Is The
United States A Failing State? Matching Of The China-man
1 March 2010By Barry Weisberg
There is now a common chorus from CNN, the New York
Times and the Economist. They ask if government in the
United States is broken and needs fixing? But what if
government in the US is “beyond repair,” as I argued
in a book by that title in 1971, referring to the
ecology of capitalism. Is the United States a failing
state?
The Fund for Peace identified twelve indicators of a
failed state expressed in the annual Failed States
Index. But failure is often more a result of
perception than any objective measurement. The Index
places the US risk of failure as moderate. But can a
Superpower be failing? Lets examine the political,
economic and social system of the US.
First, the political system refers to the institutions
of government, including politics, law, interest
groups, etc. The US political system is built on an
outdated 18th century view of human nature as brutish,
requiring a division of power to prevent minority
rule. The result today is both the absence of power to
transform the political economy and the excess of
power that allows the President an almost unchecked
capacity to wage overt or covert war. One stunning
example of the former is Ground Zero in New York. Nine
years after the attack, construction remains frozen.
In one year the mood in the United States has gone
from “Change You Can Believe In” to asking if
Government is broken. With the notable exception of
2008, the US has one of the lowest voter participation
rates in the modern world, lower than India. The US
today is far closer to a Plutocracy than a Democracy.
The US now has a debt of about $66 trillion, five
times the GDP and double the national wealth. The
Obama budget debt to GDP ratio is projected at 100%
for the next three years. This debt is largely a
result of the non-sustainable system of 700+ military
bases world wide and an annual military budget bigger
than all of the other countries of the world combined.
In Afghanistan, alone, it costs $759,000 a year to
maintain each soldier. Yet in one year, while
President Obama has preached a rhetoric of peace, he
has expanded the military budget, theaters and fields
of operation. Martin Luther King observed that “a
nation that continues year after year to spend more
money on military defense than on programs of social
uplift is approaching spiritual death."
Second, an economic system is the organization of
production, distribution and consumption of goods and
services. Real economic growth in the US has decreased
for five decades in a row. Similarly, stagnation is
evident in net non-residential investment and real
hourly wages. The degree of economic inequality (it is
now comparable to Mexico and greater than Iran), the
extent of poverty (twice the rate in Germany) and the
comparative lack of benefits for workers, reflect the
failure of the US. There exists no direct effort to
reduce the largest underclass of any industrial
country or racial inequality, some of who have a lower
life expectancy than several African countries.
Third, a social system is the condition and
organization of people. The American provision of
public services such as health care, education, social
welfare or public safety, is a failure. Fewer people
are covered by health care than in any industrial
country (the World Health Organization ranks the US
37th in health care delivery); the infant mortality
rate has sunk from 12th in 1960 to 29 in 1990 and 30th
in 2005; only half of our children in large cities
graduate high school and half of those that graduate
are functionally illiterate. The math scores of high
school students are lower than thirty other countries.
China is poised to soon replace the US in the
production of scientific and technical knowledge. The
US ranks 35th in the Environmental Performance Index
and 96thin the Global Peace Index.
The US contains just 4.6% of the world’s people but
consumes 33% of global resources and is unrivaled in
the production of pollution and carbon gases (when the
military is included). The global footprint of the
United States, the gap between its capacity and actual
consumption, is far greater than any large country.
The World Economic Forum recently published Global
Risks 2010, identifying thirty-six major global risks.
A “major value decline of the dollar” was included.
The one risk they did not include was the abrupt
collapse of the United States. Yet this could be
triggered by a catastrophic economic, political,
social or environmental crisis. The consistent failure
of Government to anticipate or respond effectively to
risks, such as the end of the Soviet Union, the rise
of China, global warming, energy vulnerability,
Hurricane Katrina, or homeland security, foretells the
future. American leaders live in a bubble of denial
and delusion, eyes wide shut. They do not represent
the People, treat the global community as equals or
understand the forces tearing away at the foundations
of America’s future. America is a failing state.
Barry Weisberg, JD, is associated with the
University of Illinois at Chicago and lives between
Chicago and Shanghai. Contact: barryweisberg@att.net.
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