Tag Archives: empire

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America, the future, empire in decline, Byzantium vs. the USSR, and all that

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Experience teaches that writing a convincing near-future sf story is not easy–let alone convincing editors that you are not writing satire–but this really struck a writerly nerve: “Most Americans can’t imagine a future that’s not pretty much like the recent past, maybe with a few wind turbines and solar panels added.”

Jon Talton used to write for The Arizona Republic. Now, as Rogue Columnist, he writes stuff his old bosses wouldn’t tolerate. (He’s published a decent series of crime novels set in AZ, too.) His columns sometimes read like jeremiads, but in the spirit of a couple of Paul’s recent posts about the future of the American empire, here are some snippets from Jon’s latest.  What the hell; it’s Friday the Thirteenth.

I can see a few other outcomes:

1. The man on the white horse. When chaos reaches a certain level most people will eagerly embrace, say, Gen. David Petraeus. He’s shown little MacArthurism in him. But if both political parties and most institutions have lost legitimacy, the military might be forced by events to step in. Or the elites, desperate to save their bacon, might draft this universally admired soldier as president. The move might gain further power as thousands of discharged combat veterans drive the streets of America unable to find work. This will be our Rubicon moment….

[Blogger’s rude interruption: I’m reliably informed that Americans love it when John Wayne rides in to save the day, and in fact many believe it happens on a regular basis, perhaps recently.–Desultorily Philippic Tom]

3. Devolution. This would be another orderly way for a bankrupt and hamstrung federal government to accept reality, particularly if faced with ever greater instability and gridlock. Keep control of national defense, foreign policy, the constitutional basics. And leave the rest to the states, including most taxing and regulatory authority. If Arizona wants to be a law-of-the-jungle toxic dump where the devil takes the hindmost, see how that works out….

4. War with China. …China is happy to watch America exhaust itself in the Muslim world, hoping that will do the trick, leaving America to do a sudden global withdrawal as Britain did. But conflict is not impossible to imagine. If it happened, any of the above scenarios might face a losing America. A greater, if fleeting, imperial moment might await a winning America. But it won’t be the America we once knew.

5. Muslim revenge. The longer we intrude in the Middle East and Afghanistan, keeping armies there, depending on oil from dictatorships, allowing an intransigent Israel to do as it wishes, playing with fire in Pakistan and ignoring all those millions of angry, unemployed young men — the closer we get to a horrific reckoning.

None of this may happen. I certainly don’t want it to happen. But these outcomes are no longer out of the question.

Agree or not, Jon raises issues that sf might arguably and legitimately deal with. Hmm, what was the exact date the world began to look towards China, rather than the U.S., for leadership out of the recession? Am I just a jingoistic ignorant might-as-well-be-a-klansman for even asking if that’s a good or bad thing?

Things are changing pretty fast, has anybody noticed? The author of Russian Spring, with its early cover painting of the Lenin statue greening over, might do a William Windom Star Trek turn: “Don’t you think I know that?!?!” How would a book like Stand on Zanzibar, which I read till it fell apart in my turbulent twenties, read today? (I’ll let you know if I ever track down a copy.) It would be interesting to see stories about how some of Talton’s speculations can be avoided.

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David Brin: is America’s loss the world’s gain?

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Marshall Plan propaganda posterY’know, I really like David Brin, even though I don’t always agree with what he says; he’s got a contrary stripe a mile wide, and he’s one of the few self-identifying conservative thinkers in science fiction who’s willing to break ranks with populism and call out the failings of his own side – something that is just as rare on the liberal side of the fence, IMHO.

Brin’s guest-blogging at Sentient Developments again, and his latest post is provocative reading, regardless of your personal politics. The thesis is roughly as follows: America may have spent itself into economic and political decline, but in doing so it leaves as its legacy a world lifted out of poverty thanks to the counter-mercantilist trade flows set up by the Marshall plan. [image by kafka4prez; orginal copyright status uncertain, so please contact for takedown if required]

You should go read the whole thing (there’s probably ten minutes worth of text there, so it’s one of his smaller rants), but here’s a few highlights for the impatient:

While Marshall crafted a historically unprecedented, receptively open trade policy called “counter-mercantilism” (I’ll explain in a minute), MacArthur vigorously pushed the creation of Japanese export-oriented industries, establishing the model of what was to come. Instead of doing what all other victorious conquerors had done – looting the defeated enemy — the clearly stated intention was for the United States to lift up their prostrate foe, first with direct aid. And then, over the longer term, with trade.

[…]

At the behest of Marshall and his advisors. America became the first pax-power in history to deliberately establish counter-mercantilist commerce flows. A trade regime that favored the manufactures of many foreign/poor countries over those in the homeland. Nations crippled by war, or by millennia of mismanagement, were allowed to maintain high tariffs, keeping out American manufactures, while sending shiploads from their own factories to the U.S., almost duty free.

Moreover, despite the ongoing political tussle of two political parties and sometimes noisy aggravation over ever-mounting deficits, each administration since Marshall’s time kept fealty with this compact — to such a degree that the world’s peoples by now simply take it for granted.

Forgetting all of history and ignoring the self-destructive behavior of other empires, we all have tended to assume that counter-mercantilist trade flows are somehow a natural state of affairs! But they aren’t. They are an invention, as unique and new and as American as the airplane, or the photocopier, or rock n’ roll.

[…]

Even if America is exhausted, worn out and a shadow of her former self, from having spent her way from world dominance into a chasm of debt, the U.S. does have something to show for it the last six decades.

A world saved. A majority of human beings lifted out of poverty. That task, far more prodigious than defeating fascism and communism or going to the moon, ought to be viewed with a little respect. And I suspect it will be, by future generations.

This should be contemplated, soberly, as other nations start to consider their time ahead as one of potential triumph. As they start to contemplate the possibility of becoming the next great pax or “central kingdom.”

If that happens — (as I portray in a coming novel) — will they emulate Marshall and Truman, by starting their bright era of world leadership with acts of thoughtful and truly farsighted wisdom? Perhaps even a little gratitude? Or at least by evading the mistakes that are written plain, across the pages of history, wherever countries briefly puffed and preened over their own importance, imagining that this must last forever?

I’m as guilty as the next man of casting American influence in a negative light, and Brin’s analysis provides an intriguing counterpoint to that nay-saying: an argument to the effect that history may remember that influence more positively than our proximity to it currently permits.

What do you think America will be remembered for in fifty years’ time? (And keep it cordial, folks; nation-bashing and racism will be deleted without hesitation, so keep a historical perspective, please.)

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Does Asimov’s Foundation trilogy hold wisdom about the current crisis?

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Asimov's Foundation Trilogy in SpanishMartin Börjesson has just been re-reading Asimov’s famous Foundation Trilogy, and found himself wondering whether the books are any use as a way of reframing the current global situation with regard to economics and geopolitics.

Here it is worth noting that the main inspiration too this novel, which started as a series of short stories by a 22 year old Asimov, published from 1942 and forward, came from Gibbon’s famous work “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”. When I see it in this perspective I can’t avoid thinking of the role of the monasteries which worked as knowledge capsules during the dark ages.

What does Dr Seldon say about what causes the fall of the Empire:

  • a rising bureaucracy
  • a receding initiative
  • a freezing of caste
  • a damming of curiosity
  • …a hundred other factors

And the effects will be:

  • its accumulated knowledge will decay
  • the order it has imposed will vanish
  • interstellar wars will be endless
  • interstellar trade will decay
  • population will decline
  • worlds will lose touch with the main body of the Galaxy
  • …and so matters will remain

Do these bullets sound familiar?

Well, of course they do; the ways that big systems collapse are well-known to historians and science fiction writers alike; it’s the political types and economists who seem to have the wilful blind spot in this case.

Can books like Foundation help us see things more clearly? Sure – if you’re the sort of person who’s willing to look for those analogies and think them through for yourself. As a tool to bring the message to the masses, though, I doubt they’re of any greater utility than a celebrity cook-book. [image by draXus]