The Bubble of Empire

It's been popped …

By Justin Raimondo

(Cartoon by Carlos Latuff)

"The idea that the United States is the global hegemon, that we have first dibs on the title of world policemen – indeed, our entire post-WWII foreign policy – is nothing but a delusion. That is one of the chief lessons of the recent economic downturn, one that, unfortunately, the incoming administration has yet to face up to – and the pundits (ensconced as they are in the culture of hubris) have yet to realize......

The task of reflation, which the incoming government has set for itself, involves much more than merely printing lots of paper money, and spending it like crazy: it means maintaining the inflationary mindset, the inflated goals, the inflated rhetoric, and, most of all, the inflated military budget that supposedly ensures our role as the world's last and only superpower. As the Obama crowd searches for ways in which to reflate the economy, the "stimulus" of military spending is bound to play a major role........

Well, we do make one thing in large quantities, that no other country makes, and that is decisions about the fate of the rest of the world. Due to our military power, our self-appointed role as the world's policeman has carved us out a specialized niche in the international division of labor. The great problem with this evolutionary path is that it can only end in one of two ways: the international extension of the American nation-state until it covers the globe, or extinction. Having preemptively taken up the responsibilities and costs of a world hegemon, yet without the authority to enjoy all the prerogatives of a real World State, including global taxation, this path can only end in bankruptcy.

As indeed it has. "