The Fourth Stage of an Empire
On my walk, a year ago, I saw man sitting alone on a bench. I struck up a conversation with Jay, who turned out to be an economics professor at Foothill College in Silicon Valley. He asked me if I would talk to his Economics Club, and I did so in February.
I was invited back again last month and before about 50 students delivered a seminar entitled "Politics and Economics Make Strange Bedfellows." I spoke about the failure of the people in government to effectively parse economics issues and how politics had corrupted fiscal policy.
Jay wrote to me afterwards, "every single foreign student praised your talk and felt that you did a fantastic job, whereas some of my local ‘American’ students felt that your talk lacked clarity and focus. A few even accused you of grandstanding and being blatantly inflammatory."
He was upset at the "spoiled rotten" children of the affluent who are clueless about the state of our country and didn’t want to hear anything that would mar their image.
Way back when, I took Econ 101 at night at NYU. I had a wonderful teacher who delivered ideas that stuck. One was economies of scale, which showed how enterprises could become so big that they turned inefficient. Another was about the four stages of an empire, with the United States being boomingly in the third. The fourth stage was disintegration. The then-obvious example was the British.
I wondered to a colleague about the state of our empire today. Peter Sussman wrote back, "All the signs are classic, from debt spiraling beyond control to military over-extension to shabby maintenance of infrastructure to outdated manufacturing capacity to an arrogant citizenry chasing ever more trivial entertainments while oblivious to larger imperatives."
I don’t think some of Jay’s students would have been very happy with that.
©2009 SetonnoteS
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