Brave Old World

[Evilmav2]

Brave Old World

By Victor Davis Hanson

Russia invades Georgia. China jails dissidents. China and India pollute at levels previously unimaginable. Gulf monarchies make trillions from jacked-up oil prices. Islamic terrorists keep car bombing. Meanwhile, Europe offers moral lectures, while Japan and South Korea shrug and watch -- all in a globalized world that tunes into the Olympics each night from Beijing.

"Citizens of the world" were supposed to share, in relative harmony, our new "Planet Earth," which was to have followed from an interconnected system of free trade, instantaneous electronic communications, civilized diplomacy and shared consumer capitalism.

But was that ever quite true?

In reality, to the extent globalism worked, it followed from three unspoken assumptions:

First, the U.S. economy would keep importing goods from abroad to drive international economic growth.

Second, the U.S. military would keep the sea-lanes open, and trade and travel protected. After the past destruction of fascism and global communism, the Americans, as global sheriff, would continue to deal with the occasional menace like a Muammar al-Gaddafi, Slobodan Milosevic, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong-il or the Taliban.

Third, America would ignore ankle-biting allies and remain engaged with the world -- like a good, nurturing mom who at times must put up with the petulance of dependent teenagers.

But there have been a number of indications recently that globalization may soon lose its American parent, who is tiring, both materially and psychologically.

The United States may be the most free, stable and meritocratic nation in the world, but its resources and patience are not unlimited. Currently, it pays more than a half trillion dollars per year to import $115-a-barrel oil that is often pumped at a cost of about $5.

The Chinese, Japanese and Europeans hold trillions of dollars in U.S. bonds -- the result of massive trade deficits. The American dollar is at historic lows. We are piling up staggering national debt. Over 12 million live here illegally and freely transfer more than $50 billion annually to Mexico and Latin America.

Our military, after deposing Milosevic, the Taliban and Saddam, is tired. And Americans are increasingly becoming more sensitive to the cheap criticism of global moralists.

But as the United States turns ever so slightly inward, the new globalized world will revert to a far poorer -- and more dangerous -- place.

Liberals like presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama speak out against new free trade agreements and want existing accords like NAFTA readjusted. More and more Americans are furious at the costs of illegal immigration -- and are moving to stop it. The foreign remittances that help prop up Mexico and Latin America are threatened by any change in America's immigration attitude.

Meanwhile, the hypocrisy becomes harder to take. After all, it is easy for self-appointed global moralists to complain that terrorists don't enjoy Miranda rights at Guantanamo, but it would be hard to do much about the Russian military invading Georgia's democracy and bombing its cities.

Al Gore crisscrosses the country, pontificating about Americans' carbon footprints. But he could do far better to fly to China to convince them not to open 500 new coal-burning power plants.

It has been chic to chant "No blood for oil" about Iraq's petroleum -- petroleum that, in fact, is now administered by a constitutional republic. But such sloganeering would be better directed at China's sweetheart oil deals with Sudan that enable the mass murdering in Darfur.

Due to climbing prices and high government taxes, gasoline consumption is declining in the West, but its use is rising in other places, where it is either untaxed or subsidized.

So, what a richer but more critical world has forgotten is that in large part America was the model, not the villain -- and that postwar globalization was always a form of engaged Americanization that enriched and protected billions.

Yet globalization, in all its manifestations, will run out of steam the moment we tire of fueling it, as the world returns instead to the mindset of the 1930s -- with protectionist tariffs; weak, disarmed democracies; an isolationist America; predatory dictatorships; and a demoralized gloom-and-doom Western elite.

If America adopts the protectionist trade policies of Japan or China, global profits plummet. If our armed forces follow the European lead of demilitarization and inaction, rogue states advance. If we were to treat the environment as do China and India, the world would become quickly a lost cause.

If we flee Iraq and call off the war on terror, Islamic jihadists will regroup, not disband. And when the Russians attack the next democracy, they won't listen to the United Nations, the European Union or Michael Moore.

Brace yourself -- we may be on our way back to an old world, where the strong do as they will, and the weak suffer as they must.
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War." You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com.

Copyright 2008, Tribune Media Services Inc.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...old_world.html

[dude1394]

Now that's speaking truth to "soft" power. Love VDH.

[Arne]

Originally Posted by Evilmav2

Brave Old World

By Victor Davis Hanson

Russia invades Georgia. China jails dissidents. China and India pollute at levels previously unimaginable. Gulf monarchies make trillions from jacked-up oil prices. Islamic terrorists keep car bombing. Meanwhile, Europe offers moral lectures, while Japan and South Korea shrug and watch -- all in a globalized world that tunes into the Olympics each night from Beijing.

"Citizens of the world" were supposed to share, in relative harmony, our new "Planet Earth," which was to have followed from an interconnected system of free trade, instantaneous electronic communications, civilized diplomacy and shared consumer capitalism.

But was that ever quite true?

In reality, to the extent globalism worked, it followed from three unspoken assumptions:

First, the U.S. economy would keep importing goods from abroad to drive international economic growth.

Second, the U.S. military would keep the sea-lanes open, and trade and travel protected. After the past destruction of fascism and global communism, the Americans, as global sheriff, would continue to deal with the occasional menace like a Muammar al-Gaddafi, Slobodan Milosevic, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong-il or the Taliban.

Third, America would ignore ankle-biting allies and remain engaged with the world -- like a good, nurturing mom who at times must put up with the petulance of dependent teenagers.

But there have been a number of indications recently that globalization may soon lose its American parent, who is tiring, both materially and psychologically.

The United States may be the most free, stable and meritocratic nation in the world, but its resources and patience are not unlimited. Currently, it pays more than a half trillion dollars per year to import $115-a-barrel oil that is often pumped at a cost of about $5.

The Chinese, Japanese and Europeans hold trillions of dollars in U.S. bonds -- the result of massive trade deficits. The American dollar is at historic lows. We are piling up staggering national debt. Over 12 million live here illegally and freely transfer more than $50 billion annually to Mexico and Latin America.

Our military, after deposing Milosevic, the Taliban and Saddam, is tired. And Americans are increasingly becoming more sensitive to the cheap criticism of global moralists.

But as the United States turns ever so slightly inward, the new globalized world will revert to a far poorer -- and more dangerous -- place.

Liberals like presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama speak out against new free trade agreements and want existing accords like NAFTA readjusted. More and more Americans are furious at the costs of illegal immigration -- and are moving to stop it. The foreign remittances that help prop up Mexico and Latin America are threatened by any change in America's immigration attitude.

Meanwhile, the hypocrisy becomes harder to take. After all, it is easy for self-appointed global moralists to complain that terrorists don't enjoy Miranda rights at Guantanamo, but it would be hard to do much about the Russian military invading Georgia's democracy and bombing its cities.

Al Gore crisscrosses the country, pontificating about Americans' carbon footprints. But he could do far better to fly to China to convince them not to open 500 new coal-burning power plants.

It has been chic to chant "No blood for oil" about Iraq's petroleum -- petroleum that, in fact, is now administered by a constitutional republic. But such sloganeering would be better directed at China's sweetheart oil deals with Sudan that enable the mass murdering in Darfur.

Due to climbing prices and high government taxes, gasoline consumption is declining in the West, but its use is rising in other places, where it is either untaxed or subsidized.

So, what a richer but more critical world has forgotten is that in large part America was the model, not the villain -- and that postwar globalization was always a form of engaged Americanization that enriched and protected billions.

Yet globalization, in all its manifestations, will run out of steam the moment we tire of fueling it, as the world returns instead to the mindset of the 1930s -- with protectionist tariffs; weak, disarmed democracies; an isolationist America; predatory dictatorships; and a demoralized gloom-and-doom Western elite.

If America adopts the protectionist trade policies of Japan or China, global profits plummet. If our armed forces follow the European lead of demilitarization and inaction, rogue states advance. If we were to treat the environment as do China and India, the world would become quickly a lost cause.

If we flee Iraq and call off the war on terror, Islamic jihadists will regroup, not disband. And when the Russians attack the next democracy, they won't listen to the United Nations, the European Union or Michael Moore.

Brace yourself -- we may be on our way back to an old world, where the strong do as they will, and the weak suffer as they must.
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War." You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com.

Copyright 2008, Tribune Media Services Inc.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...old_world.html

This just shows how stupid the guy has to be. "If Americans stop consuming that much nobody will be able to work anymore...". As if the rest of the world wasn't perfectly able to consume the fruits of their labour themselves... So stupid, it's not even funny.

Common sense on this topic:

Let us suppose six castaways are stranded on a desert island, five Asians and one American. Their problem is hunger. So they sit down and divide labor as follows: One Asian will do the hunting, another will fish, the third will scrounge for vegetation, the fourth will cook dinner, and the fifth will gather firewood and tend the fire. The sixth, the American, is given the job of eating.

So five Asians work all day to feed one American, who spends his day sunning himself on the beach. The American is employed in the equivalent of the service sector, operating a tanning salon that has one customer: himself. At the end of the day, the five Asians present a painstakingly prepared feast to the American, who sits at the head of a special table built by the Asians specifically for this purpose.

Now the American is practical enough to know that if the Asians are going to continue providing banquets they must also be fed, so he allows them just enough scraps from his table to sustain them for the following day's labor.

Modern-day economists would have you look at the situation just described and believe that the American is the lone engine of growth driving the island's economy; that without the American and his ravenous appetite, the Asians on the island would all be unemployed.

THe reality, of course, is that the American is not the engine of growth, but the caboose, and the best thing the Asians could do would be to vote the American off the island--decoupling the caboose from the gravy train. Without the American to consume most of their food, they'd have a lot more to eat themselves. Then the Asians could spend less time working on food-related tasks and devote more time to leisure or to satisfying other needs that now go unfulfilled because so many of their scarce resource are devoted to feeding the American.

Ah, you say, but that analogy is flawed because in the real world the United STates does pay for its "food" and Asians do receive value in exchange for their effort.

Okay, then let's assume the American on the islands pays for his food the same way real-world Americans pay, by issuing IOUs. At the end of each meal, the Asians present the American with a bill, which pays by issuing IOUs claiming to represent payments of food.

The castaways all know that the IOUs can never be collected since the American not only produces no food to back them up, but also lacks the means and the intention of ever providing any. But the Asian accept them anyway, each day adding to the accumulation of worthless IOUs. Are the Asians any better off as a result of this accumulation? Are they any less hungry? Of course not.

Suppose an Asian Central Banker suddenly washes up onto the island and volunteers his services. Now each day the central banker taxes the other Asians on the island by confiscating a portion of the scraps of food the American throws them each day from his table. The central banker then agrees to return these morsels to the other Asians each day, in exchange for each Asian's daily accumulation of the American's IOUs, less a small percentage for himself because he, the central banker, also has to eat.

Does the existence of a central banker change anything? Do the Asians have any more to eat because their own central banker gives them back a portion of the food he took from them in the first place? Do the American IOUs have any more value because they can now be exchanged in this manner? Of course not.

The Asians will be better off without us

The real world lessnon is that if it doesn't make sense for the six make believe Asians to support millions of real-world Americans. The fact that they do so in exchange for worthless IOUs in no way alters this reality.

There is no question that in the short run, by allowing the U.S dollars to collapse (in effect, voting millions of Americans off the island), there will be some disruptions of Asian economies. Of course, there will be some initial losers, particularly among those Asians who currently profit from the present arrangement. However, these profits come only at the expense of greater losses borne by the entire Asian population.

In the end, the cessation of America's excess consumption, which is not a benefit Asians enjoy but rather a burden they now disproportionately bear, will be the best thing that can happen to them. Like the serfs being liberated from their lords, their scarce resources will be freed to satisfy their own needs and desires, and their standards of living will rise accordingly. As their savings finance increased capital investment, rather than being squandered on American consumption, their future standards of living will rise that much faster as well.

[dude1394]

VDH is right here as well.

There wouldn't BE a china/india miracle (as it stands today) without the US market for goods. I can see china/india improving but orders of magnitude from what they are doing now.

[Arne]

Yep that part that America can pay for is good for China and helped their economic growth, as well as it helped American's achieve a higher standart of living.. Still the part that was and is paid for by IOUs did nothing for China. They would be better off to consume those goods themselves or to reduce production and relocate their resources to other products that they might want to consume. And then their is this part of the trade that was paid for by an over-valued Dollar held up by the Chinese government. All of these points were in the excerpt I posted, but hey, you don't have to read the arguement before rejecting it...