« Mapping the World | Main | Greens in Space »

The Bubble of American Supremacy

George Soros is both smart and rich. Very smart and very rich, in fact. And, more often than not, he is on the side of the Good Guys. So when Soros starts talking about international politics and the role of America, he's worth listening to.

The December 2003 issue of The Atlantic includes a long-but-fascinating essay by Soros entitled "The Bubble of American Supremacy," in which he argues that the notion of the United States as a hyperpower able to act unilaterally across the globe is the functional equivalent of a financial bubble -- rooted in part in fact, in part in self-delusion, and prone to disaster once it pops. Soros, no stranger to global crises and the threat of totalizing ideologies, spells out both the danger of the current course and what the United States should do in order to better achieve its global goals of spreading democracy and freedom.

The supremacist ideology of the Bush Administration stands in opposition to the principles of an open society, which recognize that people have different views and that nobody is in possession of the ultimate truth. The supremacist ideology postulates that just because we are stronger than others, we know better and have right on our side. The very first sentence of the September 2002 National Security Strategy (the President's annual laying out to Congress of the country's security objectives) reads, "The great struggles of the twentieth century between liberty and totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom—and a single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise."

The assumptions behind this statement are false on two counts. First, there is no single sustainable model for national success. Second, the American model, which has indeed been successful, is not available to others, because our success depends greatly on our dominant position at the center of the global capitalist system, and we are not willing to yield it.

Even if you disagree with him, this is an article well-worth reading and thinking about.

TrackBack

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference The Bubble of American Supremacy:

» One for the books from Live from the Nuke Free Zone
(via Another World Is Here:) One of the things most "doomed liberals" don't know about their cause is that they've got a legitimate full-blooded Secret Master of the World on their side. George Soros is insanely wealthy, very intelligent and... [Read More]

» Minus 100 points from Andrew Johnson's Weblog
George Soros on The Bubble of American Supremacy. More interesting than it sounds, and well worth a... [Read More]

» Minus 100 points from Andrew Johnson's Weblog
George Soros on The Bubble of American Supremacy. More interesting than it sounds, and well worth a... [Read More]

About

This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on January 12, 2004 2:58 PM.

The previous post in this blog was Mapping the World.

The next post in this blog is Greens in Space.

Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.

Powered by
Movable Type 3.34