product.
Too late to edit.
There might have been a few years after WWII when the rest of the world was in shambles when the U.S. ranked high on quality of life. But if that’s your baseline then your argument is totally suspect in the first place.
In addition to the other comments, one of the hallmarks of the “banana republics” was a large nation to the north which regularly interfered in the government of those countries, often with military threats, to protect that large country’s economic interests in said countries.
Canada is lagging on that interventionist role vis-à-vis the United States. 
My point is not whether the US has ever been formally ranked number one in any particular category. My query is in what category, today, other than military, which has been conceded in the original post, can the US be considered a leader in objective terms? Box office receipts counts, although if that’s all, that’s not much.
If you read my previous post, I’m looking for legitimate areas where the US excels TODAY, not years ago.
No, you’re not getting this straight at all.