Category: Politics, Power, and Governance

—“Western society is dominant through the propagation of western currency, which has taking the place of western warfare, in order to maintain western dominance do you think the value of economic currency needs to be maintained or the value of western warfare needs to become the currency?”— A Friend

Smart Question.

I think the short answer is that western currency, and in particular, the american takeover of the british empire at bretton woods, which was dependent upon providing open access to the american market, and american guarantee of policing of world trade.

1. Western dominance is not ‘needed’.

2. Conflict of civilizations will emerge.

3. Power evolved by increasingly subtle incentives: Violence > Religion > Administration > Economics > with next state being information (which scares me).

4. The west competed successfully by a combination of technologies. The competitive advantage in other than trust (culture) has mostly been eliminated. the competitive advantage of demographic distribution is in the process of being eliminated.

5. I do not see how the west can maintain military superiority. Military superiority requires technology. Technology requires wealth. Wealth requires population, trade routes, and all the rest…

6. At present, Trump is attempting to force europeans to remilitarize by withdrawing military force from the region, and then the rest of the world, more slowly, because america no longer has the relative economic and technological advantage. Worse, chinese organization, government, and culture is superior for the conduct of military, economic, and political expansion.