Basic elements of a modern nation-state

 This is an interesting question with many ways to expand it, and I won’t go far into that. I liked reading Toynbee’s ‘A Study of History’ with the S/R or challenge-response paradigm concerning the development of civilization and the stage it goes through (about four) as part of a cycle of civilization. There are many other theories though- too many to sort through the best for simple answers for a course question unless one knows what they are looking for.

Toynbee believed (among other ideas) that a creative minority stimulates the existence and culture of a state and the uncreative majority follows those values. If the creative minority of founders fades away the uncreative majority’s ideas and culture may evolve obsolescence.

The main point of a modern state seems to be that of a common culture promoted by the state. The U.S. government in the past few decades seems have put some effort into dissolving that common culture in preference for multiculturalism- and that seems apropos of the Universal phase of a civilization aka globalism.

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldhistory/chapter/introduction-to-nation-states/

One may of course discount that point about culture and place the being of a modern state in institutions, financial structures and laws. Developing nations famously tend to lack adequate non-governmental institutions or to have weak ones. Consider the value of Universal free public education to the intellectual capital of a modern nation-state and the perpetuating poverty of nations with weak educational institutions.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2017/07/26/why-developing-countries-get-stuck-with-weak-institutions-and-how-foreign-actors-can-help/

Some may believe that the world culture is a modern nation-state that has transcended national boundaries. The heterodox global financial structure might support that thesis.

The U.S.A. as a superpower might not be in decline yet morality may be

 Probably the U.S.A. isn’t in decline, except in the sense that the entire world is in environmental decline because of overuse of resources and a population of 8 billion that want a higher standard of living preponderantly that requires more use of resources.

One could argue that the nation is in moral decline, yet if the majority are actually immoral there aren’t enough people to convince them, as they might believe it requires a majority vote.

In my opinion the Augustinian paradigm of original sin and complete human depravity of nature may be that humans have no good about them except as goodness is a reflection of God. A decline in morality would then coincide with a decline of faith and quantitative eclipse of spirit

Science and technology can increase well being yet human character may use it badly to harm people and the ecosphere.

The U.S.A. isn't a business partner

 I would add to the pile of comments that the U.S. (a nation) isn’t a partner of anything. The U.S. government has some contracts with foreign entities and those are about as good as those of any other nation that pays off its contracts. The first U.S. president- George Washington, warned in his farewell address about making any permanent foreign alliances. Staying out of those permanent foreign agreements is a useful way to remain nationally sovereign and free. If the U.S.A. cannot make good ecological economic policy domestically for example, it cannot do so with high-sounding international agreements that pass the buck in some respects beyond the borders, sound grand and accomplish little that isn’t reversible by another administration.

Large U.S. corporations are a tip of the iceberg of global corporations that are multinational and owned by the 1% on the planet. When they are listed publicly on stock exchanges even if they are based in the U.S.A. about anyone might own them.

Governments including that of the U.S.A. tend not to be good partners- bureaucrats aren’t as good at business as the private sector. It is a terrible idea in some ways to even consider the U.S. government as having foreign ‘partners’ influencing or levering its sovereignty. That would be some sort of crass corporatism more suitable for communist China that is a big brother so far as it can be in anyone’s business, if I understand that development correctly, and I may not.

Adapting economics to prevent Covid 19 virus mutations would be useful

As I understand it, virus mutations occur more with a greater pool of infected people. Therefore the newer and possibly more lethal variants are of great concern since it takes a year or more to develop a resistant vaccine. Increasing the rate of spread of the virus can promote the opportunity for viral mutations to occur.

Economics is a different topic. Of course its necessary to develop an economics program that can function in a viral contaminated social environment until the virus is nearly entirely eradicated. Loosening restrictions early could be compared to taking a cast off a broken leg too early even though one wants to go jogging. Political leadership that isn’t capable of tailoring an economy to work with virus out there demonstrates the lack of creative thought in politics i.m.o. One cannot morally just say the heck with those that will die from Covid and proceed recklessly without moving into a fascist mode, and there are of course some that are happy with that. In the movie 1900 Mussolini drives over a guy injured in the road and keeps on going untroubled. I suggested adapting Halloween masks for full face coverings so people could work and travel more safely in a contaminated environment. When I was an Army reservist I learned the method of firing a rifle while wearing a chemical mask accurately- it requires some adaptation over normal procedures. Adapting economic procedures too-change is difficult for organizations and establishments that are indignant about it. The results of failing to do so can be fatal for some.

 Dr. Fauci at least seems to believe that wearing masks is a good idea. As states loosen restrictions and variants spread, Fauci warns that the U.S. could be headed for yet another virus spike.

What the USA today would be like if the Berlin Wall had fallen in the other direction

 Great question that would require an alternative history novel to explore meaningfully.

The reason for a collapse of the west and the U.S.A. would have been financial, for that is the main point people bring out about the value of democracy these days. The economy was in something of a shambles after the Vietnam War yet it wasn’t terminally dire. If Hinkley had killed Ronald Reagan instead of wounding him maybe the supply side massive tax cuts and deficit spending wouldn’t have happened and the economy would have deflated.

A George Bush I administration wouldn’t have had Reagan’s ideas about getting rid of nuclear weapons at all- that idea and the ‘tear down this wall’ speech were entirely Ronald’s. Maybe the F.S.U. would have invented a cure for cancer and Yuri Andropov would have remained leader of the C.P.S.U. and not have died of lung cancer before mentoring the soft-on-capitalism Gorbachev.

With Andropov at the help of the Soviet Union during the critical 1980s Soviets might have invented a commie red shave cream that was the best stuff ever made for cold weather shaves heating right out of the can on exposure to air and the prestige of the stuff coupled with the decline of western economics would have brought more investors in the Soviet Union from Wall Street traders looking for a deal.

Gorbachev as a pupil of Andropov might have developed a theory about tolerating capitalist investment in the Soviet economy and given bargains to a flock of investors defecting with their money to build their prompting a run on the dollar and rise of the ruble.

The United States then would have withdrawn its military from western Europe and given them jobs making the U.S. capitol secure digging a moat around it to prevent looters and rioters from taking all of the good furniture during the final phase of decline when apartments with a view of Central Park in New York went for a fraction of the cost of new dachas in Venezuela and Siberia.

Today, if the wall had fallen the other direction., China would be expanding with Gorbachev’s mixed economy and CEOs and the U.S. government would be developing corporatism globally to build a brave new world order with benevolent plutocrats from the west and the former communist party leadership of the F.S.U. finding ways to improve the U.S. National Basketball Association and unfairly try to harm the L.A. Lakers chances of repeating as N.B.A. champions.

In reply to 'How much better off would the U.S.A. be if it were communist'

 A great question that deserves a poet’s answer. I can’t claim to be a poet- yet if I were living in a communist U.S.A. quite likely each book of poetry I wrote would generate tens of thousands of dollars of revenue. If one were on a different planet far, far away yet with a fine telescope and bugs able to surveil the Earth system the changes would be interesting to observe.

Maybe free enterprise would die and marvelous bureaucrats could appear with wisdom and leadership that would get all Americans to follow their condescending tweets. Twitter and Facebook could feature the President for life’s ideas and instead of a federal stimulus check the people could be given a little red book with the leader’s thoughts. Then they could become better servants of Chairman Moloch who is the head of Health and Human Services.

When one passes over beyond the great divide everything of the world is completely lost and as meaningless as if it never existed. When things on Earth are bad, that is good- a built in firewall against wickedness that even Shannon Entropy reversals would have a difficult time in defeating. Everyone in the communist utopia would have transceiver chips installed so they could continuously receive broadcast media condition for happiness and updates 24/7.

About the idea of making all nations the same size

 When great powers have redrawn borders and created nations disrupting the tribal-ethnic character of residents as well as tossing in all kinds of antipathetic religious and economic elements in has tended to produce results akin to placing, large hostile cats in a bag. Wars of succession that eliminate stable leadership have had similar effects.

Africa and the Middle East have suffered more than a little from that kind of experience. Even the trans-Atlantic slave trade was stimulated by the disruptions following the fall of the Songhai empire and chaos in N.W. Africa and the Sahel with the capture and sale of humans ensuing to replace lost economic products like gold.

The U.S. Military- stronger during Ike or J.F.K. admin

The answer is fairly simple with two basic ways to interpret it I would think. One is to regard the meaning of ‘powerful’ as a physics and structure equation, In my opinion U.S. military power tends to evolve with advancing weapons designs and therefore during J.F.K.’s administration there were more nuclear weapons and better technology than before.

The second way to regard powerful is the overall effectiveness of the force. In that case I would say that Dwight Eisenhower had a more powerful military because of his leadership. An example can be found in a video of the Songhai empire of Africa and its history, leadership etc. They had a couple of great rulers and one that was quite wicked slaughtering people without need because he seemed to be inclined to do so and didn’t differentiate between civilians and military. One general and reformer with some wisdom named Askia Muhammed rose to power and defeated a larger army in battle once simply because he was a more experienced leader.

Nineteen Twenties and Thirties Isolationist Sentiment in the U.S.A.?

 There may have been some sentiment in the pre-W.W. II U.S.A. to stay out of European problems, conflicts and social diseases. Britain after all had burned down the U.S. capital in 1812 and the Franco-Prussian war of 1874 was no great thing.

The United States had numerous post-civil war reconstruction problems. Intervention in the First World War had created much turmoil. The United States had plenty of work to do in its own space such as building, roads, electrification, dams and so forth. It was a busy time of great post-war expansion that became a bubble that crashed leading to the depression.

As Americans had spent money bailing Europe out of the vast diagonal trench war by joining on the pile of soldiers and artillery that forced Germany to accept an armistice and levied a bill for damages on them (that in part was a motivation for the second round) they spent the 1920′s chasing national progress. That was followed by the depression. Some Americans made clothing out of gunnysacks (large burlap bags to hold potatoes) and sought work.

A former French Chancellor- Clemenceau predicted that when the allies did not guarantee the peace after the First War that the second war would develop and he turned out to be right. American investors felt that building up German industrialization perhaps an I.B.M. or Henry Ford are examples. was a better idea than entering into more military agreements.

It is somewhat doubtful that in the 1920s Calvin Coolidge or Herbert Hoover would have had the international political skill and military power (the United States wasn’t yet a Super power militarily and had no A-bomb up its sleeve) to keep Europe pacified while containing the extreme communist threat from the Soviet Union. In fact the Soviet Union’s emergency into existence during the First World War when Germany beat up the Tsar’s military pretty readily leading to the revolution and Red revolution of 1917 gave the United States a fair reason to reinforce Germany on the right to defrappe the Red threat from the east.

I also suspect that the rich of the gilded age were somewhat sympathetic to the deposed German royalty that were booted out in the German revolution at the end of the first war. The United States had actually sent some military forces to support the white army battling the reds during the Russian revolution - about 2000, and that hadn’t worked out well.

In order to keep things strait U.S. politicians developed a long range policy of being against Reds and Russians that continued to the present. That single attitude makes it easier for U.S. leaders to know how to play their roles without knowing much about international affairs.

In my opinion the U.S.A. wasn’t very isolated in the 20s and 30s. Jet aircraft didn’t exist and even Pan Am hadn’t started trans-Atlantic flights. People that had immigrated here or were descended from immigrants usually hadn’t the money to afford to tour Europe via cruise ship and then return home to the little house on the prairie. The rich however did travel to Europe a lot. Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Europe maybe 30 times before he turned 18 and that probably helped him manage the Second World War better than if he had just rowed up and down the Hudson River on some kind of rowing team when not driving a taxi.

One result of the chaos in Europe was the decision to limit immigration from Eastern Europe where it was believed many anarchists lived who might bring anarchy and communism to the U.S.A. Because the rich were running government then, as now, the red danger from Eastern Eurasia decisively prevented some immigrants from spending their lives breathing the air of freedom that exists some places west of the east coast, or did then, before pollution expanded from automobiles a lot in urban areas of the as as far as Los Angeles.

Why the decrease in freedom

 The greater the population density the more people there are that can adversely impact one’s ‘freedom’. With the profusion and acceleration of technological developments more people can organize more efficiently to oppress others. Organizations have more surveillance and tracking capability each year, and every dollar one spends can be tracked as well as cars, conversation etc. Global media and spy agencies, government officials and the curious get into everyone’s private space apparently so much as they like. Public education conditions students to think in accord with political correctness preferred by the ruling class.

With a limited area that is the Earth for people to live in, exploit and try to control in some ways with governance, free ranges of motion may continue to decrease for some, in some ways, while increasing for others, in some ways. President Biden recently referred to those states loosening Covid 19 mask wearing and public spacing as ‘Neanderthals’ (who presumably would not understand what germs and airborne pathogens are or how to defend against them). Does mandatory masking wearing impact freedom? In some ways it does, in other ways it doesn’t. If one asked some people not to use talcum powder riding public buses because it makes some people sneeze, they might be offended and cry havoc about attacks on their freedom.

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2021/democracy-under-siege

One could move on to the subject of what is freedom and then determine if that can be quantified and if the amount of it is increasing, decreasing or stable. Regulating people so they don’t drive their environment-tramping vehicles into storefronts or throw people out of the good seats at the basketball game that they didn’t pay for impacts things. I wonder if there is some sort of coefficient between population density and freedom that isn’t environmentally determined that also effects the level of skill specialization possible.

A commune with all things equal for everyone would have a kind of freedom that would not exist in a society based on individual rights and political self determination, strong border security, private property and private business, and the latter would have freedom to be exclusive and develop their own ideas and inventions/products etc that would be lacking in a herd of animals without private property, private space or individual rights.

I don’t wish to take swipes and forced free to be the same as everyone else communes here Instead i wonder if demographics won’t drive the two polar opposites toward some sort of balance given the world population continues to increase and the environmental health continues to decline.

Concentrating wealth and networks of production, distribution and communications globally seems to be the inevitable result of transistors and miniaturization that occurred since the mid-20th century. Maybe leadership more like Casey Stengel or Yogi Berra with degrees in environmental economics, philosophy and a load of common sense and dead reckoning will fix the world if we are lucky.