As a devout lefty who thinks America and capitalism need a lot more checks and balances, I have to somewhat disagree with you.
When we talk peace, we are talking relative terms. And I suppose I should also add prosperity into the mix.
I think the West has enabled a period of relative peace and prosperity never before seen. And I think it’s getting, overall, better every day. Technology and capitalism, for all their evils, have lifted billions out of poverty and saved billions of lives.
I’m rather curious how you relativise a lot of the US’ recent history. Sure, Iraq and Afghanistan weren’t pillars of stability, but I think the balance comes down pretty hard against the US with Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations as well. Our continued support of Israel and Saudi Arabia isn’t looking so hot either.
Then we’ve got military intervention in the Dominican Republic and support of Trujillo until he stopped being useful, installing the Pinochet regime after helping topple the government of Salvador Allende, support for the military dictatorship in Brazil, as well as backing dictatorships in Argentina.
Our colonization of the Philippines was pretty awful, as is our continued treatment of Puerto Rico as essentially a vacation spot and Caribbean ghetto.
You get the idea. Seriously, I’m hard pressed to think of an instance in the last century where the US has intervened on the international stage and actually has a credible claim to having done good with the exception of World War II.
The government has created and fought for stability for a small subset of monied interests and has largely left the rest of us to jump for whatever table scraps they deign to let fall to us plebs. As @Nokinori mentions, even domestically, things are increasingly coming undone at the seams and looking ready to get worse.
Unfortunately, that’s all come at a cost of destroying and destabilizing billions of lives. I’m not disagreeing that a lot of people have benefitted from that. Competition - which is what capitalism is when you distill it and ignore all the inside ball that corporations and governments play - generates new ideas and promotes the ones that generate the most capital. But it also leaves a lot of people behind. And for now let’s just ignore the idea that there could be anything else as noble as the generation of more capital.
In the US, wealth inequality is only getting worse, with homeless populations and food scarcity continuing to grow and things like access to healthcare and quality education on the decline. And there are areas of the world that have been radically destabilized by the US to retain that position of dominance and prosperity.
If you look for a nation with the current / recent, per capita record for ‘lifting people out of poverty’ you’d have to give the medal to China. Do I think the way they’ve done things over the last few decades is producing a healthy society? Nope. I’d much rather live in the US than in China. But I don’t think the US is producing a healthy society either. We’re all just screwed up in our own ways, fighting for resources and acting like our way of doing things is ok because it’s what we are indoctrinated into from a young age.
The US focuses on generating capital as a metric of success because it enables geopolitical dominance and prosperity for just enough people to keep the wheels rolling.
As a devout lefty who thinks America and capitalism need a lot more checks and balances, I have to somewhat disagree with you.
When we talk peace, we are talking relative terms. And I suppose I should also add prosperity into the mix.
I think the West has enabled a period of relative peace and prosperity never before seen. And I think it’s getting, overall, better every day. Technology and capitalism, for all their evils, have lifted billions out of poverty and saved billions of lives.
I’m rather curious how you relativise a lot of the US’ recent history. Sure, Iraq and Afghanistan weren’t pillars of stability, but I think the balance comes down pretty hard against the US with Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations as well. Our continued support of Israel and Saudi Arabia isn’t looking so hot either.
Then we’ve got military intervention in the Dominican Republic and support of Trujillo until he stopped being useful, installing the Pinochet regime after helping topple the government of Salvador Allende, support for the military dictatorship in Brazil, as well as backing dictatorships in Argentina.
Our colonization of the Philippines was pretty awful, as is our continued treatment of Puerto Rico as essentially a vacation spot and Caribbean ghetto.
You get the idea. Seriously, I’m hard pressed to think of an instance in the last century where the US has intervened on the international stage and actually has a credible claim to having done good with the exception of World War II.
The government has created and fought for stability for a small subset of monied interests and has largely left the rest of us to jump for whatever table scraps they deign to let fall to us plebs. As @Nokinori mentions, even domestically, things are increasingly coming undone at the seams and looking ready to get worse.
Unfortunately, that’s all come at a cost of destroying and destabilizing billions of lives. I’m not disagreeing that a lot of people have benefitted from that. Competition - which is what capitalism is when you distill it and ignore all the inside ball that corporations and governments play - generates new ideas and promotes the ones that generate the most capital. But it also leaves a lot of people behind. And for now let’s just ignore the idea that there could be anything else as noble as the generation of more capital.
In the US, wealth inequality is only getting worse, with homeless populations and food scarcity continuing to grow and things like access to healthcare and quality education on the decline. And there are areas of the world that have been radically destabilized by the US to retain that position of dominance and prosperity.
If you look for a nation with the current / recent, per capita record for ‘lifting people out of poverty’ you’d have to give the medal to China. Do I think the way they’ve done things over the last few decades is producing a healthy society? Nope. I’d much rather live in the US than in China. But I don’t think the US is producing a healthy society either. We’re all just screwed up in our own ways, fighting for resources and acting like our way of doing things is ok because it’s what we are indoctrinated into from a young age.
The US focuses on generating capital as a metric of success because it enables geopolitical dominance and prosperity for just enough people to keep the wheels rolling.
But that’s just my perspective.