In his new book, “The Post-American World,” Mr. Zakaria writes that America remains a politico-military superpower, but “in every other dimension — industrial, financial, educational, social, cultural — the distribution of power is shifting, moving away from American dominance.” With the rise of China, India and other emerging markets, with economic growth sweeping much of the planet, and the world becoming increasingly decentralized and interconnected, he contends, “we are moving into a post-American world, one defined and directed from many places and by many people.
Read the NYT review of Zakaria’s book. But this seems to me to ignore things the US has that others lack (and envy): the US’s mix of cultures and its passionate individualism, plus a politico-economic structure that allows for rapid individual promotion. Others are really good at taking US innovations and making them better, faster, more efficient; but not at making the (major) innovations (like the computer, the web, etc.). A couple of possibilities: other places might begin to replicate the US’s innovation engine, or that engine might simply get overwhelmed, and the post-American world will get stagnant and decidedly less liberal. Eyes on Chindia, as usual.
Huenemanniac 
I will have to read this book. I would also like to note the value of Naomi Wolf’s The End of America. She discusses the recent actions of our federal government in comparison to the rise of the fascist regimes of Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin, and outlines ten steps that a nation takes to become more insular when it is leaning toward fascism. The US government has taken nine out of ten, perhaps arguably even all ten.
My questions about the future are somewhat involved in how far America will fall into the trap of fascism and rampant jingoism before people realize what direction we’ve been traveling in since the Enterprise was founded (see http://www.aei.org/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute). There was a special aired on CBS about it in the 1980s that’s been posted on YouTube, but I can’t remember the host’s name. I’ll have to get back w/that later, perhaps. Thanks for posting this!
LikeLike