Volume 5, Issue 51
Since the 1700s, the affairs of nation-states, and the quest for peaceful co-existence has depended upon the ebb and flow of the pressure of society’s economic demands coupled with the interest of the current political power structure to maintain its control. Prior to 1776, the king determined his needs, and the citizen subjects sacrificed to meet those needs. Because of the beginnings of expanded world trade, the age of kings as a prevalent political system was fading. In 1776, the United States of America declared independence from the king’s rule of England. Colonialization was less available to European kings to pay for their inefficient economic systems. This Declaration of Independence started in motion the interlace of politics and economics in the world.
In the early 1800s, trade, and then finance, changed and developed into a more complicated protocol of geopolitical and economic foreign policy. Alliances were no longer just military, they also involved trade and security. These new alignments based on government political decisions were in reaction largely to economic forces.
The United States traded with Europe by regional necessity, influenced by these new alliances. Because of political decisions denying African-Americans equal rights, the North and South in America pursued political policy based upon their economic priorities, facilitated by international trade.
To reconcile these economic geopolitical differences in the United States, a great Civil War was fought.
In the years following the Civil War, the United States continued to be a major trading and financial component of European economic development. At the turn of the 19th century, an intervening economic force changed the world’s political and economic structure dramatically. It was the Industrial Revolution. Great Britain transformed its colonial network into the British Empire. Again, political decisions and alliances changed.
The United States, because of its free enterprise individual empowerment economic system, became a major market force. In Europe, kingdoms losing ground to economic transformation, yielded to war rather than reform the royal power structure. The result was World War I.
Again, political decisions exacerbated the situation. Rather than recognize the need for free trade and free association, the winning powers attempted to maintain control of their own power structure without consideration for the outcome of the subjection of those defeated.
This resulted in unchecked economic proliferation in the United States, leading to the Roaring 20s, and ultimately, the Great Depression. Desperate economic times in the 1930s gave rise to a political despot who provided an economic answer to the German people.
World War II ensued!
Following World War II, the final remnant of the influence of all ruling kings dissipated. A new world order, politically and economically, was established. The Bretton Woods Conference reset and recalibrated the world’s financial system. The dollar replaced the British pound as the world’s secondary currency. A new era of globalization had begun. By 1974, globalization was applying pressure to wages in the United States. That pressure continues today.
Just like world realignment in and around World War I, nation-states struggle to survive transformation. The establishment holding on to political power rather than allowing citizens to find their place in the in the equilibrium of freedom is the consequence. The Korean War, the Vietnam War, and ongoing wars in the Middle East, are vestiges of power steeped in cultural historical foundations. Tribal blood lines are the imperative making transition to economic reality impossible.
The world is now at the apex of global economic order restructuring.
The United States is leading the world in the 21st century through a new era of societal transformation. America is the only country based culturally on freedom of the individual. The government is secondary in importance. The premise that birth is not destiny is not only revolutionary, but a direct threat to establishment structure. For each individual’s freedom to pursue happiness as he or she sees fit, is emblematic of economic efficiency, and therefore, prosperity. The world now finds itself thirsting for leadership, leadership that does not demand that the individual sacrifice for the good of the state.
In this ongoing evolution of the historical development of the world’s economic order, the economic structure established at Bretton Woods has now entrenched the United States as not only the leader of the free world, but the only hope for the maintenance of a fully integrated world economic system leading to prosperity.
The dollar is now the world’s primary currency. The United States Federal Reserve is the world’s Federal Reserve. There are 191 countries recognized by the United Nations. Only two hold their economic destiny in their government’s hands – the United States and China. Russia is a political player, but only as it leverages itself against the two great economic powers. Russia influences a former Soviet Union client-state system. But they still must rely upon the United States or China for economic support.
The United States leads the free world-free trade economic geopolitical system. China is attempting to establish a communist economic system centered on the Pacific Rim. The two systems cannot be reconciled. The two currencies of the dollar and the yuan cannot be freely exchanged.
Why?
Because the United States’ system is based on the demands of individuals. The communist system is based on the demands of the government. One only has to ask the question, if China’s economy is so powerful, why doesn’t anybody want to possess yuans? Why does China have to regulate and restrict the flow of dollars out of their country?
China is now doubling down on what President Xi terms “Chinese socialism.” They can only succeed if the entire world collapses into a socialistic system. The Chinese geopolitical economic foreign policy is not to destroy the United States. This is not the same cold war of the Soviet Union’s propaganda. Chinese economic policy is based on survival. Culturally, they literally do not know how to reform. They are standing on the premise that communism can work economically if it is only big enough.
Yesterday, President Trump delivered a foreign policy speech outlining a new protocol for national security. He stated that China and Russia have economic goals in opposition to the United States. He pledged that every strategic foreign policy decision of the United States, including trade, would be based on the national security interests of the United States. It was a speech that may go down in history as a benchmark. Geopolitical economic policy has become critical to the foreign policy of the United States. In addition, it must be realized that United States foreign policy is also critical to the freedom and prosperity of the world.
In this season of identity politics wherein the national debate appears to be centered only on who we are by tribes, and never who we are as a country, remember that the rest of the world yearns for deliverance from oppression. The United States of America is the world’s only hope.
As we enter into this week of Christmas, reflect and ponder the blessing of being a citizen of a country that has in its hands the control of its own destiny and the future hope of the world. A country forged in its fibers by the simple concept that freedom and free will is the essence of life. And in this time of reflection, consider what the identity of America as a nation-state must be to all those in the world looking for leadership for a better life.
Nation-states will continue, without acquiescence, to be impacted by the interlace of politics and economics. Government policy, led by the United States supporting an alliance of free enterprise nations, is paramount.
Each of us must forget the blood of tribes and concentrate on eternal principles.
This should be our Advent reflection. This should be our prayer.
My name is Marc Nuttle and this is what I believe.
What do you believe?