Josh Blue
Well-Known Member
Every empire on this world has fallen, will the west (U.S.A's empire, including us lot) fall?
Thoughts and opinions Off topic blues?
Thoughts and opinions Off topic blues?
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Will the West fall?
- Thread starter Josh Blue
- Start date
Gelsons Dad
Well-Known Member
You might like to do a little research before calling "the west" an empire!Josh Blue said:Every empire on this world has fallen, will the west (U.S.A's empire, including us lot) fall?
Thoughts and opinions Off topic blues?
Josh Blue
Well-Known Member
Gelsons Dad said:You might like to do a little research before calling "the west" an empire!Josh Blue said:Every empire on this world has fallen, will the west (U.S.A's empire, including us lot) fall?
Thoughts and opinions Off topic blues?
Well USA's empire (The West)
j jay
Well-Known Member
yes is the answer and the east will rise like a phoenix from the flames :D
u2fme2
Well-Known Member
i hope not any time soon
gordondaviesmoustache
Well-Known Member
Western culture is far too ubiquitous and successful to be going anywhere. It will doubtless diminish in relative power in the years ahead, but its influence over music, art, film, tv, archtitecture (let alone its economic power) is far too great to render its demise as anything other than the deluded fantasies of a few wishful thinkers.
Skashion
Well-Known Member
This is a very interesting subject for me as both a Marxian/st and a lover of technology. I've got a fair bit to say on this subject and it's not very coherently organised when I'm feeling a bit sleepy.
Generally I believe that we'll see the spread of capitalist industrialisation until all parts of the working class across the world are the same general level in terms of wages and living standards, this will be due to both an absolute and relative rise in some areas and a comparative fall in others as there comes to be a truly global capital and labour market. Once this happens, a lot of transnational capital's bargaining power falls away. The threat is currently that large companies will up sticks and move from country to country. This has produced a race to the bottom in corporate tax rates, deregulation etc.
However, the future most likely holds some form of global governance with a global tax regime. The balance might be redressed there somewhat. From there, it's hard to predict what will happen because there are so many variables to take into account. Politics and the labour movement has not yet responded either and it'll be interesting to see how that develops. At the moment, the workers seem more predisposed to blaming immigrants and foreigners rather than corporations like Nike for whom labour costs have been as low as three tenths of one percent of retail price. I'm also not liable to blaming evil corporations for this because most of the ones criticising outsourcing (a term which has some nationalist connotations anyway) are those who are self-interested in protecting themselves anyway. No altruism, just companies and individuals seeking to serve themselves. Neither better than the other. This could change when things are equalised, though you could see temporary and consciously constructed fluctuation to allow this useful illusion to persist. Couple of decades of comparative western growth, then switch to Asia, then Africa, then South America etc. and begin again.
Then there's the transnational capitalist propensity to adapt. They are not beyond making concessions if people are angry and organised enough. This can be seen in the past by how most western countries developed social welfare. It's not even that painful a concession because it benefits capital to have a 'reserve army' of labour. It keeps people on their toes and thankful to have a job and more willing to accept pay cuts and poorer terms and conditions. Better if you can get away with not paying for that of course, but they will. This brings me onto my next point. This is one difference where I do see a potential difference (along with another which I'll get onto in a minute) compared to how the west developed. Transnational capital seems to love dealing in countries with stable totalitarian governments. Capital doesn't like elections, too unpredictable if there’s genuine policy change every few years, and worse the bloody peasants might go and vote in some anti-capitalist ideologue crackpot like Chavez. So there is an emphasis in deliberately undermining the development of democracy and the labour movement. This is true in the western world of course but in China and South America (less so now but in 80s certainly and potentially in the future, and elsewhere) those who will crush it with gunfire, tanks and airpower rather than batons and horses. I hope victory can be achieved but the way the likes of the Hungarian Uprising, Prague Spring and Tiananmen Square proved to have long lasting effects on the moral and momentum of groups who would try to change the status quo in favour of the people makes me more pessimistic.
Finally, there's technology. Technology, especially digital technology, can improve life - this whole post has been from a materialist stance of course (and that's not to say I'm dismissing other stances) without any economic improvement at all. I love technology and believe people like Tesla and Wozniak, and of course all the science beyond technological innovation, such as the quantum mechanics behind the transistor (without which the digital revolution could not have happened), have done as much or more to improve life as any political or economic theorist. Due to this, people may feel less inclined to pin their hopes of a better life on the use of political power to redress their grievances but rather being secure in the knowledge a few years down the line they'll be able to buy something functional/faster for the same or less money in a few years’ time.
and that's all I have to say about that…
Generally I believe that we'll see the spread of capitalist industrialisation until all parts of the working class across the world are the same general level in terms of wages and living standards, this will be due to both an absolute and relative rise in some areas and a comparative fall in others as there comes to be a truly global capital and labour market. Once this happens, a lot of transnational capital's bargaining power falls away. The threat is currently that large companies will up sticks and move from country to country. This has produced a race to the bottom in corporate tax rates, deregulation etc.
However, the future most likely holds some form of global governance with a global tax regime. The balance might be redressed there somewhat. From there, it's hard to predict what will happen because there are so many variables to take into account. Politics and the labour movement has not yet responded either and it'll be interesting to see how that develops. At the moment, the workers seem more predisposed to blaming immigrants and foreigners rather than corporations like Nike for whom labour costs have been as low as three tenths of one percent of retail price. I'm also not liable to blaming evil corporations for this because most of the ones criticising outsourcing (a term which has some nationalist connotations anyway) are those who are self-interested in protecting themselves anyway. No altruism, just companies and individuals seeking to serve themselves. Neither better than the other. This could change when things are equalised, though you could see temporary and consciously constructed fluctuation to allow this useful illusion to persist. Couple of decades of comparative western growth, then switch to Asia, then Africa, then South America etc. and begin again.
Then there's the transnational capitalist propensity to adapt. They are not beyond making concessions if people are angry and organised enough. This can be seen in the past by how most western countries developed social welfare. It's not even that painful a concession because it benefits capital to have a 'reserve army' of labour. It keeps people on their toes and thankful to have a job and more willing to accept pay cuts and poorer terms and conditions. Better if you can get away with not paying for that of course, but they will. This brings me onto my next point. This is one difference where I do see a potential difference (along with another which I'll get onto in a minute) compared to how the west developed. Transnational capital seems to love dealing in countries with stable totalitarian governments. Capital doesn't like elections, too unpredictable if there’s genuine policy change every few years, and worse the bloody peasants might go and vote in some anti-capitalist ideologue crackpot like Chavez. So there is an emphasis in deliberately undermining the development of democracy and the labour movement. This is true in the western world of course but in China and South America (less so now but in 80s certainly and potentially in the future, and elsewhere) those who will crush it with gunfire, tanks and airpower rather than batons and horses. I hope victory can be achieved but the way the likes of the Hungarian Uprising, Prague Spring and Tiananmen Square proved to have long lasting effects on the moral and momentum of groups who would try to change the status quo in favour of the people makes me more pessimistic.
Finally, there's technology. Technology, especially digital technology, can improve life - this whole post has been from a materialist stance of course (and that's not to say I'm dismissing other stances) without any economic improvement at all. I love technology and believe people like Tesla and Wozniak, and of course all the science beyond technological innovation, such as the quantum mechanics behind the transistor (without which the digital revolution could not have happened), have done as much or more to improve life as any political or economic theorist. Due to this, people may feel less inclined to pin their hopes of a better life on the use of political power to redress their grievances but rather being secure in the knowledge a few years down the line they'll be able to buy something functional/faster for the same or less money in a few years’ time.
and that's all I have to say about that…
oneloveonecity
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 6 Dec 2009
- Messages
- 134
Skashion said:This is a very interesting subject for me as both a Marxian/st and a lover of technology. I've got a fair bit to say on this subject and it's not very coherently organised when I'm feeling a bit sleepy.
Generally I believe that we'll see the spread of capitalist industrialisation until all parts of the working class across the world are the same general level in terms of wages and living standards, this will be due to both an absolute and relative rise in some areas and a comparative fall in others as there comes to be a truly global capital and labour market. Once this happens, a lot of transnational capital's bargaining power falls away. The threat is currently that large companies will up sticks and move from country to country. This has produced a race to the bottom in corporate tax rates, deregulation etc.
However, the future most likely holds some form of global governance with a global tax regime. The balance might be redressed there somewhat. From there, it's hard to predict what will happen because there are so many variables to take into account. Politics and the labour movement has not yet responded either and it'll be interesting to see how that develops. At the moment, the workers seem more predisposed to blaming immigrants and foreigners rather than corporations like Nike for whom labour costs have been as low as three tenths of one percent of retail price. I'm also not liable to blaming evil corporations for this because most of the ones criticising outsourcing (a term which has some nationalist connotations anyway) are those who are self-interested in protecting themselves anyway. No altruism, just companies and individuals seeking to serve themselves. Neither better than the other. This could change when things are equalised, though you could see temporary and consciously constructed fluctuation to allow this useful illusion to persist. Couple of decades of comparative western growth, then switch to Asia, then Africa, then South America etc. and begin again.
Then there's the transnational capitalist propensity to adapt. They are not beyond making concessions if people are angry and organised enough. This can be seen in the past by how most western countries developed social welfare. It's not even that painful a concession because it benefits capital to have a 'reserve army' of labour. It keeps people on their toes and thankful to have a job and more willing to accept pay cuts and poorer terms and conditions. Better if you can get away with not paying for that of course, but they will. This brings me onto my next point. This is one difference where I do see a potential difference (along with another which I'll get onto in a minute) compared to how the west developed. Transnational capital seems to love dealing in countries with stable totalitarian governments. Capital doesn't like elections, too unpredictable if there’s genuine policy change every few years, and worse the bloody peasants might go and vote in some anti-capitalist ideologue crackpot like Chavez. So there is an emphasis in deliberately undermining the development of democracy and the labour movement. This is true in the western world of course but in China and South America (less so now but in 80s certainly and potentially in the future, and elsewhere) those who will crush it with gunfire, tanks and airpower rather than batons and horses. I hope victory can be achieved but the way the likes of the Hungarian Uprising, Prague Spring and Tiananmen Square proved to have long lasting effects on the moral and momentum of groups who would try to change the status quo in favour of the people makes me more pessimistic.
Finally, there's technology. Technology, especially digital technology, can improve life - this whole post has been from a materialist stance of course (and that's not to say I'm dismissing other stances) without any economic improvement at all. I love technology and believe people like Tesla and Wozniak, and of course all the science beyond technological innovation, such as the quantum mechanics behind the transistor (without which the digital revolution could not have happened), have done as much or more to improve life as any political or economic theorist. Due to this, people may feel less inclined to pin their hopes of a better life on the use of political power to redress their grievances but rather being secure in the knowledge a few years down the line they'll be able to buy something functional/faster for the same or less money in a few years’ time.
and that's all I have to say about that…
to sum up? ;)
Lucky13
Well-Known Member
No.
bluemoonmatt
Well-Known Member
Why are you trying to suggest that ourselves, Germany, France, Canada and many many other nations that would constitute "the west" are somehow part of an Empire run from Washington?