Who will be the next world power?

1. Centralized power - while there are state governments, the majority of the power is held in Washington.
2. No outside parties - There are technically two parties in the U.S. but I haven't seen any major differences between them. There is, in effect, one party and others (while legal) are not allowed.
3. Following the party line - On a trip to the Soviet Union in the late 80's I noticed how many people toed the party line because of pressure from government sponsored patriotism. I noticed the same thing in the U.S. After 9/11, for example, the voices that said that U.S. had been attacking other countries for years and they were justified in attacking back were not allowed on a large scale. Instead, the pressure was on to fly the flag and support the government.
4. Power in the hands of a few.
5. Huge debt
6. Crumbling infrastructure (health care for example)
7. Distancing of those in power from ordinary people.
8. Decreasing freedoms - The Patriot Act
9. Inefficiency - lawsuits

This is also true of Great Britain, Sweden, Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and practically every other European country. The majority of power has been held in Washington since at least the conclusion of the civil war. This, of course, is quite false. Do you know why we only have two parties? Because our electoral system is first-past-the-post (whoever wins the plurality of votes wins) and a geographical representation system. In order to win a district, the person has to capture the political center of that district or else the person will not get a plurality. In a proportional representation system, you do not vote for a specific person (generally speaking), but the party you want in power. They get the number of seats roughly equal to their percentage of the national vote. There is a minimum percentage required (varies by state, but around 2-4% of the national vote in order to be represented).The irony is that the founders of our electoral system weren't planning on the creation of political parties.Why are the parties so similar? Well, it's because of having to capture the center. The political spectrum is:
Left-------------------Center-------------------Right
For the left to win, it needs to capture the left and center vote, so it has to moderate itself in order to appeal to the center. The same is true of the right. Of course, the center is determined by where the majority of people place themselves on the scale, so in the US it's been:
Left----------------------------Center---------Right
for a long time. The left has to be even more conservative in order to win the right. This is what we see happen in the south. In New England, where the center is closer to the left, the left can afford to be more leftist. Aside from this, there are actual differences between the parties, and quite significant differences. If there aren't, then the party will lose its core support. It's why Specter just switched to being a democrat (although he's the most conservative democrat in the senate now). He was losing the support of the right, and would need it to beat Toomey in the primary.It's not the political dominance of the democrats and republicans that make it so hard for third parties to be established. It's the electoral system which was established at our founding. In Sweden, the Social Democratic Party has ruled for extensive periods of time, more than any other party or coalition. If anything, they qualify for one-party rule. And yet, even given the dominance of the SDP, there are currently seven parties in parliament. SDP (130 seats), Moderate Party (97 seats, the largest conservative party), Center Party (29 seats, more conservative), Liberal People's Party (28 seats, moderates), Christian Democrats (24 seats, conservative), Left Party (22 seats, to the left of the SDP!), and the Green Party (19 seats, left). The governing coalition is led by the Moderates, partnered with Center Party, the People's Party, and the Christian Democrats.Sweden has a completely different electoral system that allows for the proliferation of political parties (we even have a pirate party!), but the result is for one to actually govern coalitions must be made, which ultimately tempers the desires of one or more parties. So seven parties, two blocks. Not all that different from the US, except the different wings are already formally a part of the democrats or republicans. And when there are independents or third party members in the US, they caucus with one of the parties anyhow.So now that we know that this complaint about one party rule is silly, perhaps we should compare the electoral system of the USSR to the US? Well, for starters, the communist party picked who would run, and the voters had no choice. The US at least has primaries and caucuses. And before you go off about how they don't really matter, look at Barack Obama. He was not the establishment choice, Hillary Clinton was. The people of Iowa disagreed. Further, there was only one person you could vote for in the USSR elections, as the communist party was the only one legally allowed. I had the choice of voting between something like 15 candidates for president in CO. Which brings up the next point: the head of the USSR was in fact the General Secretary of the Communist Party and was not elected by the people. Yes, and we still had Iraq war protests. And in the USSR, voicing criticism could actually get you disappeared. It's not for nothing that authors critical of the USSR did not publish their works until either after their deaths or when dissent was more openly allowed. Yes, the US government under Bush had a knack for punishing people who criticized the government, from wiretapping to blowing CIA cover. Not our brightest moment, but nothing like the USSR. This is the case in virtually every government around the world. It goes hand in hand with the centralization of power, and has little to do with whether a country will collapse or not. Really? Did you know we had even greater debt, as a percentage of GDP, right after WWII? Did you know that our debt isn't even the largest in the world as a percentage of GDP?. Look at Japan. Their debt is equal to anywhere from 170-198% of their GDP. Are they anywhere near collapsing? Russia, today, on the other hand, has virtually no debt. How is their economy doing again? The Ukraine is virtually collapsing, and again, they have almost no debt (only 11.7% of GDP).So far, I've only found that the USSR had an external debt of 60 or 144 billion USD when it collapsed. I'm not sure if 144 billion is accounting for inflation. At anyrate, either number is extremely small when compared to the USSR GDP. US external debt today is over 13.6 trillion. In other words, our debt is a lot larger than anything the USSR had, and our debt has been larger for a long time. This is actually a real similarity. Problem is, crumbling infrastructure alone doesn't lead to collapse. And different pieces of infrastructure are in different conditions. We have a pretty decent internet infrastructure in the states. Our roads aren't terrible either. The justice system seems to generally work. Our trains aren't really deteriorating, they're just not prevalent enough, nor have they actually been improved in ages. On the other hand, our bridges, our levees, and our health care are in precarious situations. Why we have elections. Of course, since you think we only have one party, I can see why elections aren't important. And I'll point you to Specter again. He's very in tune with what the people of Pennsylvania think, and he knows his power is predicated on winning an election. So he switched party because most of the people who support him are no longer republicans, but democrats or independents. Yeah, and the USSR had no freedom (actually, legally they did). Russia today still has very little freedom, if you look at the Freedom House reports. We'll have to see what happens with the Patriot Act in the end, but it was partially limited in 2006 (not going far enough thanks to the House). Some of the extended sunsets happen this year, and some, if I understand correctly, have already occurred. But to compare the limits of freedom between the USSR and the US is facile at best. Wait, this is a similarity with the USSR? Do you know we've been suing each other since before the revolution? I don't remember which Brit said it, but it goes something like this "do you really believe that litigious lot can actually band together against us in revolution?". Even then we had a reputation of being extremely litigious to the point of inanity. Seems we've made it for about 300 years while suing the pants of each other. So even if the similarity is true, it's meaningless.Now then, to make this an actual similarity, do you know how many lawsuits were processed per capita in the USSR as compared to the US?

The power has become more centralized in recent years. While I realize that legally other parties are allowed, the system does not allow them. In Canada a new party, the Reform Party sprang up and went on to win 60 seats. They morphed into the Canadian Alliance. In 1991 another totally new party, the Bloq Quebecois was formed and have taken between 38 and 54 seats in elections since their inception. This is a party who promotes Quebec separation. Nothing like this ever happens in the U.S. because the system does not allow it. I didn't know that. I guess I've been listening to the media too much. How about if I change the similarity to "Huge finincial distress?'" Elections have limited meaning in a country the size of the U.S. A small percentage actually vote. The media, political party, and financial support have a great deal to say about who holds the power. That's overstating. They did have freedoms and some areas had quite a lot of them. My point was that both countries had/have decreasing freedoms.

I disagree, the basic reason that 3rd parties don't succeed is that every third party in this country is either far right or far left (ie the Socialist Workers Party)or started by a disgruntled Republican or Democrat (ie George Wallace in 1968)who starts his own party hoping to get enough electoral votes to throw the race into the House of Representatives.

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

And I disagree. Was the Libertarian Party or the Reform Party too far left or too far right prior to being sabotaged from without? Did the Progressive Party of 1892 become centrist enough that their platform was appropriated by the Democratic Party in 1896? Was Theodore Roosevelt too far right or left when he out polled the Republicans in 1912?But most important, was the Republican Party itself too far right or left when they ran as a third party in 1856 only to win a slightly less than 40% plurality in 1860?In this case, I think you need to switch to a less broad paintbrush.

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Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider - Francis BaconThe more we understand particular things, the more we understand God - Spinoza

Talk about overstating. Specifically what freedoms have actually decreased over time in the US? The freedom to enslave and kill blacks, kill American Indians and Mexicans without repercussion, and beat wives and children with impunity? Or would that also include the freedom to harass and even kill homosexuals?Perhaps you mean the freedom to allow Robber Barons to force workers to labor for 12 hours per day, seven days a week? Or maybe the freedom of gangsters to control the alcohol, drug, and prostitution trade (well, in the case of the last two, our precious gangsters still have those freedoms).Perhaps you mean the freedom to disenfranchise minorities and women from the vote.Once again, too big a paintbrush, but in your case it is even worse as you have not sufficiently defined what 'loss of freedom' actually means nor have you taken into account the history of women and minorities in the US.Please go back to the drawing board and define what you mean.

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Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider - Francis BaconThe more we understand particular things, the more we understand God - Spinoza

You know, you were aiming to describe a similarity between the US and USSR on the brink of collapse. Yeah, both have centralized power. So does practically every other European nation, so the similarity (especially in terms of whether we're going to collapse) is facile at best. And that was my point.Increasing centralization does not point us toward collapse. You know, tell that to the republicans. Tell that to ross perot. Tell that to joe lieberman, or bernie sanders (a socialist!). And did you not really read anything I wrote about why we only have two parties? It's not some nefarious scheme by the big two, but the electoral laws set up by our founders. Winner-take-all means you get the whole district, and first-past-the-post means you have to capture the plurality of votes in order to win. So you have to capture the political center, and more than three parties make this really quite difficult.And look at your examples of third parties in Canada. One is definitely regional. The reform party also started as a regional party, and no longer exists (in its Alliance form). In fact, it replaced one of the major party blocks (by forming it's own block), much like the republicans replaced the whigs in the 1850s and 1860s. No, Canada has three main parties, a conservative, a leftist, a liberal. And then there are the separatists. So the system in canada doesn't seem to be favorable to third parties either, but there's a stronger tradition of third party success, perhaps, than in the states.Further, our third parties tend to be absorbed by the big two when they are on the extremes. When they exist somewhere around the middle (like the libertarians) they simply can't effectively compete because while you do have to capture the middle, they only represent about 20% of the total vote. So a moderate third party is never going to win an election unless it can capture the left or right.So the US has a stable two-party system, and we basically have had that since our inception (the first two being the Federalists and Anti-Federalists). Here's the thing: a two party system does not necessarily point down the road of collapse, or else we would have fallen apart a long time ago.And if you really think that one party that supports civil rights is the same as one that doesn't support civil rights, well, not much I can say about that. That's not really true either. The USSR was experiencing the complete and total failure of the planned economy. We're not experiencing the death of capitalism (just how many recessions and depressions has capitalism survived? quite a few). We're experiencing the death (hopefully) of reagonomics, which was bastardized economics to begin with.Anyhow, do you know when the economy really hit the fan in the USSR? When it became the Russian Federation and applied so-called "shock therapy" to its economic system in 1991. And that collapse is far, far worse than anything we're likely to see in the states.Here, the similarity is non-existent between the US and USSR. In our last presidential election, 63% of eligible voters voted. That's the highest it's been since 1960, and the presidential election always draws a higher vote. However, only ~70% of eligible voters are actually registered in the states, and voter turnout generally averages 50-55% of eligible voters. That is not a small percentage of voters.What's the voter turnout like in Canada? Well, from 1960-1995, it averaged 76% when voting for the lower house. Compare this to Sweden's 86% or Austria's 92%. Do you all have a small percentage, then?Another kicker: the voter turnout has been decreasing markedly in the "west" since the 1960s.Do elections matter? Yes. Again, I point you to Obama and Clinton. The establishment had picked Clinton. Yet Obama won the nomination. Funny that. Not an overstatement in the least. You are apparently unfamiliar with the rule of Stalin (certainly the lowest point) or the nearly complete suppression of dissent (although you did allude to this earlier). Here's part of the hypocrisy: the USSR formally had freedom of religion, but they actively persecuted religious belief. So yeah, legally they had quite a few freedoms. In practice, most of those freedoms were non-existent.

That's a misnomer. Yes, the # of federal, state and municipal laws and regulations have increased in the US but the scope and quality of civil freedoms have increased dramatically as well.Back at the founding of this country and for nearly 150 years thereafter only white males with some type of land holdings were able to vote in local and federal elections. African Americans were enslaved. Women were subservient to men. Handicap people if they were lucky to survive their childhoods were placed into asylums and scorned by there communities. Homosexuals were, well I can't really go there, but were treated as bad if not worse than other minorities. KKK and other hate-filled groups and individuals were free to terrorize African Americans and any non-WASPS and at one point included about 15% of the countries WASP population in the 1920's. Need I go on?

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

No but he fits my second point. He decided not to run in 1908 and Taft won, The Republicans nominated Taft in 1912 but Roosevelt had decided to run again. When he didn't get the nomination he started his own party. This split the Republican vote and gave the election to Wilson.

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

Yes, but it is a similarity. When power becomes concentrated in fewer hands with fewer checks and balances mistakes happen more frequently and with greater impact to the country. I'm not saying that you have two parties, but one. Whatever they say they believe, I have noticed no major difference in the way they govern the country. Other parties are not allowed for whatever reason. It's the same with the Liberals and Conservatives in Canada - basically no difference. In Canada, other parties are allowed to spring up and become part of the government if they have the support. In the United States they are not.What exactly do you mean by the "lower house" in Canada? Not yet. I predict that the U.S. will emerge from this current financial crisis with less economic power on the world scale and then decline over the next 20 to 30 years depending on what happens with their wars. The former world powers, Britian and France were removed from their status partially because of the devasting expense of the world wars. U.S. came out financially stronger because they didn't join the wars until the bulk was over and instead made money by selling arms and supplies. If the wars that the U.S. is involved in move to home turf, I predict that the decline will be faster. You said that the U.S.S.R. had "no" freedom. That is an overstatement. Yes, I am familiar with the Stalin purges as many of my relatives were taken away or shot during that time. Since then, however, there have been many freedoms. Even in the 80's when we visited relatives there my great aunt went to church regularly. In one city we saw a church group take a government bus to a very large established church. We were free to wander the cities, take taxis where we wanted and be safe from theft or violent crimes. We were travelling with Americans on an American tour. Obama is a blip on the graph of voter turnout in the last 50 years. The current electoral system in the U.S. is of limited value because there are too many people who feel they don't make a difference with their vote.

And everything out there points to this being false. If you haven't noticed a substantive difference between the way Obama governs compared to Bush, or Bush compared to Clinton, or Nancy Pelosi compared to Trent Lott, or Harry Reid compared to Bill Frist, then you haven't been paying attention. You guys have a senate, right? That's the upper house. You guys have a house of commons, right? That's the lower house. Um, okay?By World War I, the US had already eclipsed the economies of France, Great Britain, or Germany (then the largest european economy). And yes, we entered late, but that had little to do with strengthening our financial situation. More accurately, everyone else was worse off than in the beginning.In WWII, the bulk of the fighting was not finished before the US entered. Unless you think someone else carried out the pacific front against Japan, or carried out the successful amphibious invasions of Africa and Europe? At any rate, the only reason we came out in such good shape was because we had bombed everything in France and Germany under German control.We didn't make great amounts of money selling weapons and supplies to the Entente and Allied forces in WWI and WWII, and that's certainly not what put us at the top.So we were at the top, economically, by the Great Depression. We proceeded to lose 1/4 of our economic size. But the thing about the great depression (and this recession) is that it wasn't just the US, but everybody who declined (or grew more slowly, such as China in 2008). We lost 1/4 of our economy and managed to rebound. And the problems then were much more severe than they are now.As to our coming economic decline, you do realize the US economy makes up roughly 1/5-1/4 of the world economy? The only economic unit that has reached parity is the EU. The next one? Japan or China (Japan by GDP, China by PPP) contribute ~8% to the world economy. China has to at least triple its current economy to reach parity with the US and EU as of now. And since the US and EU economies won't stop growing in the long run, it's going to be a while before there is an economic power our size. A lot longer than 20-30 years.Assuming a constant growth of 2% over 25 years, the US economy will be 23.3 trillion dollars.Assuming a constant growth of 8% over 25 years, the Chinese economy will be 30 trillion dollars.Of course, the caveats here are whether US economic growth will be so anemic, and whether China can actually sustain such a blistering pace. So I personally don't think that the US is going to experience any kind of absolute economic decline, and given that China maintaining it's current growth rate is unrealistic, it's going to be longer than 20-30 years before we see parity reached.Do you honestly see the Iraq or Afghanistan wars moving to the US? How? I think that kind of says everything. Try again. 2004 had a very high turnout. By one measure (which is actually inaccurate), 2008 had a voter turnout of 56.8%, 2004 had 55.3%, 2000 had 51.3%, 1996 had 49.1%, and 1992 had 55.1%. So voter turnout has actually been increasing since 1996, and the turnout is high when the elections are decidedly important. The US has an average voter turnout, not a low voter turnout.What's a low voter turnout? Try when only 37% of the voting age population turns out to elect representative and senators. But we always have less people vote in off-year elections.At any rate, Putin was elected with something like 95% of eligible voters casting a ballot. What's more important is not how many people turn out, but whether they are free and fair, and in the US, excepting a few cases, they are.Elections matter. Just because people don't vote doesn't mean that's not the case.

What's up Kuresu, We have neither one party or two parties with centralized power, we have one class with centralized power. And that class is no different whether it's democrat or republican. They are out for themselves, thier gain and their interests.What you will NEVER see is a "party" run by the Middle Class. A workers union perhaps, or something to that effect. The middle class will NEVER be in charge.The party part is the illusional part, the part that gives false hope. Nothing is going to change in the overall manner in which this country is run. Perhaps you can point to the differences in the way they run the government. Because honestly I don't see any overall differences from Obama. Maybe a few of the Bush methods that were expossed in the media, since the public did become aware of them, have now changed but not much else. And not much else will change. It will be guilded by special interest groups and upper class necessity, as it's always been run.Having said that though, the US isn't going anywhere, for a long, long, long time as a global super power. Our military is the greatest in the world and that is probably the only factor that needs to be looked at. [ABE] Everything else can be controled through propaganda methods.- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

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"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

How does one become a member of this class?On what basis does this class exclude or include such that it is itself definable as a "class"? Is Obama a member of the upper class? If so how did he become a member of this class?Or is this class working independently of him? Military supremacy will get you so far (possibly quite far) but economics and the political appetite (both of the "ruling classes" and the populace) for more potentially long drawn out and "unwinnable" conflicts will be a significant factor as well. In my opinion.

Of the ruling class or simply the class itself?If it's the latter, simple, become wealthy.If it's the former, then become wealthy and use political pressure to ensure more financial gain for yourself and your interests. More specifically, affiliate yourself with one of the two political "parties", doesn't matter which of the two you may just have to shift where your investments are, and lobby them to gain for yourself. The ruling upper class excludes on the basis of common interets. Share in the interests and doors will open, have different interests, like say socializing medicine in the US and going against big business, and you are excluded.Other exclusions could be in the form of media control. Resticting you and what information they'll allow you to tell the general public. We will see. Honestly, Straggler, he was marketed so well that no one knows yet.Obviously if you are just looking at tax brackets he is in the upper class, but is he in the ruling class? Well, that gets a little difficlut with him specifically. Because of his back ground and color and shit like that. Likewise, if say a millionare hispanic becomes president, who was poor, it gets difficult to place them in those catagories.But, that was the beauty of being able to market Obama, you can, and they did, make him look like the every day guy. Just one of us. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't, time will tell. This ruling class works independently of all government bodies. Government is used for their benefit, that is why either party will due, you may just have to shift around where you invest. Since war seems to "give life" back to a struggling economy, because the ruling class makes money from it, and also seems to need political support, I think war and conflicts sustain ecomnomies and political parties. With some balancing needing to be done, Like switching from one puppet(Bush) to a more appealing puppet(Obama). But we can agree, and visually see, that the conflict remains, yes?That little puppet show re-generates economies and uplifts peoples spirits and trust in the government again, both state side and globaly. So those things can be controled with propaganda strategies, however, once you are able to do that and maintain it, having one badass military shuts everyone up at that point.- Oni

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"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

I don't wholly disagree regarding a largely unassailable "ruling class". But your position seems to be a little too conspiracy-theory-like for my totla agreement. Becoming wealthy is not the be all and end all to power. There are a significant number (if minority) of wealthy who disagree with government policies.If taxes are higher for the wealthiest is that because the wealthiest think this is right? Well the two main political parties in the US (and Britian) do have their hardcore followers. This is presumably because the parties involved do have some sort of "principled" foundation that remains relatively constant regardless of particular administrations. No? Well would a pro-freedom of information government policy negate such fears? Or do you think that as likely as turkeys voting for Christmas? If the overall economy of the US is significantly injured by ongoing and expensive conflicts in the long term then even the ruling classes will suffer. The ruling class of the US (or even the Western world) is dependant on the financial supremacy of the US (or the Western world).Short term gains of the sort you speak about will be nullified by any shift of overall economic power. Such a shift is a realistic result of the current economic crisis.Shooting oneself in the foot....I suppose is the closest anaolgy. OK. But the next time US interests are arguably compromised by foreign activities who realistically will have the audacity to advocate that US military intervention is the obvious answer given recent military experiences, the current economic climate and the very likely world political opposition?These things are relevant even if not decisive.