This article seems to think so.
What’s this about wealth transfer? I don’t see western economies being shrunk by a flight of investment capital, rather a stall in the face of a successful eastern economic boom.
If this approaches realisation I really do lament the decline of western democratic strength in the fact of authoritarianism.
So is this what is going to happen? Why is it going to happen if yes, and how can it be prevented? This is not the kind of world I want to live in.
US is fine. We’ll get rich more slowly than the rest of the world, and our demographic trend will be a further drag. Still, individual well-being will be fine, technology will still improve, only our *relative *status in the world will change. And frankly as long as I and my neighbors are individually doing well I don’t care if I live in a superpower or not.
We are screwed. Without a great economy we can not afford a huge standing army. The whole concept of country and nationalism is for people,not corporations. They are concepted to seek the most money they can squeeze out at all costs. The American people are paying for allowing it and will continue to do so.
China did not invent a new and better way to manufacture. They just allowed international corporations to move there and take advantage of cheap labor, no regulation and the ability to poison the environment in the name of profits.
The Chinese are taking over as the worlds most advanced country . India will continue to move along that route. We will stagnate and fail. It does not matter to corporations. If we develop a new and exciting technology, the corporations will move it to where they can maximize profits. They have zero interest in making America strong.
At one time we could move the world with our purchasing power. But our unemployment numbers and dropping wages are erasing that.
The interests of corporations are in conflict with the those of America. The corporations have won.
I like US hegemony, and if that went, then UK hegemony. I do not want Chinese or Russian Hegemony. I can think of nothing worse than our economic well being being dictated too by two of the more powerful authoritarian and anti western regimes in the world today.
Yes!! The United States is in decline. There is no question about it.
The United States is reducing its jobs, while at the same time greatly increasing its population, of course it is in decline.
Not only is the US losing jobs, but more importantly the United States is losing manufacturing jobs.
Furthermore, most of the population increase in the United States is because of letting in millions more immigrants from third world nations who are poor, unskilled, and uneducated.
Any country with a national policy of (1)adding more people while (2) getting rid of jobs… is going to be poor, hopelessly in debt, have a worthless currency, wont be able to feed its people, and it will be energy dependent from foreign countries.
any intelligent answers rather than simplistic falsehoods?
If the US economy increases by 2%, while China’s economy increases by 5%, then China is relatively stronger and the US is relatively weaker. However, the US hasn’t declined, but rather increased.
So the “relative decline” crowd can’t seem to understand that while the US economy is as large as it has ever been, other parts of the world have improved from bone-crushing poverty to merely average poverty.
China is still a very poor country. It has a GDP per capita on par with Angola and Ecuador. Anybody who thinks China is (or is about to become) the world’s most advanced country is smoking crack. China has an economy 1/3 the size of the United States, while it has 4 times the population. A little simple math shows that means their per capita wealth is 1/12th that of the United States.
Of course, China used to be much much much poorer, and the past two decades of economic growth have resulted in the most economic gain for the most people in human history. But it has a long way to to approach the wealth and prosperity of a country like Mexico.
The rest of the world isn’t exactly thrilled about US hegemony either.
The current estimated total US population (counting all residents including immigrants and domestic births) is 310,898,110. This is an increase of 28.5 million over the 2000 census, which was 282,434,000.
Millions! Millions you say! Panic in the streets! The brown people will get us! And white babie! Won’t someone realize the white babies are a menace!
But the 1990 census was 250,132,000. So between 1990 and 2000, the increase was 32 million. So the US population is actually growing slower than it did in the last decade.
In other words… [censored as its more appropriate for The Pit].
Yes, but those white babies can each kill ten of the browns, like the Swiss did during WW2 or whatever.
Susanann would probably prefer that, as this isn’t the first trade she’s popped into and mentioned that immigration of poor, stupid people (read: brown) is killing the US.
It is very easy to see why there is high unemployment in the United States, and why unemployment/joblessness, and government debt, is to get much much worse in the upcoming years.
Even a grade schooler can figure it out.
Fewer Jobs, More Immigrants: Despite Loss of 1 Million Jobs, 13.1 Million Arrived 2000-09
*WASHINGTON, Nov. 23, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ – New Census Bureau data collected in March of this year show that 13.1 million immigrants (legal and illegal) arrived in the previous 10 years, even though there was a net decline of 1 million jobs during the decade.
*
Good, we have no business spending what we do.
That is insane, and I’d quote exactly what the US spends as a percentage of GDP but I’m not sure because they have their massive hand in the discretionary expenditure cookie jar as well.
Yeah. The idea of a world where authoritarian China has so much influence isn’t too appealing to me either.
It is already happening in some ways. The US doesn’t trade with Sudan or Myanmar due to human rights abuses. China could care less. They give weapons to Sudan in exchange for oil and help support the Myanmar dictatorship. China is North Korea’s best ally.
On the plus side, even though other nations will rise rapidly much of the world’s wealth is still in the hands of nations which value human rights and democracy like the OECD nations. As Fareed Zakaria has said, it isn’t that the US is in decline so much as the rest of the world is catching up rapidly. But even so OECD nations will still have a lot of economic clout as well as political clout. And rising nations like India may side with OECD nations over China in a multipolar world. I think other nations and people are going to be afraid of a powerful authoritarian China too, which would make alliances with India, the US and EU more appealing in diplomatic, military or economic matters. China ignores human rights abuses and engages in economic manipulations to benefit itself. I don’t think they’ll win tons of allies if allies have alternatives. Zakaria recently said he visited South Korea and leftist politicians, who are usually very anti-US, told him they were worried the US would abandon them to China. So there is already, according to Zakaria, some fear of a powerful China which will hopefully push nations toward the OECD nations and their more human rights friendly policies.
Plus you have to consider that China and Russia will likely develop more human rights as time passes, so by the time 2040 comes China may not be nearly as bad as they are now. Just 15 years ago people said on the subject of climate change “Why should the US do anything if China is doing nothing”, and now China is starting to lead the globe in clean energy. So things change.
The last 10 years have been bad economically in the US for the bottom 95% (the top 5% and corporate profits did great the last 10 years though). However Russia, Brazil, China, India, etc all saw their middle classes grow dramatically while our middle class shrunk.
As a cavaet, I disagree with the article about the subject of science. The article seems to claim a problem in the US is we don’t have enough domestic scientists to be innovative. I don’t agree, the real problem is we don’t have enough jobs for people trained in science. Most of the people I went to school with abandoned science and did degrees in professional school after undergrad. Many science jobs that do exist are dead end temp jobs with no benefits. The problem is that science is not a key to a lucrative, rewarding career; not that there aren’t enough people trained to do that. That is why so many people trained in science end up in medicine, finance, law or some unrelated field down the road. The jobs don’t exist, and the jobs that do exist aren’t that great.
On the subject of science you also have to worry about reverse brain drain. It used to be the best scientists would come here, get trained, then work here. Now they come here, get trained and go back home. Soon there is a risk that scientists born and trained in the US will move to China, India, Russia, etc and look for work there. Given the choice between a career with a future in China or India, or a dead end temp job in the US (at best, many are stuck in unemployment), I would move to China. I am definately nowhere near the best wrt science. But I’m sure that is a common attitude. Jobs don’t exist here. Even when they do, they are usually contract or temp.
I’d like to get realpolitik for a second and ask which hegemony the world would like.
Like they have a choice.
How can we be in decline when we’re building high speed rail links to everywhere? The future is coming, and America is BUILDING IT! 
you laugh now but when Columbus Ohio and Cincinnati Ohio are linked, you will see. YOU’LL ALL SEE.
And? It’s not like America doesn’t trade enthusiastically with many countries that engage in human rights abuses, including China itself. And America also has a well known habit of supporting such regimes, or outright installing them. Outside its own border America has an absolutely rotten record on human rights. I’d rather live in America than China; but outside of itself, America is if anything more inclined to hurt you than China is.
China, probably. It doesn’t show the same interest in conquering nations on other continents.
Yet, perhaps you’re confusing the reasons of their restraint as morality instead of capability.
Need a bunch of quotes from world leaders saying the same thing? It is not news.
No falsehoods. we are dropping like a rock and there is no escape.