[lbo-talk] fresh punditry

[Somebody Somebody]

Brad: So, if the decline has been going on since the 1970s and if the US became an empire after WWII, then we have not quite 30 years of empire followed by 40+ years of decline.
Somebody: You're leaving out the entire period preceding the post World War II global empire. That was precisely the period of America's industrial rise. By circa 1900, the U.S. was the leading industrial power in virtually every conceivable category. Yet it had just barely begun an empire building project outside of the current lower 48 states. Conversely, by that time the British were in *relative* decline, yet their empire was near it's geographical height.
Our industrial development preceeded by a couple of generations our geopolitical dominance. There's a lag between economics and politics. Which is quite possibly going to be the pattern for China as well, whether in terms of world influence or internal politics.