This Isn’t Good: 21st Century Looks Like a Replay of 20th
by PubliusMartin Wolf, columnist for the great Financial Times, has a must-read column this weekend:
The only truly global power was in rapid relative decline. Not long before, it had won a pyrrhic victory in a costly colonial war. New great powers were on the rise. An arms race was under way, as was competition for markets and resources in undeveloped areas of the world. Yet people still believed in the durability of the free trade and free capital flows that had nurtured prosperity and, many believed, had also underpinned peace.
That was how the world looked to many at the end of the “noughties” of the 20th century. Yet catastrophe lay ahead: a world war; a communist revolution; a Great Depression; fascism; and then another world war. The world order – built on competing great powers, imperialism and liberal markets – proved incapable of providing the public goods of peace and prosperity. It took calamity, the cold war and the replacement of the UK by the US as hegemonic power to re-establish stability. That then facilitated decolonisation, unprecedented economic expansion, the collapse of communism and yet another epoch of market-led global integration.
“History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes,” as Mark Twain is supposed to have said. The noughties of the 21st century now have the same fin de regime feeling as those of a century ago. Then the US, Germany, Russia and Japan were on the rise; now it is China and India. Then it was the Boer war; now it is the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then it was an arms race between Germany and the UK; now it is the military build-up in China. Then the protectionism of the US undermined liberal trade; now conflicts between the US and China undermine our ability to tackle climate change. Then the US was isolationist; now China and other rising powers demand untrammelled sovereignty.
The noughties of the 21st century were marked by historic changes.
Whole column here.
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48 Comments
I prefer the succinct quote from Ronald Reagon :
"We win, they lose"
I am not ready to relinquish the reigns of leadership.
This is hardly "must read," but is rather another blast at Western Civ and a blatant push for the New World Order. Martin Wolf is a clown and a mouth piece for the communists that run Europe.
look to your firearms and ammo!
[...] Big Government – This Isn’t Good: 21st Century Looks Like a Replay of 20th [...]
Obama dithers!
Terrorists win!
Like King Leonidas said to Xerxes at Thermopylae when asked for him and his 300 Spartans to lay down their arms and roll over…..Come and Take Them!
I'd be more inclined to read the original article, if the author did not make it plain that he was viewing history from a socialist (progressive) world view, as indicated by the first few paragraphs reprinted here. I am sure he does not realise that that is what he is doing, nor most of his readers. That's because history has been taught from a progressive viewpoint from at least the thirties. Much of what we have learned as history is actually the socialist anti-capitalist propaganda of generations before. A good example is the concept of "robber-barons". They typify the evils of capitalism, but the funny thing is, every single one of them was a socialist!
The "failures" of market driven capitalism were nothing of the sort. Imperialism is a form of socialism, and capitalism under imperialism is corporatism.
I am very suspicious of any conclusions this guy draws considering his data is tainted.
Desert Yote. Excellent points. So true about robber barons. Soros is following a long tradition of billionaires who enrich themselves through capitalism but the want to enslave everyone else. See Rockefeller etc. That's why Obama's "fat cats" denouncements are so hokey and rich with irony.
Thanks for the confirmation of what I was thinking. I didn't recognise this guys name, but his wording screamed "Marxist" so I decided to give the source article a pass, despite the "Must Read". I am glad to hear that I was not over-reacting. If I had read your comment before posting mine, I would have been a little more "energetic"
Oswald Spengler redux
Goldman Sachs will own whatever government rules the world in this century.
"Then the protectionism of the US undermined liberal trade; now conflicts between the US and China undermine our ability to tackle climate change."
What idiocy! "Tackling" mythical global warming is precisely what will destroy liberal trade. Thank God the Chinese aren't that stupid.
Why not?
They have owned and orchestrated ever crisis since the Great Depression. They excel in Madison Avenue Marketing, and Wall Street finance. They have the world by the balls.
It's also not really all that accurate; the historical facts were completely bent out of shape, to make events fit the author's thesis.
Publius,
I read the Financial Times on a daily basis. Have so for twenty years. Martin Wolf is an apologist; Europes version of a Barrack Obama. His drivel, while making a few valid points, is purely that, drivel. He is a tool, a piece for his puppetmasters.
That being noted, he makes one point that people do not like to admit, or recognize. There were only 10 Commandments, not 11. Nowhere is it etched in stone that the US will dominate the world in perpetuity as a hegemonic power.
Other peoples and nations have come and gone, in ruling the world: the Dutch, the Portugese, the Spanish, the British. All had their time at the apex of world affairs. We did not get here without working hard for it, we will continue to slide into irrelevancy, if we do not correct our course……….
Excellent analysis. I completely agree.
Oh come on……………"ALL" if the "robber barons" were SOCIALISTS?
No, they weren't !
But the author of this article is nuts and is misstating what really happened, to make it all fit his view.
Imperialism, or empire building, was a part of the Boer War and sparked WW I; however, you can't call it Socialistic, nor do those things have much to do with what's going on today, by any stretch of the imagination.
OTOH, completely left out of the article was the ever present danger, 100 years ago, of the anarchist movement ( this does correlate with today Muslim fanaticism and terrorist attacks ), Nihilism ( The Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his Morganic wife were murdered by Garvilo Princip, a Bosnian, who was a member of the Black Hand, as well as being a Nihilist ), and the meddling of Russian.
If I may add, the "anarchists" of today also correlate with the greens/animal rights movement also.
I tried to read it in it's entirety, also got bogged down in it's progressive/socialist blather and revisionism(conflicts between the US and China undermine our ability to tackle climate change?What?)
Yes, I agree with you on that.
I left that bit out, because, thus far, no anarchist has tried to assassinate a mayor, governor, or president, here, yet; they did 100 years ago.
http://www.televisiontunes.com/Tic_Tac_Dough_-_Ex...
If the US continues on it's current Obama path, the US will find itself split in a land grab between Russia and China. While we are giving away our power, others are quietly working to secure theirs.
IntenseDebate Notification <DIV>True, wasn't that McKinley or Garfield?</DIV> <DIV></DIV> <DIV style=\”FONT: 10pt arial\”>
We should always strive to be leaders of freedom and equality. If we lose the power to do this, we've lost.
Both; actually. Garfield and McKinley were shot and killed by anarchists.
In the early 1930s, Mayor Cermak, of Chicago, was shot while standing next to FDR and it's been argued, ever since, just who was the real target.
IntenseDebate Notification <DIV>I've done a lot of research into the attempeted assassination attempt of Reagan by Hinckley. Do you read into anything into that incident, or just lone wolf assassination attempt?</DIV> <DIV style=\”FONT: 10pt arial\”>
I have always taken Hinckley's assassination attempt at face value……………………that he did it to get Jodie Foster's attention and "love".
Yeah, I stopped at the climate change cr-p.
S'pose we need to read the words of our enemies, just as I have read Mein Kampf. (It isn't very convincing by the way.)
"Then it was an arms race between Germany and the UK; now it is the military build-up in China."
People who say this instantly reveal their complete ignorance of China, its history, and intentions.
"now conflicts between the US and China undermine our ability to tackle climate change."
Believing that mankind is naturally always at war with something, climate change is purposely being treated as the new communism (or the new capitalism, if you are a communist). Yes, uniting for a common goal might bring peace to the world. Think of the wars that will erupt if we should ever totally solve climate change, or if it proves out to be the BS it probably is.
That indeed, and I believe it will take we the people tossing the inbred monstrosities out of Washington to correct it.
I will say this for Wolf's thesis, without reading his nonsense. America has been losing its soul for the past fifty years, thanks to my generation's selfishness and the efforts of the ACLU and socialist educators working on the children and courts. The sort of mindlessness that pledges allegiance to Obama and blathers "what me worry" at totalitarianism is the kind that allowed Hitler to come to power in Germany 76 years ago. The lack of a moral compass is a part of that – and I say this as an atheist (or as someone else calls himself apatheist), but one who appreciates the vital need for some humility toward moral imperatives larger than ourselves.
Every end of a century and the beginning of a new one has provoked the same pessimistic view of the future – we have discovered all that was to be discovered, created all that was to be created, we are running out of resources and humanity is doomed. This passive statist view is the preferred staple of liberal diet because it suggests that the only way we can survive is by redistributing of whatever little we have left. Naturally, it is the liberals who KNOW how to redistribute – to each according to his needs, of course. Who determines the need? To that I answer: Who is John Galt?:)
[...] many authors feature avatars of scanned photos of dough-faced colonial cherubs that appeared in the 1962 encyclopedia [...]
That was a thinly disguised advert for Globalization, the Finiancial Times is just an ogan of the NWO. We as Americans need to find leaders willing to stand up for America, to defend her Bill Of Rights, her Constitition, the very things that helped to make this country the leader of the free world it has been up till now. Enyone who thinks just voting for Rebublicans is the answer, are very mistaken. The last two truely great leaders this of country were JFK and Ronals Reagen. All the rest have been regulars at Bohemian Grove. There will be no help from anyone in the media even Brietbart can only go so far.
We need to choose candidates that will hopefully stand up this word menace. When I look at Sara Palin I wonder, will she be our Sara Connor?
Does anyone out there realize that CO2 is a hugely beneficial gas. The more the better. Does anyone realize that if an armed population gets pissed off enough, all sorts of change can happen quickly in this country. We need to reinstate the original constitution and throw out all the progressive laws that have been implemented over the last 110 years…no IRS, no Miranda Law, no Roe V Wade, no Clean Air Act, no EPA, no Dept. of Education, no Kelo decision, no Dept of Labor, etc., etc., etc. Throw all this garbage out!!!
I could barely finish reading Wulf's article. What's it doing on this site? Our moral compass was biblical studies only. The Christian way of life was the Limit to our Rights. They understood that they had many choices in life, but only two for eternity.
They'll try to disarm us alright!
Acdg to Christian Identity churches, ok….America has received the Blessings of Abraham, and now those blessings are being taken away and will be replaced with the opposite – cursings. The blessings are not transferable to other nations. They offer much evidence for this type of philosophical thought which can be difficult to believe, and that's because we've been highly brain-washed by our schools and media(s)…In addition, our traditional types of churches have watered down biblical topics and/or deleted topics that are very relevant in today's world. They, at least one that I know of, Calls Washington, D.C. by its spiritual name, "EGPYT"!…and we need to escape Egypt once again.
Obama dithers
America withers
President Thomas Jefferson learned that We Can Not Reason with those Islamic Terrorists. That point of view should have passed on to our future generations in an emphatic way, so as to watch them all of the time, and not let them in our Country at all!
Ya, but Diversification is good……this is what is being taught and the Damn Corporations have incorporated it.
WHO said LIFE is better in a MELTING POT????
HOGWASH!
How can anyone talk about capitalism without realizing we do not have real capitalism in this country. We have pseudo-capitalism. The free market isn't free. Special interests, the corrupt, and padding the pockets of our elected officials ensures there will be no pure free market. Don't blame capitalism or the free market for our problems. Blame those that interfere with process.
We should stay out of their countries as well. Oh I forgot, we need their oil.
I think the temperature in Hell just dropped a few degrees. I agree with your assessment.
Thing is, we don't. We've got plenty here, if the powers that be would let us go get it.
You just might agree with other things I post, if you weren't constantly looking for something to disagree with me on. Just saying…………………………………
You still have your rights to check out and use any religious moral compass for you and your family. And any right that we don't use, we don't really have. Acdg to the biblical time clock, Bk of Daniel we are ending the era of the holi Roman Empire, which is the 6th empire…and going into the 7th world empire. This will get taken over by the 8th world empire which is the last world empire run by non-believers. It's final destruction happens at the Valley of Meggido location,presently named Armegeddon. After that, The Kingdom of God starts up.
The 7th & 8th Empires have a 7 year time slot for their existence and then they are gone, never to return.