[How about this book] Behind abundance, hunger and quick riches over labor: Seeing the 'true face of America'

Food Insecurity 23%, Unemployment Rate 21%, Manufacturing 11%
How Former Soviet Citizens View the US... and Signs of Decline
Labor Value Ignored, Only Unrealistic Desires Grow

A country where 22.7% of households felt food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic, unable to feed their children adequately, and where the U-6 unemployment rate, including those who gave up job searching and part-time workers, reached 21.2%. A country where manufacturing accounted for only 11% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020, and 5 million manufacturing jobs have disappeared since 2000. A country where young people aged 19 to 33 most avoid jobs in manufacturing.

This is the current state of the United States as depicted in All Empires Fall. The author, Andrei Martyanov, is a former Soviet. Born in 1963 in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, he served as an officer in the Soviet Coast Guard until 1990 and is an expert on Russian military and naval affairs. The original title of the book is Disintegration: Indicators of the Coming American Collapse, published in the United States in 2021.

The author witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union in his late twenties. He immigrated to the United States in the mid-1990s when the liberal camp’s sense of victory was at its peak. After living in American society for over 20 years, his conclusion is that the American empire is collapsing more dramatically than the former Soviet Union. He points out that the United States is self-destructing internally, unlike the Soviet Union, which fell due to external factors.

[How about this book] Behind abundance, hunger and quick riches over labor: Seeing the 'true face of America'

The United States is the most materially affluent country in the world, yet paradoxically, it is also a country with significant fear of hunger. The previously mentioned 22.7% of households experiencing food insecurity reflects the special circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, but even in a 2018 survey before the pandemic, 11.1% of households reported feeling food insecurity.

As manufacturing, which accounted for 25% of GDP in the 1960s, declined, the United States became a financial capitalism country. The so-called FIRE (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) economic structure dominates. The author criticizes this as a form of financial parasitism that kills its host. The value of diligent labor was ignored, and the illusory desire for quick riches grew like a poisonous mushroom. The elites leading the country were ignorant and incompetent. The author harshly criticizes former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

In 2000, the United States passed the China Trade Bill, granting China most-favored-nation status. At the time, President Clinton declared it a historic step toward America’s continued prosperity, China’s reform, and world peace. However, the author directly calls that speech the most ignorant and foolish statement regarding U.S. foreign economic policy. The original purpose of the China Trade Bill was to secure a huge market in China for American agricultural exports. Instead, it became a trigger for the decline of American manufacturing. China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 was also thanks to the Clinton administration. The author points out that these measures ultimately allowed China to emerge as a competitor to the United States.

Similar views are raised within the United States. The Council on Foreign Relations analyzed in 2021 that China’s economy has grown eightfold since 2001 and lifted 400 million people out of absolute poverty. The author calls former President Clinton the “outsourcer in chief,” criticizing him as a prime example of the disease afflicting the entire American ruling class: bluster. He also points out that Clinton’s tenure marked the starting point when the United States, without real capability, arrogantly claimed global hegemony.

Regarding former Secretary of State Kissinger, the author criticizes his geopolitical statements as clich?d. Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor and considered one of America’s greatest intellects, is evaluated as merely a white-collar theorist who wrote his doctoral dissertation at Harvard focusing on Soviet issues and was completely lost in the complex world of intertwined economic and military problems.

The author also criticizes viewing the world solely through the lens of major American media such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. In March 2020, OPEC+ member countries failed to agree on oil production targets. At that time, American and European media flooded with analyses blaming the breakdown on a power struggle between Russia and Saudi Arabia. However, the author argues this was a complete misjudgment reflecting the narrow perspective of Western media, analyzing that Russia was targeting American shale oil companies. Saudi Arabia eventually agreed to increase production as Russia intended. Subsequently, oil prices fell, leading to bankruptcies among American shale companies, whose production costs were higher than those of Russia or Saudi Arabia.

The author claims that true intellect cannot be felt in American media such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Although somewhat narrow in perspective, this makes the author’s arguments feel refreshingly original. We, too, have relied on the perspectives of American and European media to understand international affairs, which from the author’s viewpoint may have been narrow. Criticism of America’s decline has been raised for quite some time, especially since the 2008 global financial crisis, with persistent claims that the era of dollar hegemony would end. Of course, the reality remains the era of dollar hegemony. The new perspective this book offers is expected to help broaden understanding of the world.