It seems like in the last few years, the cracks were really starting to show in American dominance. The bungling of the COVID response, the BRI and BRICS chipping away at US trade and currency dominance, the failure of Ukraine to repel Russia, inflation and shortages in the imperial core, etc.
But it seems like many of these cracks have been patched up this year. I’m not sure how much is just propaganda, but economic indicators show that inflation in the US has cooled, unemployment is the lowest and the labor force participation rate is the highest they’ve been in decades (even accounting for underemployment/gig work), and real wages have increased amongst the poorest and richest alike (albeit unequally so).
US energy prices are dropping. US oil production is at an all time high, and the US is refilling its strategic reserves at a lower prices than it released them for. OPEC can’t retaliate without taking a huge hit to their economy.
Infrastructure, historically a big issue for the US, has been looking better as the Biden administration passed several huge spending packages to improve train networks and other things.
Ukraine is losing but the US has only spent a small fraction of what they did in Afghanistan, and they’ve debt trapped Ukraine in the process. The Israel-Palestine conflict has certainly turned sentiment against the US but it hasn’t resulted in any material change in relations.
China’s economy is stumbling; although there’s not a recession per se, unemployment is sky high, consumer confidence has taken a hit, and investment has slowed. Interest rates are about 3.5% in China while they’re about 5% in the US, which means China has less room to perform expansionary monetary policy than the US.
The US seems to have gained ground in trade relations. Several countries have pulled out of the BRI. Countries like Mexico, which for a while had China as their biggest trade partner, once again have the US as their biggest trade partner. FDI in China has slowed. “De-risking” and “friendshoring” have started yielding results. I know in the long run this will also weaken imperialism as it develops the productive forces of countries like India, Mexico, and Vietnam, but it might take a long time; even highly-industrialized countries like Japan, Germany, and south Korea are still subservient to the US.
People have completely forgotten about the US’ shit COVID response, but Chinese citizens still bear resentment towards Xi and the central gov for the zero-COVID policy, and the uncertainty over lockdowns was a contributing factor towards the reduction in investor confidence in China.
So overall, things don’t look too bad for the US, while they’re looking a bit uncertain for the other emerging “poles” like China, Russia, and the Middle East. I suppose the silver lining is that a lot of these gains came at the expense of gutting the economies of “allies” like Europe and south Korea, which means that the US won’t have as much to easily prey on next time.
What are your thoughts?
I don’t disagree with others who point out how US power has declined from its peak of complete hegemony after 1992 but we’re not presently at or soon to be at a world really any worse than the one that existed at the height of the cold war and the US won that one as we know.
Never forget though we see internal divisions and cracks in the US now, that in the 60s there were many genuine leftist militant movements which were systemically crushed and destroyed not to mention the fear was such that they killed a sitting president, assassinated civil rights leaders, etc. Never forget despite the media hype that Jan 6 was a fizzling dud, that it was mostly just angry entitled older whites who had no real game plan, no weapons, and most likely no intent to do anything beyond disrupting the certification by shouting and shoving and declaring themselves in control without any plans to do anything further.
Point is I suppose the US has been in tough spots before as has international finance capital and they’ve managed to engineer ways out of various problems we’ve predicted they’d encounter. Much as I want to, I don’t think we should count them out and count on some inertia to destroy them just because they’re facing headwinds and problems right now as China is also facing issues here and there.
For the moment the global south has the initiative and momentum with African nations kicking out France, Russia beating western sanctions, etc. But that too has happened in the past. Look how many revolutionary movements existed, the developments and progress that seemed to be happening in the global south in say the 1950s through 1960s and how they were ultimately mostly crushed by the 70s aside from a revolution in Cuba, the partial success of the revolution in Korea, etc. How US intelligence with help from comprador local capitalists, warlords, corrupt military officials, and European efforts subverted revolutionary movements, defeated them, installed comprador regimes or in cases like South America installed fascist dictators.
We’re a long ways from winning and I think a lot of left/Marxist spirit was hurt or crushed by thinking the same things last century and then seeing it all go to pieces. Going from being positive of the certainty of victory and elevated and enthralled by our minor successes to being crushed by the staggering defeat we were handed and the collapse and couping of the USSR that capped it all off.
While we could yet see a decades happening in weeks situation in the west and things could rapidly spiral the way of a decline and balkanization, we can’t count on it. Most likely, rationally, the west will continue to exist and be a threat for decades to come and it could be a century. If China can hold out, stay strong and avoid being isolated from the international economy (avoid the BRI being undermined by coups, compradors, etc) as the USSR was through 2030-2040 they’ll be in a much stronger position than the USSR ever was at any point IMO.
People have mentioned the actual economic situation for your average worker in the west has gotten worse despite the economy doing better and this is true. But the west has had periods of great pain for the working classes in the past and they haven’t enacted revolution at those points and won’t do so this time I think either. Not unless the pain really spirals and remains so for more than 20 years IMO. I mean more than just a reduction of living quality, quality of life and buying power for the youth. I think the youth will take that, grumble about it, dislike it but still be too propagandized and not uncomfortable enough to actually revolt or do anything that threatens the western system or governments.
US is in fact moving ahead with de-coupling or “de-risking” as they’ve branded it. Something many in the western left laughed at 6 years ago as doomed to humiliating failure.
While I agree with this, the revolt is actually already taking place at the periphery of the US empire. It’s other countries that previously had no choice but to tow the line with US policy. Now they have alternatives. We see the rise of BRICS+ and their influence both politically and economically.
There won’t be a revolution inside the US because there is no political alternatives. The economic side could go to shit and there would still be no actual political change : Maybe the names of the politicians change but the policies are still controlled by corporations and capitalists.
Even if there was a US revolt, there’s no alternative organisation to take control.