I thought I'd published this list a while back! I'm writing this now as a placekeeper to refer back to.
I've written many blog posts on some of these 8 root causes. To salvage whatever is left of the American state we will need to address each of them.
Our collapse accelerated after the fall of the Soviet Union, but the rural decline component began over a century ago.
- Automation / Globalization / AI? -> no middle-class bourgeois lifestyle for non-elite
- Rural collapse (esp US)
- Corruption (governmental, corporate, non-profit)
- Wealth and power concentration and the oligarchy (Citizens United)
- Collapse of journalism business model
- Regulatory ratchet (career-ending to remove, path dependency)
- American societal response to the rise of women
- Capture of the GOP by the MAGA powered by LIV exploitation
Climate change is not on the list because it's a global crisis worsened by American collapse, but it's not contributor to our fall. AI is only on tentatively, as a component of the "gentrification of work". Housing doesn't get a separate entry because I think of it as the work/talent-demand problem. Likewise white tribalism, including deep fear of demographic shift, is best addressed (I think) by addressing all of these 8 contributors.
American salvage is my term for what comes next. We will never return to the Obama era or even the Clinton era. If we recover we'll be a different nation.
