It may come as a shock to U.S. workers struggling to get by in the current recession, but some economists are saying that the main stumbling block to economic recovery is that said workers are already overpaid, at least compared with workers in newly emerging economies in Asia and South America. This despite the fact that wages in the U.S. have already been stagnant for at least the past decade, particularly compared with the rising costs of health care and higher education. And now they want to pay us even LESS?
If anything, this should make it obvious that our present problems are not the result of a traditional boom-and-bust cycle, but rather a long-term decline in this nation’s imperial fortunes. We’ve never been particularly good at the empire business, but the leaders of our country seem to have forgotten that one of the main reasons to have an empire in the first place is to benefit the citizens of the home country. That’s why the Brits constructed monopolies designed to exploit the resources of the colonies while protecting their industries at home.
The U.S., on the other hand, has spent the last 20 years signing trade deals that accelerated job losses in this country, particularly in manufacturing industries. For a while we were able to hide the damage to our middle class way of life with a massive buying binge fueled by easy credit, but with the bursting of the housing bubble, it’s become clear this charade is no longer sustainable.
It’s more than just diminished expectations at home, however. The decline of our economic empire makes it increasingly hard for the government to justify the maintaining of our military one. Fuzzy-headed Wilsonian notions of spreading democracy aside, when it comes to our empire, most Americans want to know what’s in it for them. If building roads in Afghanistan isn’t going to result in more American-made cars driving on them, what’s the point? Why not, God forbid, spend that money on schools?
President Obama realizes that a high U.S. standard of living is integral to creating the notion of cultural superiority that underlies our military aggressiveness abroad, which is why he’s pushing health care reform and consumer subsidy programs to shore up our middle class. Unfortunately, this nation doesn’t have enough money to maintain our military posture abroad while preserving our standard of living at home in the long run – at least, not without the (conditional) financial support of China, our main economic rival.
Like previous empires, the U.S. is attempting to offset its economic decline with increased military action abroad, not realizing that military power is subservient to economic power. What was lost in the back rooms of the World Trade Organization, however, cannot be regained in the hills of Afghanistan. To paraphrase Clausewitz, economics is war by other means, and it’s a battle that the U.S. appears well on its way to losing.
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