Greed - yes. But it is also about power. About feeding narcissistic big egos.
We are becoming like the Pax Romana - a world order based, in essence, on endless wars. The U.S. became the leader of a unipolar world very naturally, by being the largest and most successful nation in a world where the only major opponent, the USSR - the “Sparta” of the age - simply collapsed.
But, much has changed since then - we are challenged by Russia militarily - and by China, mostly economically. There are also other countries that, whether we like them or not, are aspiring to decide for themselves. Since we can’t outcompete them, we try to remain the most powerful militarily. But, as it appears, it’s not so easy - our military budgets are enormous, but it’s far from clear whether the funds are spent efficiently.
That’s why I think a guy like Spengler/ Goldman is right - we need different directions. One of the things he proposes is to spend a ton of money (I think 2 trillion) in an attempt to leapfrog everyone else in chip technology. 2 trillion is a lot of money - but we’ll blow through them anyway. His plan would give us a chance. Maybe more young people would be attracted to engineering (rather than gaming).
The argument against this is that it’s too dependent on the government - and much of it would be wasted. Well, maybe. But it’s being wasted anyway. At least, a huge civilian project would give us a chance to regain leadership by using other than military means. |
