The old man who predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union, why did he predict the United StatesGo to pieces?
John Galton, known as the "Father of Peace", was proven right by history in his predictions about the collapse of the Soviet Union. In addition, in his book "The Collapse of the American Empire", he also provides an in-depth analysis of the possible collapse fate of the United States in 2020.
Born in Oslo, Norway, John Vincent Galtung came from a family of aristocratic descendants, with both his great-grandfather and father being doctors. This family background had a profound influence on Galton's later peace studies.
He studied at the University of Oslo and received a doctorate in mathematics and sociology. In 1959, he founded the Oslo International Peace Research Institute, which he served as director for the next decade.
Galton's prophecy of the collapse of the Soviet Union is based on his expertise and deep research background.
After founding the Oslo International Peace Research Institute, Gartonnian created the Journal of Peace Studies. This well-known practitioner and active participant in peace has successfully mediated more than 100 international conflicts.
As a result, he was awarded the "Indira Gandhi" award in 1993. As a political scientist and sociologist, Gartung devoted his life to the study of peace, including an in-depth understanding of the factors that affect the peace situation in the world, such as the fate of empires.
Galton foresaw the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1980 and foreshadowed the Soviet Union's footsteps. By studying the state structure of the Soviet Union, he found six pairs of contradictions, which he believed would eventually lead to the collapse and disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Galton's prediction that six pairs of contradictions would catch the Soviet political elite by surprise and eventually the collapse of the Soviet Union. The collapse of the US empire will follow a similar process, which is expected around 2020.
Voices that speak of the United States do not originate from outsiders, but originate from home, as Paul Kennedy cautioned in The Rise and Fall of Great Powers. His original intention was to hope that the United States would maintain a positive spirit at its peak, but the rise of China and some emerging countries on the international stage since the beginning of the new century has changed this situation.
As a result, the rhetoric of denying the United States now has a different meaning than it did 30 years ago.
The Collapse of the American Empire is Galton's in-depth analysis of the decline of the United States, and his foresight and authority stem from his success in foreseeing the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Galthorn stressed that the hegemony and intemperance of the United States will provoke resistance from oppressed and exploiting countries, and may even take extreme measures to retaliate. The occurrence of 9/11, although Galton did not directly predict the time, was attacked on the US mainland in less than 10 years, proving his foresight.
Galton's insight is stunning, and his point is worth pondering.
Therefore, in this new book, he analyzes the main contradictions facing the United States and ** that the American empire will collapse in 2020. Whether this ** will be fulfilled again has become a question that the academic community must seriously consider.
In The Collapse of the American Empire, Galton first defined the concept of empire. He distinguished between the United States Empire and the United States of America, and he once said that he deeply loved the United States of America, where he had spent most of his life, but hated the atrocities that the United States had committed around the world.
From this point of view, Galton is the collapse of the American empire, not the collapse of the United States itself. His concern is where America's existing imperial policy will go.
Gartung predicted that the decline and collapse of the American empire stemmed from the synergy of fifteen pairs of contradictions. At first, he predicted that these 15 pairs of contradictions would have a combined effect over a period of 25 years, starting in 2000, and that the United States would collapse.
But because the current situation in the United States is more complex, more and more entrenched, Galton shortened the time to 2020. He believes that this is related to a series of policy decisions made by Bush, who has been elected twice as the leading member of the United States.
Bush's decision quickly escalated many contradictions, but Garton believed that he had turned a deaf ear to them. These 15 pairs of contradictions are caused by five aspects: economic, military, political, cultural, and social.
There are two important bases for Galton's statement about the collapse of the US empire: one is that the influence of the United States is waning, and the growing number of problems and the rapid rise of competing countries are narrowing the gap between it and other countries.
The second is that his predictions about the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall were accurate. The United States does show signs of weakness in the contradictions listed by Garton, the biggest of which is the economic crisis, which portends a gradual weakening and eventual collapse of the United States.
In his book, Gartung points out that in addition to China and India, other countries around the world are slowing their economic growth, and the United States is no exception.
In the United States, a vicious cycle of overproduction has led to an increase in unemployment, followed by a decline in purchasing power and a decrease in demand, which is further exacerbated by overproduction**.
This vicious circle continues to play out in American society. In 2007, 90 million people in the United States lived below the poverty line. In pursuit of economic growth, the U.S. empire ignored the importance of rational distribution and even hindered its progress, which invisibly weakened its own food production capacity, and the monetization of land, seeds, water, and other agricultural aspects made it impossible for farmers to transform the fruits of their labor into food to meet their own needs.
In addition, there is a huge contradiction between the real economy and the financial economy of the United States, which further exacerbates social instability.
Although the domestic financial market in the United States is full of vitality, the growth rate of the real economy has gradually slowed down, so we can only rely on the buying and selling of financial markets to increase the accumulation of liquid assets.
At the same time, the growth of the financial economy is in stark contrast to the stagnation of the real economy, which makes the contradiction between the two increasingly aggravated. This contradiction was concentrated in 2001 with the collapse of the United States and the depreciation of the dollar, at a time when the euro was steadily appreciating.
In 2008, a series of economic problems occurred in the United States, such as the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the revelation of Madoff**. Against this backdrop, the U.S. real economy is still in short supply, which has also led to serious damage to the financial economy.
The impact is almost global, especially in countries that are closely tied to the U.S. economy.
The shortcomings of the capitalist system are becoming increasingly apparent, and the credit crunch is having an irrepressible impact on the real economy. Innocent people are suffering from famine, all because of the nature of capitalism.
In his book, Galtung makes it clear that the lives of the people at the bottom are very poor and miserable, while wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few. This phenomenon has become common under capitalism, where the bottom of the population makes up 70% of the total population but they do not enjoy enough wealth, and the upper class has a surplus of liquid assets, resulting in a very small fraction of the wealth available for consumption.
This injustice is not only in the United States, but is widespread across the globe.
In the real economy, the lack of attractiveness for long-term investment in productive enterprises has led to a surge in short-term speculation in the financial and economic spheres, and bubbles have accumulated until they burst, forming an unsound economic system.
Such a system is not only life-threatening, but ultimately leads to its own destruction. What is even more worrying is that the United States, which has a large number of people living on the poverty line, consumes 35 percent of the world's resources, which is only 6 percent of the world's population.
This means that the United States must go crazy for resources to meet domestic needs. As the demand for welfare in the United States increases, the consumption of resources in the United States continues to increase.
The scarcity of resources is an ever-present challenge, and in order to keep the empire running, the United States will seek a strategy of plundering resources abroad when domestic resources cannot meet the consumption.
However, the benefits of equal exchange cannot fill the huge gap in American resources, so the United States will resort to an imperial, unequal exchange method to exploit hegemony.
However, when the United States uses hegemony to suppress other countries, and these countries resist, it may develop into the extreme form of war. This has led the United States into a fatal contradiction -- a military contradiction.
The United States cannot abandon military intervention in other countries, because it is profitable for them.
The US military intervention in Kosovo is actually aimed at controlling the world oil market and protecting its economic development. However, such acts of State terrorism invite retaliation from terrorists. "
9ยท11"The incident is a *** counterattack against the US economy and military. Still, a violent attack on the United States would be irrational because it would only provoke the United States to retaliate with more drastic means, such as the war in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq.
Whatever the motives for the war, the United States has always acted in the name of the war on terror.
In fact, the real purpose of the United States in launching the Iraq war was not motivated by some legitimate consideration, such as the control of oil resources, as they claimed. The justifications for war given by the United States are in fact fabricated lies.
Worse still, the methods used by the United States in the course of the war were illegal and brutal. It is estimated that the war cost the United States a whopping $3 trillion, while also killing more than a million Iraqis and nearly 5,000 American soldiers.
In addition to being driven by greedy interests, there is another important reason why the United States cannot stop its military intervention in foreign countries, that is, the US military industry has formed a certain form of community of interests with relevant members of Congress, the Department of Defense, and other departments.
The United States' fanatical pursuit of advanced technology is evident in the military aspect, whether it is conventional or aviation, whether it is an aircraft carrier or a nuclear submarine, the United States is at the forefront of the world.
The development of this kind of military technology is closely linked to the progress of ordinary science and technology and military industry in the United States, and is also one of the cornerstones of the United States' world hegemony. However, with a strong military force in hand, it is undoubtedly a huge challenge for the United States to resist its "military impulse" on the road of pursuing peaceful development.
If the United States has the absolute power to suppress other countries, why would it choose a complex and uncertain path? However, it is now 2020, Galton's prophecy has not fully come true, and the United States is still active in the international arena, playing the role of the world's policeman.
Galtung's prophecy failed to come true because of a fatal flaw in his method of argumentation. In the crisis of the American empire, he proceeded only from the situation, developments, and internal problems of the United States itself, while ignoring other factors that could affect the collapse of the American empire.
Gartung ignores an important factor, which is that the hegemony of the United States depends not only on the development of the United States itself, but also on the strength of other countries. Even if the United States is weakening, if other countries are also weakening, then American hegemony will not be threatened.
On the contrary, if other countries far surpass the United States in terms of development strength, then the hegemony of the United States may be shaken or even collapsed. At present, judging from the whole world pattern, there is no country that can pose such a threat to the United States.
After prophesiing the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall, Galthorn was able to quickly propose a new plan for the continued strengthening of American power as a new way to maintain the balance of the world. However, for the world pattern after the collapse of the United States, Garton's vision is more based on good intentions, and some possible ideas, such as global citizenship, human rights, democracy, global economic, military, political and cultural rights, and global diplomatic relations into world internal affairs, although full of idealism, are not highly likely.
Although Galtung's prediction to the United States has not been fully fulfilled, the impact of the new crown epidemic in 2020 has indeed put the United States in serious difficulties. However, to break its hegemony, stronger challengers are needed, and negotiations will not solve the problem.
Looking forward to the next prophecy, when will the end of the United States come?
* John Galton's view on "The Collapse of the American Empire", an in-depth analysis of "Galton and the American Empire: Who is the Winner".