It's honestly near impossible to explain the looooong term view/explanation on "why a senior WH official saying the post-WWII order is over is yuge" in only 25 or so tweets, but I'll try to do so. Short and simple.
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https://twitter.com/ThePostLib/status/1907592811014168618
As MANY have argued over the years — and far more cogently than I — the US is an empire.
It's been one for a while, but it went all-in being one after WWII with the institutions it set up.
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It's been one for a while, but it went all-in being one after WWII with the institutions it set up.
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Now, the dynamics of empire may seem complicated.
Michael Hudson provides a good definition by saying its "a transborder, culturally legitimized, Center-Periphery structure of unequal exchange: economically, militarily politically, and culturally."
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Michael Hudson provides a good definition by saying its "a transborder, culturally legitimized, Center-Periphery structure of unequal exchange: economically, militarily politically, and culturally."
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But I'll make it simpler by using John Michael Greer's definition: it's just a giant money pump.
It really just is that, and it has to be in order for it to function.
What do I mean by that?
Well, let's explore that via example: the Roman Empire.
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It really just is that, and it has to be in order for it to function.
What do I mean by that?
Well, let's explore that via example: the Roman Empire.
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Basically, like all empires, the more the Roman Empire grew, the more shit it had to pay. We're talking administrative costs, military costs, food costs, various subsidies to various populations, etc.
And because it expanded so quickly, it couldn't afford this by itself.
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And because it expanded so quickly, it couldn't afford this by itself.
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Thus, part of the purpose of empire is to extract value/wealth via a variety of means. In the old days, this meant tribute and such.
But this also means that an empire starts getting bogged down in the affairs of its vassal nations.
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But this also means that an empire starts getting bogged down in the affairs of its vassal nations.
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For example, Judea. Rome takes Judea.
Pros: you now have a new tax farm, more agricultural supply, and land closer to the Persians.
Cons: you have to deal with Jews. Not only that, but also Jewish politics and their One Weird God™. And they refuse to worship your gods.
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Pros: you now have a new tax farm, more agricultural supply, and land closer to the Persians.
Cons: you have to deal with Jews. Not only that, but also Jewish politics and their One Weird God™. And they refuse to worship your gods.
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Sometimes, this means they come to you about minor issues. Like a preacher that's causing issues.
Why the fuck do you care? He seems harmless. You just want their tax money and for there not to be trouble.
But you ARE the local law, so you kinda have to take a stance.
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Why the fuck do you care? He seems harmless. You just want their tax money and for there not to be trouble.
But you ARE the local law, so you kinda have to take a stance.
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And sometimes this means that you get dragged into their conflicts. Because guess what? You own Judea now. You've invested in Judea. You have troops in Judea. You need to take care of Judea.
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As a consequence of this, Judean politics become a THING that matters back in the imperial capital (ie, Rome).
Anyone whose seen the episode of HBO's Rome featuring Herod knows exactly what I mean.
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Anyone whose seen the episode of HBO's Rome featuring Herod knows exactly what I mean.
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This G rolls up to your office and makes you a deal: "I want to take power in Judea. Help me, and I'll make things easier for you and keep the Jews in line. Easy tax money bro."
And then he throws in a sweetener: "I'll pay *YOU* — not the empire — 20,000 tons of gold."
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And then he throws in a sweetener: "I'll pay *YOU* — not the empire — 20,000 tons of gold."
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THIS IS A CRITICAL POINT TO GET ABOUT EMPIRE:
The provinces/periphery have an incentive to play politics in the imperial capital to extract as much as they can from the imperial system.
This changes everything.
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The provinces/periphery have an incentive to play politics in the imperial capital to extract as much as they can from the imperial system.
This changes everything.
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Those who kept on watching HBO's Rome know what this means in practice.
Suddenly, that 20,000 tons of gold becomes something the empire's elites fight over because... *it's 20,000 tons of gold dude, I want my fucking cut.*
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Suddenly, that 20,000 tons of gold becomes something the empire's elites fight over because... *it's 20,000 tons of gold dude, I want my fucking cut.*
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So now we're in this weird dynamic: the empire is supposed to be drawing resources/taxes from the province to keep on functioning...
...but provincial elites are now bribing (via various means) the imperial elite to direct more IMPERIAL RESOURCES to the province.
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...but provincial elites are now bribing (via various means) the imperial elite to direct more IMPERIAL RESOURCES to the province.
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Apply this across a variety of fields and areas of the empire.
For example, grain. Rome is a hungry beast. She needs grain. Egypt has the best grain. The best. Yuge. We need to import Egyptian grain. So we have a stake on which of these two sits on that dumb throne.
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For example, grain. Rome is a hungry beast. She needs grain. Egypt has the best grain. The best. Yuge. We need to import Egyptian grain. So we have a stake on which of these two sits on that dumb throne.
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Or even luxury goods from the East. Spices, silks, and so forth. Especially because the women just LOOOOOOVE the latest trends.
This means Indo-Med trade is huge and ESSENTIAL TO THE EMPIRE. Even as we lose money to ancient India.
(This makes Egypt even more important).
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This means Indo-Med trade is huge and ESSENTIAL TO THE EMPIRE. Even as we lose money to ancient India.
(This makes Egypt even more important).
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I could go on. what matters: the provinces, operating under their own incentives, extract resources from the empire via capital politics.
So imperial politics become more contentious, while imperial citizens (not elites) are being slowly looted, and need to be "bribed".
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So imperial politics become more contentious, while imperial citizens (not elites) are being slowly looted, and need to be "bribed".
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When you hear of "bread and circuses", this is part of it. We're totally fucking you Roman citizens over... but hey! Cheap bread! Free gladiator shows! Fuck yeah!
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...this dynamic goes on until the math stops making sense and the empire collapses because everyone is trying to loot the treasury, the empire can't afford its military anymore, war bands invade, and imperial citizens hate their leaders SO MUCH that they stop caring.
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Now apply everything I said to the United States.
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The US empire has functioned very much the same way.
We extract a fuck ton of resources from everyone else.
Everyone else has a stake in imperial politics (including Judea, lol). Everyone wants a cut of the action.
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We extract a fuck ton of resources from everyone else.
Everyone else has a stake in imperial politics (including Judea, lol). Everyone wants a cut of the action.
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This includes trade.
Like the Roman empire, we resort to extraction. Or, in our case, "buying cheap shit."
It helps balance the books and keeps the population happy. Citizens are quite happy with affordable Walmart goods... that we outsourced making abroad.
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Like the Roman empire, we resort to extraction. Or, in our case, "buying cheap shit."
It helps balance the books and keeps the population happy. Citizens are quite happy with affordable Walmart goods... that we outsourced making abroad.
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...the problem is that this is that provincial extraction game but by another name. Sure, the imperial elites (i.e., the US political & financial/tech class) got rich... but imperial citizens (ie, normal Americans) gradually got poorer and the gap is now painfully bad.
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An added twist to this is that the US is (nominally) a republic.
Republicanism only REALLY works if economic wealth is relatively distributed.
Why? Because economic elites have an incentive to use their money to capture institutions, and thus make themselves richer.
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Republicanism only REALLY works if economic wealth is relatively distributed.
Why? Because economic elites have an incentive to use their money to capture institutions, and thus make themselves richer.
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Think about how this applies to trade.
When Walmart sells you cheap goods, you think you're getting a good deal.
You're not. This is a trade. Your money makes them richer, which they use to lobby DC to keep up this dynamic...
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When Walmart sells you cheap goods, you think you're getting a good deal.
You're not. This is a trade. Your money makes them richer, which they use to lobby DC to keep up this dynamic...
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...and then they use that money and regulatory capture to crush competition, kill fair trade laws, take over retail, and gain more political control.
In other words: YOU ARE PAYING FOR CHEAP GOODS WITH YOUR POLITICAL SOVEREIGNTY. YOU TRADE DEMOCRACY FOR CHEAP FOOD/GOODS.
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In other words: YOU ARE PAYING FOR CHEAP GOODS WITH YOUR POLITICAL SOVEREIGNTY. YOU TRADE DEMOCRACY FOR CHEAP FOOD/GOODS.
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So the US is on the same trajectory as other empires.
We're being systematically looted in a variety of ways (trade, remittances, DC lobbying for policies that benefit periphery states, w/e).
But we're since we're the heart of the empire, we can't just "shut it down"...
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We're being systematically looted in a variety of ways (trade, remittances, DC lobbying for policies that benefit periphery states, w/e).
But we're since we're the heart of the empire, we can't just "shut it down"...
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...because it would be "suicide". The empire would collapse, all sorts of chaos would be unleashed, China and others would make moves, and so on.
We see this in the Experts™ saying we need to do X to "compete with China".
They're not lying per se, but...
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We see this in the Experts™ saying we need to do X to "compete with China".
They're not lying per se, but...
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Do normal people WANT more money to be poured into AI to "compete with China"?
Importing more Indians to work for less, letting the overall "math" make sense for a bit longer so green line go up?
Again, they're not *lying*. But they're downplaying the costs.
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Importing more Indians to work for less, letting the overall "math" make sense for a bit longer so green line go up?
Again, they're not *lying*. But they're downplaying the costs.
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At last, we arrive at the heart of the matter, which is the ideological revolution driven by the National Conservative movement (ie, these various strands of nationalist economic populist thought and various disaffected elites).
Which simple: IS THE EMPIRE WORTH IT?
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Which simple: IS THE EMPIRE WORTH IT?
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Their answer is an equivocal "No".
i.e., this stupid damn system is not worth it. Cheap goods are not worth our republic, losing our demographic/religious/cultural homogeneity, being fucked over by uncaring elites, etc etc.
They want the humiliation and looting to STOP.
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i.e., this stupid damn system is not worth it. Cheap goods are not worth our republic, losing our demographic/religious/cultural homogeneity, being fucked over by uncaring elites, etc etc.
They want the humiliation and looting to STOP.
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Because it will kill the empire... but maybe, just maybe, allow *the nation* to survive and recover.
I want to be explicit about what this line of thinking means.
It means playing the long game.
It means sacrificing today for tomorrow.
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I want to be explicit about what this line of thinking means.
It means playing the long game.
It means sacrificing today for tomorrow.
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Taken to an extreme... *IT MEANS LETTING CHINA WIN FOR THE NEXT CENTURY*.
All so the US can wipe the slate clean (as much as it can).
This encompasses everything from getting migrants to self-deport by changing the economic incentives...
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All so the US can wipe the slate clean (as much as it can).
This encompasses everything from getting migrants to self-deport by changing the economic incentives...
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...to applying antitrust law to break up certain big corpos, maybe restore fair trade laws, re-empower the middle class and restore a measure of republican government, etc.
The problem: this amounts to trying to relearn how to fly while falling from a cliff.
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The problem: this amounts to trying to relearn how to fly while falling from a cliff.
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If this shit REALLY hits, it's going to impoverish the United States.
We have no idea for sure *how* bad it will get... but it'll be BAD.
And it'll be a scarring psychological shock for a nation that self-conceives as things always getting materially better.
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We have no idea for sure *how* bad it will get... but it'll be BAD.
And it'll be a scarring psychological shock for a nation that self-conceives as things always getting materially better.
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Some very general quick numbers to illustrate this point:
Assume we take 25% of the world's resources despite making up 5% of the global pop.
Suppose that's cut that down to 10-15%. Still better than average!
In practice, that's us getting 40-60% less than before.
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Assume we take 25% of the world's resources despite making up 5% of the global pop.
Suppose that's cut that down to 10-15%. Still better than average!
In practice, that's us getting 40-60% less than before.
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Also, the US middle class is around (depending on how one counts) 40 to 50% of the country.
The above cuts mean that the US middle class could shrink by 16-30%. They go back to being poor/working class. Worse than current projections.
And for some of them, forever.
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The above cuts mean that the US middle class could shrink by 16-30%. They go back to being poor/working class. Worse than current projections.
And for some of them, forever.
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The political consequences would be insane.
We'd see all sorts of class/factional conflicts (and ethnic conflicts masquerading as that, and vice versa), and resulting political movements, from people wanting to ensure they get saved from economic poverty.
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We'd see all sorts of class/factional conflicts (and ethnic conflicts masquerading as that, and vice versa), and resulting political movements, from people wanting to ensure they get saved from economic poverty.
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THAT, long term, is what is being slowly set up right now.
These reciprocal tariffs by the Trump admin are the start. It's declaring (economic) war against the whole world to try to address the trade deficit, bring back manufacturing, and so forth.
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These reciprocal tariffs by the Trump admin are the start. It's declaring (economic) war against the whole world to try to address the trade deficit, bring back manufacturing, and so forth.
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That's why there's stuff on Vietnam, Cambodia, etc.
Even if China is the rival... nope, sorry corpos. No cheating. No moving shit to third-party countries. That game is over.
America or get fucked.
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Even if China is the rival... nope, sorry corpos. No cheating. No moving shit to third-party countries. That game is over.
America or get fucked.
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Will this 9D chess 180 IQ plan work?
Probably not. Honestly? Definitely not.
Absent a lot more policies, measures, and amounts of good luck unseen in centuries.
We're probably going to get imperial collapse.
And everyone — and I mean EVERYONE — will feel it.
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Probably not. Honestly? Definitely not.
Absent a lot more policies, measures, and amounts of good luck unseen in centuries.
We're probably going to get imperial collapse.
And everyone — and I mean EVERYONE — will feel it.
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...but it's going to collapse on terms (relatively) set by some Americans. It's a subconscious decision to end EMPIRE now out of the hope that maybe, just *maybe*, the NATION can be restored.
So yeah, strap in. It's going to be the era of chaos.
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So yeah, strap in. It's going to be the era of chaos.
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