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I don't think so. Being able to gain lots of cheap and even essentially free stuff from the rest of world has merely displaced domestic labor for the most part.  If the US can't immport as much cheap stuff from abroad it will have to make more of it at home, which, due to abundant natural resources, knowledge, and social assets, the US can do quite well.  Imperialism doesn't benefit everyone -- it benefits the people who go into that line of work. (And it can be rewarding work in more ways than merely economic, so I am not saying this with cynicism.) But why have working people in Germany prospered so much?  Largely because Germany has been deprived -- by the US and Russia actually -- of being able to do the kinds that the US has been able to do, so it made stuff at home and now exports that stuff even with high labor costs.

I am usually one who defends the Pax America project in general, mostly because of the globalization it has allowed and which will probably not continue without out it.  But I do think that the US economy, and especially its working and middle classes, will see their prosperity rise quickly and significantly in response to US withdrawal from world governance activities.

by santiago on Mon Apr 28th, 2014 at 11:11:22 PM EST
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The US is in no position to return to making stuff. If nothing else it has a long tradition of incredibly inept industrial management. It also has a poorly educated workforce, on average, and has to import electronic essentials such as rare earths.

Over here, working people in Germany are not the ones doing well from Germany's economic annexation of southern Europe.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Tue Apr 29th, 2014 at 12:01:14 AM EST
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The end of the British empire worked out well for the average brit. The end of the Ottoman empire didn't hurt Turkey any. The end of the american hegemony.. Honestly, don't see any mechanisms by which it is likely to do actual americans any harm. Trade? The carrier groups are vast overkill for fighting piracy, and I dont see much likelyhood of state actors taking up sealane interdiction.
by Thomas on Tue Apr 29th, 2014 at 03:30:39 AM EST
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The end of the British Empire worked well because there was active pressure from the Left. Without that it wouldn't have worked out as well at all.

A cynical view is that the Ruling Party realised that some social concessions were better than revolution. So concessions were duly made.

The US doesn't have anything equivalent. The end of the US empire is not working out well at all for 99% of US citizens.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Tue Apr 29th, 2014 at 04:27:50 PM EST
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Any beneficial ending is predicated on substantial change in the current mode of governance. I agree that that does not look very probable just now.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Tue Apr 29th, 2014 at 08:24:39 PM EST
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The US is in no position to return to making stuff.

I suspect that current management might be better than when the US was economically dominant. Our dominance then was more despite than because of management. Needed financial reforms include corporate governance of publicly traded corporations as well as the roll back of the size of the financial sector to somewhere around a tenth of its current size.

The biggest problem the US and European economies face is distributional efficiency. This is only going to get worse as robotics increasingly diminishes the role of labor in manufacturing. The USA has all of the capital it needs to reform and revise the economy. The problem is that this capital is in the hands of an elite that expects a higher rate of return than is compatible with much of what most urgently needs doing - the Green New Deal. There are two obvious solutions: 1) tax the elites and do the needed spending from those taxes; 2) fund the spending directly by government spending out of newly created money; or some combination. I prefer 1 because it would also address the need for redistribution of wealth.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Tue Apr 29th, 2014 at 09:56:22 AM EST
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