AMERICA: IS OUR COLLAPSE IMMINENT?

BENEDETTO CROCE

All history is contemporary history.
         Benedetto Croce

The debt owed by the United States to China has now topped 1.3 trillion dollars. Money to service that debt amounts to tens of billions each year. That money, if left in the American economy, could be used to spur growth.  If China even hints at a lack of confidence in the ability of the U.S. to pay what is owed, interest rates rise and all Americans are affected.  Predictions are that the Chinese economy will surpass the American economy within a generation, and history shows that economic strength begets political power.

Perhaps the Chinese are much more patient in playing their waiting game than Americans would be; after all, Chinese history is replete with at least 24 dynasties dating back to before 2,000 B.C.  And, if history is a cyclical process, then the U.S. is very much a johnny-come-lately.

Just 4 years ago, Russian economist Igor Panarin was predicting the approaching fragmentation and break-up of the U.S.  The dollar, said Panarin, was based on nothing of substance.  Furthermore, American debt was picking up speed like an avalanche.  Such insane policies would see the demise of America as a great power, whose portion of time wielding global strength represents merely a tiny blip on the continuum of history

Benedetto Croce (1866 - 1952) was an Italian philosopher of the first-rank.  Croce proffered that all history was dependent on previous history; and, drawing on the 16th and 17th century historian Gianbattista Vico, concluded that human history was cyclical in nature.  That is to say that all of the major impulses that influence human endeavors run and return in inevitable cycles.

JARED DIAMOND

Examining failed societies in his COLLAPSE:  HOW SOCIETIES CHOOSE TO FAIL OR SUCCEED, UCLA professor Jared Diamond (1937 - ) looks at environmental factors, including environmental problems that are affecting present day human beings.  But, underlying all of the negative elements affecting societies, there is the human factor and how humans choose to address the problems they face.  For, when all is said and done, decisions determine outcomes and, ultimately, survival.

ARNOLD TOYNBEE

Much earlier, British historian Arnold Toynbee (1889 - 1975) published a multi-volume work, A STUDY OF HISTORY.  In arriving at his thesis, Toynbee expanded on the premises of German historian Otto Spengler, which saw history as a stair-step process, where progress is based on innovation and struggle. In this light, societies are like human organisms.  They go through life processes that may be likened to birth, childhood, adolescence, maturity, decline and obsolescence or death.  The key to remaining vibrant is the ability to meet new challenges with new solutions.  When societies habitually offer up old solutions to new challenges, then the road to ultimate  decline is embarked upon.

As we consider the present American state of affairs, it might be well to ponder as well our present leadership and in what direction our nation is going.  Are we truly being innovative in dealing with the challenges with which we are faced?  Is it true that innovation may delay any cyclical process leading to decline?  Are the decisions being made in our behalf arrived at after due consideration of all factors and undertaken with the best possible outcomes in mind?

Regrettably, I must conclude that those who now plot our course do so with old, drab and failed solutions and schemes.  Wherever we look in Europe, statism has failed.  Those societies which have limited freedom and liberty in behalf of bogus equality now reside in the dustbin of history.  We are the solution.  If we settle for leadership selling the snake-oil of failure, then we, in turn, receive the government and the leadership we deserve.  Is it possible for us  to determine to reverse our present disastrous course?  Or shall we conclude, as did Will and Ariel Durant, that the main thing we learn from history is that we don't learn very much from history?

Deo Vindice!

May God bless Texas, and may the Lone Star State remain forever red!