Outlook: The U.S. Is Dead! Long Live the U.S.!

To Heck With the Nattering Nabobs -- in 50 Years We'll Still Be on Top

"Are We Rome?" a recent book asks. America is fat, complacent, overreaching and on the decline, we are told by pundits on the left and right -- and facing unbeatable competition from China and the European Union.

But Washington Post Outlook Columnist Joel Achenbach was online Tuesday, Sept. 4 at 1 p.m. ET to issue a strong "buy" for stock in Pax Americana, and to explain why the U.S. is still the nation to beat for the the 21st century.

Bet on America: Forget the Doom and Gloom. In 50 Years, We'll Still Be No. 1 (Outlook, Sept. 2)

The transcript follows.

Archive: Transcripts of discussions with Outlook article authors

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Joel Achenbach: Let's get ready to rumble!

Thanks so much for joining in today, and please feel free to stop by the Achenblog at any time, 24-7-364 (we take off Arbor Day) and share your love and dyspepsia.

I wrote a somewhat hopeful assessment of our nation's future. There was much outrage. Let's discuss.

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Doylestown, Pa.: As a historian who subscribes to Wallersteinian world system theory, the inescapable fact is that hegemons and their hegemony inevitably decline. Global empire is expensive (those nine Nimitz-class carriers you mention carry a hefty price tag). True, the demise of the English Empire saw the birth of the British Empire, but it seems to me that you're simply embracing a Reaganesque "morning in America" optimism that isn't borne out by the facts. We're deeply in debt, Japan and South Korea have better broadband than the U.S., and America's digital dominance may not last.

washingtonpost.com: Japan's Warp-Speed Ride to Internet Future (Post, Aug. 29)

Joel Achenbach: Doylestown, tell us more about the Wallersteinian world system -- I don't know much about Wallerstein other than that his second album was so much worse than the first.

I don't think my story was Reaganesque. I don't think it's morning in America. I think it's more like 9:30 p.m. About the debt, and our Asian friends: wonder where the Japanese and South Koreans and the Chinese are investing their money? What do you bet it's 30-year U.S. Treasury notes?

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Boodle County, Wash.: Why is it important that the U.S. be No. 1? And can you explain the quote you ended with: "The antidote is being American." What does that mean to you?

Joel Achenbach: I quoted from the Cullen Murphy book, who said, in essence, that Americans have always been optimistic and hopeful and believed that with hard work and decency they could make the world a better place. I believe that. Do you? I bet you do. And I think recent events have made a lot of people more pessimistic than that(read the comments on my story, posted online).

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Joel Achenbach: FYI, I just came across a graph I wrote that didn't make it beyond the first draft:

"I believe America is an adaptable nation. In the worst of times, we find new directions. We question authority, re-examine the ideological premises of those who wield power. We say: 'Wait, this is intolerable. We're not going to take this bull from The Man anymore.' The radicals vow revolution. (Later, many of those same radicals cut their hair, go to Wall Street and wind up at hedge funds, worrying that someone will catch on to their '2-and-20' management fee scheme that lets them make millions at a 15 percent marginal tax rate -- but this is beside the point.)"

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McLean, Va.: Reading this article, I can't help but question the underlying assumption that America would want to retain our dominant position. It seems to me that this just makes us an easy target for all the world's frustrations.

Joel Achenbach: McLean, if you're the richest nation on Earth, you do have a lot of responsibilities and moral obligations, it seems to me. But I think acting upon those obligations (helping other countries) makes more sense than hoping that our country will go into decline and no one will ask us for help anymore.

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Fairfax, Va.: Given that we get our oil from the Middle East, our goods from China, our customer service from India, our cheap labor from Mexico and our humor from Canada, I question if we are even dominant today. That is, by what criteria should "dominance" be measured? Software, guns and movies?

Joel Achenbach: Great point. I could have and probably should have done more with that fact. I gave it a brief nod at the end of my story:

Scrambling the picture is the rise of transnational corporations and nongovernmental organizations. Globalization may make the nation-state increasingly irrelevant. Your intellectual community may have members on six or seven continents. "By traditional measures of hard power, compared to other nations, the United States will remain number one," predicts Harvard political scientist Joseph S. Nye Jr. in "The Paradox of American Power," "but being number one ain't gonna be what it used to."

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Alexandria, Va.: You mentioned that "this doesn't mean that our national problems and deep-seated flaws will magically be cured." Is there one problem in your mind that, were we to persistently ignore it, would assist in an overall decline? My money's on education, though I suppose one could make the case for infrastructure (power grid, roadways, etc.).

Joel Achenbach: Gosh, I don't have a Top Ten list for what our problems are. I mentioned income inequality prominently because that's on my mind lately as I observe my own socioeconomic death spiral. But I guess I worry in general that we're creating a domestic culture that lacks a strong sense of community and common interest and generosity toward others. That's almost a spiritual thing (at the risk of getting all Kumbaya-my-lord on you).

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Arlington, Va.: Historical analogies and comparisons work well ... until they don't. The U.S. today is not Rome, nor the British, Spanish, Greek, Mongol or Mayan empires, although there certainly are points of comparison. But I think the most relevant point, as you say, is that we have no true competition, either militarily, economically or intellectually. What's more, all of our competitors, like China, India and the EU, have a vested interest in keeping the U.S. stable and prosperous. They'd be in more trouble than we if the U.S. collapses.

Joel Achenbach: I ran into one of our really smart in-house geopolitical thinkers, who said that inevitably the world would become more multipolar rather than unipolar (we can use that kind of jargon here, right?) because multipolar is more stable -- there's more "buy in" from other partners. Maybe this is what the questioner earlier in this chat was talking about -- why should we want to be the sole superpower? Doesn't it cost a lot? Wouldn't it make more sense to share the burdens, etc.?

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Arlington, Va.: We're becoming two nations -- one rich, one poor. One speaks English; the other doesn't. One jostles for slots in Ivy League schools; the other drops out. One devises schemes to reorder the Middle East; the other one does the fighting. One grows increasing isolated from the other one.

Joel Achenbach: Thanks for the observation. At some point I need to write a class warfare screed. I'm all in favor of it, you know. (It'll be not only about the haves and have-nots, but also about the growing gap between the haves and have-yachts.)

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Alexandria, Va.: Hi Joel, thanks for the great piece. But tell me this: What does living in the world's greatest country have to do with my day-to-day life as an average American citizen? Does it make me, well, extra-special as a human being?

Joel Achenbach: This is a seemingly silly question but it brings up a good point: It doesn't make anyone a better person to live in a country that has the most Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft supercarriers. Or make a person somehow less wonderful if he or she is a citizen of a country that has no military at all.

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Columbia, Md.: Mr. Achenbach, thanks for taking my question. As I learned it, Nixon opened the doors to China to counterbalance the USSR's dominance in the '70s. While China's rise might not self-sustainable by itself, isn't it possible that a realignment of China-Russia or Russia-India to counterweight the uni-superpower of the U.S. is a likely trend?

Joel Achenbach: I was always taught, growing up, that the Russians and Chinese hated one another -- but maybe that's changed. I don't know about Russia-India. Russia has oil but a sick population. My article didn't address India at all, and that was probably an oversight.

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Princeton, N.J.: I am a mathematician. I think that people who make 50-year geopolitical predictions deserve a medal and a straightjacket. Nevertheless ... I think that if the U.S. continues on the path of the past six years and wealth inequality increases, we will go down the tubes (see Kevin Phillips, "Wealth and Democracy"). Alternately, even if we don't, corporations will run the show (see William Gibson, "Neuromancer").

Joel Achenbach: Or maybe H.G. Wells, "The Time Machine," with the elite above ground and the dreaded Morlocks down below.

Here's my graph on inequality (in case somehow you didn't clip it out and post it on your corkboard):

"If you want to worry about our future, you could start with a side effect of American economic success: Our machine for wealth creation has also been a machine for income inequality. While more and more people live gilded lives, millions remain trapped in poverty. The question is: What kind of society are we trying to build? Surely not one where strip malls stretch to the horizon and countless kids disappear into role-playing games online. Geopolitical dominance doesn't guarantee that we'll have a country we can be proud of."

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Frostbite Falls, Minn.: If the U.S. is No. 1, who is No. 5? And do they have it that bad?

Joel Achenbach: California.

(No, wait, California would be No. 7, I think...)

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Washington: Great piece. I've always been puzzled as to why people want to compare the United States to the Roman Empire. The United States is unique in the world's history -- we're the only "empire" run by its citizens. The Roman Empire existed for the benefit one city. Besides, the U.S. is young compared to the Roman Empire. We're only 230 years old, whereas the Romans started empiring around 500 B.C. and didn't disappear from the map until 1453 A.D., with the fall of Constantinople. So if we're mirroring the Romans, we've got a long, glorious ride ahead of us.

Joel Achenbach: I think you're being a bit generous with the duration of the Roman Empire. Sure, in some ways it lasted until 1453 AD (the eastern empire) and you could argue, even, that the Catholic Church is a remnant. But the "glory that was Rome" was already a memory by the 5th century A.D. ... Cullen Murphy talks about the decline of shipping and the disintegration of the empire in his book, and it's a great read.

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Doylestown again: Briefly (and very sketchily) because I have class in 20 minutes, Immanuel Wallerstein argues that capitalism created a global economic system centered on Europe. Various hegemonic states have dominated said system, beginning with the Iberian peninsula through to the current U.S. hegemony. Global conflicts between the dominant powers lead to shifts in hegemony (I can go into more detail on the Achenblog if you'd like).

The problem is that hegemony costs-- Britain went bankrupt fighting two World Wars (some would argue -- Kennedy, for one -- that they went bankrupt prepping for the first war). You blithely skim over the U.S.'s very real debt issues (much like Reagan) while ignoring that the military funded by that debt is, in some respects, overkill given the threats. When China holds our debt, we're in much the same position the U.K. was in the 20th century following both WWI and WWII. Yes, China is a toxic mess -- so, too, was the U.S. in the 19th century. That didn't stop the U.S. from emerging as hegemon in the 20th century.

Joel Achenbach: Yeah I do worry that we have about seven aircraft carriers and 20 submarines and maybe one anti-ballistic missile shield more than we need.

On the Achenblog, FYI, we are never blithe about debt -- see here.

Excerpt:

The president boasts that the budget will be running a surplus by 2012, though this hypothetical surplus is based on such things as the sudden outbreak of World Peace.

What's true, however, is that the projected federal deficit of $239 billion for the 2008 fiscal year is considered so low compared with the recent horrifying budget deficits that officials are high-fiving one another over their fiscal restraint.

"It becomes like Monopoly money," says new Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, the former state auditor of Missouri, who has been eyeballing how the government spends money. "It's not real."

The federal government will spend nearly $3 trillion this year, which is about a trillion dollars more than when George W. Bush took office. The United States is a big, rich country, with a central government that is arguably the most powerful secular institution ever to exist on this planet -- a government that makes the Roman Empire look like a bowling league.

But anyone who looks closely at the budget quickly gets a scrunched-up brow. The "mandatory" portion of the budget, the entitlement programs, is surging. Health care is a grave concern. Baby boomers are reaching retirement and they're all going to want new hips.

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Doylestown one last time: Plus, the U.S. has definitely lost much of its soft power. Not good, given that that soft power has been the source of much of our strength in the world, especially during the Cold War. Rest assured, though -- this article has just been added to the students' reading list.

Joel Achenbach: Soft power is, as I understand it, everything from software to diplomacy to, like, Madonna and 50 Cent.

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Near Washington: A question I posed in the Achenblog: Do we here in the U.S. have what is going to be valuable through the course of the 21st century? One could argue that money and information are the currencies of the 21st century, and the ability of moving one to the other will be a determining factor as to the success of a given entity. If you can make money moving bits and bytes and cash around, you can purchase goods and materials from those who are willing to produce them. Of course, moving an entire nation to an information-based economy -- intentionally or not -- is even riskier than moving a nation away from the Gold Standard. ... I wonder if there ever would be an Information Standard? And given the current state of the Internet, what would that be?

And what of Information Wars fought on the Internet, and the possibility of using information (real, bad, and/or mis-) combined with economic tools to manipulate countries and economies? I expect to hear any day of a significant information security breach of U.S. computing facilities by a sophisticated well-resourced and financed foreign entity. Our America and our world does not look like our fathers' America, and our children's will look different still. Built on the same foundation, perhaps, but significantly different materials. (What would George Washington say about an information-based economy? Ben Franklin would be all for it, of course.) Will we sill consider it the Best House on the Block 50 years from now? Again, sorry for the length...

Joel Achenbach: Wow. I'm going to have to meditate on this. Hasn't the U.S. been the leader (until now) in software development? We got Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and all those cats, right? I know people talk about broadband access and how we're not the leader in that realm. Recently a source told me of a Japanese firm that has 9,000 engineers working on wireless gadgets -- far more than any U.S. company. Maybe the most powerful nation in the future will be the one that invents the must-have gizmo.

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Arlington, Va.: Great article Joel, and I think you are absolutely correct. I am interested in the hostile response you report. To continually believe that we are on the edge of a precipice seems to be an American hobby in some quarters. Where do you think this national paranoia comes from?

Joel Achenbach: I think they read the front page of The Washington Post.

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Bennett Point, Md.: The rise of Christianity was one of the many strikes against the Roman Empire, according to historian Michael Grant. Does homeschooling and that sort of counterculture work against the premise of a dominant America? Homeschoolers tend to be contemptuous of the current American culture and government.

Joel Achenbach: Did Grant argue that Christians didn't have the brutality to keep the empire going?

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Jefferson, N.C.: Joel, you really missed the essential problem. Where's the energy to come from? What happens after Peak Oil, i.e. the point at which global oil production inexorably reaches maximum a begins a terminal decline? Do we go for massive conversion to coal, or do we buy tar sand products from Canada? What about Global Warming, which will become much worse if the U.S. and the World decide to burn all the coal that can be dug up? After decades of study, including two engineering degrees I'm sorry to say that I don't see any cheap or easy "fix" for these problems. Nor do I see any possibility that the politicians will take the steps needed to attempt to fix things, as the result would be political suicide. For example, the U.S. needs a tax increase of at least $2 per gallon if the public is to get the message. It already may be too late to try a gasoline tax; the next option is a rationing program. Will the U.S. empire survive that?

Joel Achenbach: Jefferson, N.C., great to hear from you. I hope you get a chance to visit my friends at Earthaven.

I don't know how we'll solve that problem. I'm always surprised by how rarely you hear anyone mention doing-with-less. But FYI, I just read a story (I think it was a wire story that ran on AOL) about a guy who built himself a 60,000-square-foot house. The first thing we do is convert that to something else, like a convent, I say.

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Minneapolis: As a political science student 20 years ago, I got fabulous grades on term papers parroting that era's decline literature. While I bought the argument hook, line and sinker back then, this time around I am much more sanguine. I think it merits pointing out, however, that both periods came toward the end of Republican regimes. I predict we are again at that point where Americans wake up and realize how thoroughly the Republicans have bollixed up the country and vote them out of the White House. Beyond that, which nascent technology do you see that could best buoy us through another Clintonian decade of prosperity the way the Internet did in the '90s? Green tech? Genetic engineering? Nanotechnology? Gay marriage?

Joel Achenbach: The fax machine. No, wait: the washboard. So much better than beating clothes against a rock! I don't know, obviously, what might trigger the next boom, and my bigger concern is that whatever it is will be owned by .1 percent of the population, and they won't share the proceeds.

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St. Mary's City, Md.: Most of the Rome comparisons that I've read have come from conservative Christians, lamenting America's alleged moral decline since the ban on mandatory school prayer. How much of the common image of Rome as decadent and immoral is based on caricatures in popular entertainment, such as Cecil B. DeMille's epics? I've noticed a similar phenomenon with even recent American history -- a false romanticism of the 1950s as a paradise of stable families and safe neighborhoods, probably influenced by reruns of old TV shows. I'm not saying that people consciously get their history from entertainment; I'm suggesting that this visual entertainment has a powerful subconscious influence that far outweighs the information that people receive in school. What are your thoughts?

Joel Achenbach: Great point. I think people have been romanticizing the past since the days when Homo erectus complained that things were so much better when Australopithecus ran the show. Decadent? Read some Frank Harris or "H.G. Wells In Love," memoirs about life early in the 20th century: Sex romps a-go-go.

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North McLean, Va.: Sometimes I think the fascination with the decline of America suggests a certain laziness. Efforts to reform or improve this country seem silly if it's already on its last legs anyway. But if one accepts the position that we have a lot of good years left, then it seems more important to fix the place up and keep it running.

Joel Achenbach: That's what I meant to say! Thank you.

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Pittsburgh: Princeton: "...even if we don't, corporations will run the show..." Will?

Joel Achenbach: Thanks for the corrective.

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Vienna, Va.: An interesting metaphor from the Time Machine. But remember that the elite, as you called them (Eloi in Well's terms), were cultivated for food by the Morlocks (no relation to Murdoch I suppose).

Joel Achenbach: Rupert Morlock is available as a boodle handle.

(The boodle is the Achenblog comments section.)

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Near Washington: Frostbite Falls, Michigan was No. 5 last week, but after the miracle (or debacle, depending on your point of view) in the Big House where they were beaten by Appalachian St., I expect them to fall to No, 20 or so. Please note that the No. 1 team didn't go down to a 1-AA team. It is still better to be No. 1. Besides, being No. 2 stinks.

Joel Achenbach: Finally we bring it all back to the gridiron.

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Washington: Having lived in Ireland and Poland, I've always thought American dominance had two root causes: the ability to adapt, and the basic curiosity of many American boys and girls about a new toy. In my youth, when many kids got their first car, the first thing they did was take it apart to see how it worked and how it could be souped-up. In my thirties, kids took apart their computers to do the same thing. This does not happen as readily elsewhere in the world in my experience. But all I see now is kids sitting on their beds playing video games. They are not trying to upgrade the program or even understand how it works. So I guess I am not as optimistic as you. That could be just age talking (I'm in my 50s) and it is traditional to doubt the young.

Joel Achenbach: Yeah I worry that we've invented all these black boxes -- not only computers, but even cars. Remember when we used to slide under cars and fix them? Okay, so I did that just once, in 1983 -- but still. Now you'd be crazy to try to fix a car. My kids, they'll say, "Dad, let's throw away the car and get a new one." Like, when we have a flat tire.

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Washington: First, Mr. Achenbach, I want to thank you for a wonderfully written column this Saturday (Sunday Early Edition). I got goose bumps reading it. Do you believe the "declinists," as you call them, are truly analyzing historical patterns and data to draw their conclusions? Or are they simply projecting what they wish were true: that America is a bad country and needs to end? For the past six years, the left has been hysterical about America being "destroyed," and I find that many on the right are ready to do the same if Hillary Clinton is elected. You did state that there are declinists on both sides of the political spectrum, but could one argue further that there are surges on one side when the other party takes power? Thank you for your time, and again for the wonderful article. It will be well-traveled in e-mail forwards and throughout the blogosphere!

Joel Achenbach: I think Left and Right fear different things. The Left, for example, is more likely to note that in this age of empire (or whatever we are -- people disagree on the term) there's been a crackdown on civil liberties -- what Chalmers Johnson writes about it in his book "Nemesis." So it's not that we're too weak, it's that the national-security state becomes too strong and oppressive. And then we get into optional wars, etc. The Right is worried about the internal rot. Decadence. Cats and dogs sleeping together, human sacrifices, etc. And also about loss of national identity because of immigration. Maybe everyone needs to take a deep breath.

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Rockville, Md.: Joel: Ever since your days of answering questions, you have developed a range of interest and knowledge that few can match, so I really appreciate your comments. My take is that we are on the verge of an "age of abundance." If we fix the energy problem, everything else that is good will follow. However, with such new power it is even more important that we take care of the environment -- that is the message we need to have. If and when everyone gets "rich" we will be even more responsible for the consequences.

Joel Achenbach: Thanks for the kind words. I'm getting more ignorant by the minute, sadly, as knowledge expands and my poor feeble brain can't keep up. But I'm not so sure that this age of abundance, as you say, necessarily will create lives that we find more enjoyable and fulfilling. A topic for another day, maybe.

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Vero Beach, Fla.: The Post's Labor Day story on North Carolina's "second industrial revolution" says a lot about why the U.S. has thrived. The state was nearly as poor as Mississippi when it got serious about education, technology and banking reform (seemingly the first large state to allow statewide branch banking). The result is biotech and financial powerhouses. Not bad.

washingtonpost.com: In N.C., A Second Industrial Revolution (Post, Sept. 3)

Joel Achenbach: Thanks for the comment and the link.

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Chester, S.C.: Hey Joel! Part of our perceived decline relates to not holding politicians accountable for the way they represent us. I think that a contributing factor is that the news is diluted and a lot of folks don't think the mainstream media is providing the information the public needs as a hook to keep the politicians accountable as in, say, the Nixon years. Some would argue that our system of checks and balances is failing us because we don't use it. Blogs, however, have become increasingly influential in keeping people, including politicians honest. To what extent do you you envision blogs driving the journalistic process? Do you feel like high-quality journalism necessitates listening to the noise that the blogs make?

Joel Achenbach: Blogs break important stories sometimes and speed up the whole metabolism of our intellectual (or at least political) culture. Blogs are effective (if not always fair) at finding flaws with the way that the mainstream media cover the government. I wrote a piece on this a few weeks back that covers some of that territory (a piece on page view obsession, etc.).

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Brussels, Belgium: What do you think the impact will be of the demographic rise of Hispanic people in the next 50 years? Do you think there will be a culture war, or will assimilation in the U.S. happen, and will that mix change the way the U.S. views the world?

Joel Achenbach: Of course assimilation will happen -- that's been the story of the U.S. since before there was a thing called the U.S.

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Joel Achenbach: I enjoyed this. Great questions and comments. Please venture on over to washingtonpost.com/achenblog and join the fray. Warning for those who have never been there: Civility sometimes breaks out on the A-blog, but don't let that intimidate you.

You can also e-mail me at achenbachj@washpost.com. I sometimes, if given permission, post e-mails on the blog.

Have a great week, everyone.

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Brussels, Belgium: If I might raise a small point? Cars were invented in Europe. Granted, Ford did make them available for the masses.

Joel Achenbach: Yeah, we just invented the assembly line, as I recall.

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Near Washington: A quick note -- I was actually on a creeper under my car this weekend, fixing a problem. Some of us haven't given up on American ingenuity and stick-to-it-iveness, even when repairing German and Japanese cars.

Joel Achenbach: Weirdo.

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Near Washington: A clarification for my earlier question: A lot of the actual software development and support is being outsourced to other countries, and sometimes they even host the computing and communications infrastructures (and the data itself) -- India, Japan, and China being leaders among them. American companies manage the projects because the consumers of the systems are chiefly American, but the people who know the plumbing increasingly are not here in the U.S. Also, the Chinese government has been implicated in at least two significant attacks (and who knows how many smaller ones) on U.S. government and military systems in the past five years (that I'm aware of) and I understand that they're constantly probing government systems looking for vulnerabilities. Who knows how many other governments are doing the same, and if they've actually hit a government or private financial institution. (Say they somehow knocked the NYSE out for a week or so? Yikes.)

Joel Achenbach: Okay, I will worry about that now.

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Joel Achenbach: Thanks again! See you next time...

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