{"id":64775,"date":"2023-01-18T08:25:42","date_gmt":"2023-01-18T13:25:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=64775"},"modified":"2023-01-18T08:25:42","modified_gmt":"2023-01-18T13:25:42","slug":"dusk-of-a-global-empire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=64775","title":{"rendered":"Dusk of a Global Empire"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dusk of a Global Empire<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n

The slow passing of a global hegemon, the Empire of all empires, made me ponder how it will pass to the pages of history books. Apparently, its ruling elite has chosen a strategy called spite: knowingly (or unknowingly) hurting their own self interest, hoping that their enemies will be hurt more. Sanctions come to mind here as a prime example, but spending more than half of one\u2019s discretionary budget on militarism could be seen as an even more spectacular way of running down services, infrastructure, security and resilience at home, while overcommitting oneself abroad \u2014 all at the same time. One way or the other, absent of a decisive victory rewarded with a renewed flow of cheap resources, both of these strategies will lead to increasing isolation and deprivation in the coming decades, then\u2026 well, something comparable to the fall of Rome. But let\u2019s just not get ahead of ourselves yet.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Photo by\u00a0Simon Berger<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

F<\/span>irst let\u2019s define what is an empire. According to\u00a0Britannica<\/a>, it is\u00a0\u201ca group of countries or regions that are controlled by one ruler or one government\u201d<\/em>. Simple as that. In order to control a territory or state however, obviously you would need to apply some sort of force, be it economic, financial or military in nature, to\u00a0\u2018convince\u2019<\/em>\u00a0your\u00a0\u2018allies and partners\u2019<\/em>\u00a0that it is in their best interest to comply with your will. (Why, how else would you ask a sovereign country to commit economic suicide for your sole benefit\u2026?)\u00a0According to<\/a>\u00a0the late Anthony Stafford Beer, a British theorist, consultant and professor at the Manchester Business School:<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe purpose of a system is what it does. There is after all, no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dusk of a Global Empire The slow passing of a global hegemon, the Empire of all empires, made me ponder how it will pass to the pages of history books. Apparently, its ruling elite has chosen a strategy called spite: knowingly (or unknowingly) hurting their own self interest, hoping that their enemies will be hurt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,4,5],"tags":[150,259,286,2327,10956,2328,11440,32578,827],"class_list":["post-64775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","category-environment","category-geopolitics","tag-collapse","tag-empire","tag-exponential-growth","tag-finite-planet","tag-imperial-collapse","tag-infinite-growth","tag-overreach","tag-the-honest-sorcerer","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64775"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64776,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64775\/revisions\/64776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}