"Waving Goodbye to Hegenomy."

The problem with the essay begins with the title. Who says that the US his or was a hegenomy? Well, it was a favorite gibe of the propogandists of the USSR and the Chinese Communists were particularly fond of the term, as were the communists (and some socialists) in Western Europe.

But the US never saw itself as a hegenomist & still doesn't. No, when an essay uses this term it's a dead giveaway that a major purpose of the author is propoganda, not truth.

Ok, for purposes of discussion let's say that the author dodn't actually use that unfortunate word. What he meant is that the US is now and is going to be less powerful that it has been since the fall of the Berlin Wall & the dissolution of the USSR created a power vacuuum in Europe and Central Asia.

China is rising. The author regards this as a unique insight? China's rise has been obvious for more than 2 decades, and China's problems almost as obvious for almost as long. China is and will continue to be a major player, at least until the time when it's internal political contradictions force a major internal conflict. China is an oligarchy, with even fewer democratic institutions than Kaiserine Germany had a century ago. Germany eventually flagged because of political constradictions; China may do so also.

Or it may not; it's not the purpose of this dicaussion to debate the possible weaknesses in the Chinese body politic. But the author 'proves' his thesis by discussing the weaknesses of the US at length without noting the weaknesses of it's putative competitors; this is fallacious logic.

Similarly the EU also has it's weaknesses, although not remotely the same weaknesses as China has. Let's look at the center of Europe; Paris and London. I think if we drilled down in two locations in Paris and compared conditions between 1980 and 2008 in these places the results might be illuminating. In the Marais (4th arrondissiment in Central Paris). In 1980 it was gentrifying, but the market in Les Halles was still in full and odiferous operation. So there were still quite a few poor people in the Marais in 1980. Not so today; the Marais has completed it's gentirification
and is one of the richer areas in Paris outside of the 8th, 16th, and 17th arrondissiments.

Now let's look at the Paris suburb of St. Denis. St. Denis has traditionally been a gritty industrial suburb and a centre of the French Comminist Party. Bu in 2008 it is not that any more. Poor people have lived in St Denis forever. They still do, but many of them cannot be considered working-class any more - because there are no jobs for them. St. Denis has been a centre of radicalism and still is. But the radicalism has changed - having gone from communist to Islamism.

Go to the centre of Paris and 'Europe' will seem rich and vital - never more so. Go to St Denis and it will seem more alienated than anytime since the 40's, I think. One could find such contrasts in almost any large city in France, the UK, Italy, or Nederlands. These are the countries I know the best - I shan't make such claims about Germany or the Nordic countries.

This isn't to say that one won't find such places in the US or in China - you will in both places. The income differential may be even sharper in both places, particularly China. But the alienation takes a different form. Neither the US or China cut off the poor from the working parts of society the way many Europeans localities seem to do.

"Don, I guess you haven't visited New Orleans recently."

No I haven't. But I have lived in many places in the US, including the NY metropolitan area and DC as well as places like Kansas City, Milwaukee, Durham, NC, Dallas, etc etc etc.

Been around a bit, enough to know that stories written by 'journalists' and published by editors living in DC/Manhattan don't always do the best job of describing what is going on in the country as a whole.

I moved from the NYC area to Durham. New York had a homeless problem at the time, Durham basically didn't. The difference was that you couldn't find a 1-bedroom apartment in NY for less than about $700 a month for love or money, whereas in Durham they were available for less than $200 a month at the time, which was circa 1989 or so. In NY was the poor were priced out of the housing market. In Durham they weren't. Causes we can debate. Some would say rent control, but I heard a rumor that the 'welfare program' in a number of towns in the area was a bus ticket to New York. So perhaps it was some of both.

I'll admit that not everywhere in France is like the suburbs of Paris, but from what I've seen and read every large industrial city (Paris, Lille, Rouen, Toulouse, Strasborg, Marseilles, Bordeaux, etc) has a suburb problem. That is not the case in the US, however.

"Khanna is missing a huge factor that is playing out RIGHT NOW. Food and water. There isn't enough, it's becoming costlier, and it isn't going to get better."

Hmmm, well. The good old law of 'supply and demand' will help bail us out - if we let it! Better farming methods, genetic engineering, etc will gradually increase yields.Switch to a more vegetarian diet. It's cheaper & better for you. I;ve done it - not out of virtue but because I simply can't eat meat in the quantities I once did. A few ounces a day do me now.

Water? Well can't we make better use of the freshwater we have? Or invent some kind of filter which filters out the salt from seawater? Possibly float icebergs up from Antartica? Lot's of things could be possible, but perhaps the most important is to cease using water stupidly. We don't need to water our lawns all summer long - how about a rock garden out back instead? And we don't need to put rice paddies into dry areas like the Central Valley of California, do we?

Goya, yes. Saw the exhibit at the Prado, and that was the weirdest thing. Started out like Fragonard, ended like Edvard Munch!

Also Picasso and many others. But I tend to favor
art I can understand. The surrealists had their moments but normally they're too weird for my taste.

Caravaggio is one of my favorites because of his use of light to show emotion. I think he was the only major Italian after Michelangelo or Titian who was worth a curse, at least until the modern era. I looked up Dix hom I had never heard of before. Interesting.

Hmmm, this reminds me of one of my favorite books, "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" by Yale academic Paul Kennedy. It was published in 1989 at a time when the concensus of the chattering classes seemed to be that the US was Doomed, Doomed! and that we were all destined to study Japanese? Remember? Or are you too young?

The Kennedy book was one of the all time best sellers in the field of current affairs, and Khanna seems to have followed in it's tradition.

I have to note that Kennedy's thesis that the US was suffering from 'Imperial overstretch' because it was spending 6% of GDP on the military (while Japan was spending less than 1% presumably) did not mean after all that the US was in terminal decline and Japan would bestride the world like a colossus - or at least not yet.

Kennedy was honest enough to provide some actual figures (or his best estimate) for military powers in the past. He notably dwelt on Spain but his estimate was that Spain was spending as much as 30% of GDP on the military during the latter years of the 30 years war. The UK was spending about 10% on the military during the Dreadnought race with Germany, I think.

I'm fond of the Kennedy book not because it was an accurate prediction of current affairs but because it was one of the better books of popular history I have read. It caused me to learn things I had not know and consider thought which I had not had, and I thought the author wrote with honest purpose and presented data which argued against his thesis as well as data supporting it. This is rare enough to be cherished.

I hope the Khanna book is similar in argument and purpose to Kennedy's tome, but I saw nothing in his essay which would lead me to believe it. Khanna seemed to focus on the factors hurting the US without going into the restraints on Chinese or European power in his essay. Which doesn't bode well for the book.