I guess my question is who gave the Americans the right? I say this as an American. But would not the world be a better place if we just minded our own business and quit nation building and stoking non existant fires?
After world war two, Europe was busy putting itself back together. It left an opening that the US stepped into. And who wouldn’t like to be the big dog in the yard.
Pretty much this. Up to that point, it was Britain and a few other European nations that were doing all the management* in various places in the world. After WWII, they realised: “You know what, we’re tired and worn out and everyone wants us out anyway. We’re going low energy to rebuild at home. Someone else can step in if they want.”
* a.k.a. “Colonialism”. Management is an odd choice of synonym I grant you, but once you’ve got a colony, it’s in your interests to run things in good order. Until the locals rightfully kick you out, that is.
After WWII, they realised: “You know what, we’re tired and worn out and everyone wants us out anyway
This is a very naive understanding of the history of decolonisation. Decolonisation wasn’t a western initiative, it was done because the colonies were literally rebelling against their European oppressors, great part of that through Soviet funding and arming.
Someone else can step in if they want.
…unless they oppose western control of the region like Patrice Lumumba, Fidel Castro or Mosaddeq.
This is also an oversimplification.
Colonies were always rebelling. The main issue that led to decolonisation was that there was no longer the resources required to maintain these big empires.
Coal was more expensive, troops were more expensive, everything now cost too much to maintain.
It’s the end phase of every empire.
They (the USA) got to be the big dog, protecting us in europe, and we let them the hard & soft power. Everyone was happy (in the US and Europe) until americans started to believe their own hype that thay are in fact better than other people, and thus the breakup began.
It’s not over just yet with the usa supremacy but trump fucked things up so bad that IMO ten years from now the world will be a different place.
protecting us in europe
Protecting Europe from what exactly? What military threat did the US fight against in Europe? There hasn’t been an attack to western Europe since WW2 until the US bombing of Yugoslavia.
You can’t be this dense right?
Against the URSS 🙄
Edit: BTW URSS = USSR = CCCP before any homeschooled troll tries to be smart.
Against the ones who saved Europe from Nazism?
Lol nice try
What on Earth are you talking about? My country, Spain, only received weapons and military aid against fascism from the USSR years before WW2 started, during the Spanish civil war. The Soviet Union was the most antifascist state in Europe, and I wish my country would have been next to the Soviets so that we wouldn’t have endured almost 40 years of fascist regime.
Sure, just forget about Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, and so on and on and on.
The soviet union teamed up with the nazis and started the second world war, check out the molotov ribentrop act.
Also: why chose between two bad things, Franco and the USSR when you can aim for the free world? Are you unhappy i the EU?
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The USSR that invaded east Europe.
The USSR that saved Eastern Europe from the almost complete genocide of Slav “untermenschen” according to Nazi genocidal plans such as Generalplan Ost, at the tremendous cost of 27 million deaths of Soviet citizens in the brave struggle against Nazis.
And it did so by means of rape and genocide. Our Soviet aligned government took 2 years to get rid of an epidemic of syphilis after they were through.
It was just another conquering imperialistic power
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis
Took 10 years until 1956
Pretty much when the US was the only super power to survive WWII unscathed.
Also, having developed atomic hellfire, and the will to use it (twice), kinda makes you the big kid on the playground.
This right here. The US was isolationist prior to WWII but then got attacked and drawn in to active war.
Since the mainland of US was untouched by war directly, and industry boomed post depression and during the war they came out of it better off than Europe, which had a lot of rebuilding to do.
As a result of the war and the need for defense they established bases all across the globe and for the last 80-90 years as the political system grew more corrupt the increase of American hegemony followed.
The US was isolationist prior to WWII
South America wants to have a word with you.
They love to take credit for WWII while completely ignoring the part Canada played
Many countries played an important role, not just Canada. And no, not all of us take credit for it.
Canada’s role is adequately acknowledged, our Nederland brothers send flowers every year
The US taking credit at all in Europe is silly but they did help with the Japanese theatre
There will always be a Nederland Canada bromance.
Because people in power only want one thing - more power. They only fear one thing - loosing power.
*Losing
There are privileges to being an empire and the capitalists in the US continue to use that empire to get access to those privileges. Favorable trade, commercial, and financing terms are a big one.
Also the US war industry pushes the country to intervene. You can see how there are interventionist and isolationist movements in the US fighting right now over how much the US gets directly involved in Iran-Israel.
It’s not about USA, it’s about (powerful) countries in general. China, USA, more restricted also Russia, Iran, … If someone has power (or wants to have it looks on North Korea) they also want to keep it.
They want more power, they don’t just want to keep it. I don’t get it, isn’t it absolutely exhausting?
What exactly has China done militarily over the past 45 years that leads you to compare it to the US? China is predominantly a peaceful world power which hasn’t invaded any country over the past half a century.
Also definitely not genocidal. /s
Nor threatening any country.
Huh? China isn’t genocidal, what are you talking about?
lol
Because it’s an empire. Everything else is clever marketing.
I want Finland to rule the world.
I also want that, but only for the future generations to know that “we were Finnished”
The last time Finland invaded a nation, they did it together with the Nazis. I don’t think you want Finland to rule the world.
It was either surrender to Soviet Union (legendary dicks) or ally with Nazis (had no reason to stay and conquer us). We picked the lesser evil.
If “the lesser evil” to you are nazis, you’re a nazi
If the lesser evil would’ve been Soviet Union, we would’ve been a) communists and b) not independent anymore.
You famously lost the war, and you’re still an independent nation. Finland obtained independence in 1917 because of the communists, namely the Bolshevik constitution, allowing for the first time in human history the right of self-determination and secession. If it hadn’t been for the communist you’d be a province of Russia.
a large part of finland is a province of russia. Karelia belongs the the finns.
Have you asked Karelians what they think of that? Or are you arguing purely from nationalist beliefs?
Okay but in a hypothetical scenario where Finland ruled the world (as it exists today), I highly, highly doubt they would be siding with fascists. I don’t see your point. Thanks for leading me to some Wikipedia articles to read though.
Finland currently doesn’t recognise Palestine as a country, they’re currently, as it exists today, siding with the genocidal maniacs in the Israeli government.
That is unfortunate. However, I don’t see why you’re so insistent. You appear to be taking my original comment more seriously than I did. Sorry I didn’t do research on Finland’s position on Palestine or of their involvement in World War II. It was not relevant at the time. I just happen to appreciate Finnish art and culture.
Edit: Sadly, my country doesn’t recognize Palestine either. There isn’t a whole hell of a lot anyone here (excluding our corrupt leaders obviously) can do about it.
Perfection is the enemy of progress
I mean, yeah, sure. But if perfection is two steps to the left and you refuse…why?
But they had the guts to change sides mid-war.
I have an answer different from the others.
US economy depends on the US intellectual property system, a few US monopolist companies and the US dollar, and the financial system.
Especially the intellectual property system. However different laws can be in various countries, in fact everybody tries to follow US law.
It means that a lot of things produces elsewhere mean royalties to US companies, and a lot of things can’t be produced without permission, control of markets, planned development of microelectronics and tech in particular, yadda-yadda.
So - if, in some hypothetical situation, that IP system is undone, with some countries having similar laws, some more like USSR’s “public domain by default with some fixed payment to patent holders”, and all the intermediate variants, then you’ll just have a second depression. Because a huge part of the economy will shrink.
US foreign debt is a meme subject, but honestly, if USD stops being the world’s most reliable currency, you’ll also probably have a default.
US actual industrial production (what doesn’t shrink as easily) is not so impressive when looking at its size. A lot about US level of life doesn’t really match the efficiency of the economy. Say, if you look at Germany, life there is very different. In some ways better, maybe, but many things normal in the US are not achievable there.
My point is - the American IP laws were spread around by pressure. Not just that, but sometimes the monopoly roles of American companies. Part of that pressure is the military guarantor role.
If that stops being relevant, a lot of things which were a given for your economy for many years will stop existing. And for a few other economies too. It might not look as bad as the USSR’s collapse, but it will probably look as ruined and unpredictable as the 1960s world.
I’m curious what is normal in the US and not achievable in Germany.
German here: just creating and selling something is one thing that jumps to my mind.
The concept of “I have an idea and a bit of money so I’ll just found a company” is … Tiresome. Possible, yes, but the legal hurdles both good and bad are ridiculous. You need way more time than in the US just for the formal overhead and even then you are way more in it with your own private existence.
As founder “beschränkte Haftung” is not as limited as it sounds at first if you’re not firm in legalese for example.
Get your bullshit startup valued in the billions by Wall Street
Food delivery as something normal, I’d think. Plumber coming soon after being called. Appointment with doctor to a close enough date.
Those things affected by actually having labor rights and less dependence on colonial mechanisms.
America was the standard for a Democratic Republic after WW2.
after the war we helped most of Europe return to normal and even improved quality of life and living standards. part of that help came with stipulations on how the US had control within those countries that had help.
Had the US not stepped in at the time to stabilize Europe, another war would have likely happened and another, and another.
My guess, most of Europe would have fallen under Russian rule, or at the very least heavily influenced by, if the US didn’t step up.
I suppose European’s don’t look at how bad the war left Europe and often just want to forget the atrocities, but that’s not an excuse for blaming the hand that helped you in your time of need.
The US didn’t step in with the Marshall plan to stabilize Europe against war, the US did so in order to prevent socialist uprisings all over Western Europe, and to create ties between European capital and US capital so that Western Europe would support the US in its imperialism.
People turned to Russia specifically because they disapproved US imperialism and wanted to counter its power, while avoiding being doomed by capitalism. I’m not saying this was the ideal solution, but at least if they succeeded we wouldn’t be in the position we are today
US imperialism didn’t happen until the 1950s, well after the war.
this was, in part, due to the private investments from large American companies at the time. in-fact, the American economy was booming for three reasons
- war was over and people were desperate to find stability and peace
- Americans at home got through the war mostly unscathed and now had an abundance of work which in-turn made an abundance of money to spend
- Europe desperately needed materials and products to rebuild their own economy, this only further boosted American GDP from a previously untouched market. private investment took place from American companies within Europe to increase profits further.
in a sense, because Europe was so weak after the war it only fed US corporate imperialism. Had Europe been able to stand on its own the United States might not have had such an industrial boon and similarities between Europe and the US might have not been so significant.
one might even draw the strong correlation between American corporate interests and total subservience of government alliances at that time. our government had, up until then, mostly stayed neutral to concerns between corporations and citizens. this changed though because of the newly created military industrial complex that was created to feed the war. afterwards you had defense contractors that saw dollar signs, and the tradition still goes to this day.
speculation on my part, the political climate of the current day is the fruit bore from that union of corporate and state all those years ago and this has been the agenda of the American elite all along and they are currently in the final seconds of the “game of thrones”.
US imperialism didn’t happen until the 1950s, well after the war.
Absolute whitewashing of the USian crimes against humanity all over the first half of the 20th century. Examples: big stick ideology
The US also constantly did shit like this in the Americas all over the 19th century, see United Fruit Company or Military Government of Cuba.
The citizens, in general, don’t. We want to do the same thing every other country’s people want - live our lives and hopefully give our kids a good or better one.
I have no fucking clue what the government is doing to make these decisions.
The main reason is that if we stop being the biggest shark in the tank, the next two biggest sharks (China and Russia) can’t be trusted to not feast on the smaller sharks. And if they do feast, they will become too large for the American shark to deal with.
The US is already feeding on the smaller sharks, and has been for decades. Look at their foreign policy in Central and South America, South East Asia, the Middle East.
The only difference is that they’ve been feasting on other nations and not the West. China and Russia don’t have those restraints. All three of them are horrible, but America hasn’t been horrible to us until just recently.
for decades
Centuries*.
China and Russia don’t have those restraints
I understand why you’d say that about modern Russia, but how on Earth are you comparing China to the USA? In what war has China been in the past 40 years? What countries has it been exploiting?
I’m sorry, this seems to imply the US doesn’t “feast on the smaller sharks”. It went as far as threatening Japan with sanctions because they were considering “digital sovereignty” with TRON OS as opposed to Windows at some point. Japan is almost a non-optional ally.
And also one good solution of preventing someone from doing that is arming the smaller sharks. Yet USA seems even more against more equal spread of technologies and weapons than the “next two sharks”.
And also one good solution of preventing someone from doing that is arming the smaller sharks. Yet USA seems even more against more equal spread of technologies and weapons than the “next two sharks”.
Uhmm what? The US does exactly that with NATO and nuclear weapons stationed in Europe.
No. NATO is an extension of this particular shark. Countries in NATO or allied to it are abusing with impunity those not in.
I think it’s even simpler than this. I think any government/state/group with power wants to hold and expand it. I’m not sure there is a group of people that exist that wouldn’t work to exercise control if they could. And I’m not defending the US, I just think it may be an inherently human thing to do.
I think any government/state/group with power wants to hold and expand it
Then you’d be wrong. Famously, after the Russian Revolution in 1917, the Russian Socialist Federation of Soviet Republics, under the leadership of the Bolsheviks, created the first constitution in history that granted the unilateral right of self-determination and secession to all peoples of the former Russian Empire. This is how Poland gained its independence in 1918, as well as Finland and many other countries formerly part of the Russian Empire. Interesting episode of history.
So how did they get from 1918 to 1968?
In 1918 Poland decided to unilaterally invade modern Ukraine and Belarus because of nationalist expansionist beliefs, you can read about it on the wikipedia article or the Polish-Ukrainian war.
In 1939 the Soviet Union recovered those territories and gave them back to the Belarusian and Ukrainian SSRs, which Poles are still crying about. If you care about seeing maps representing this I can give you sources no problem since I’m arguing from good faith.
After 1945, Poland was forced by the USSR to give reparations in order to compensate for the lack of mutual defense agreement against Nazis before 1939, which was a mistaken policy that led to a lot of insatisfaction in Poland. After the mid-1950s, the Soviet Union removed these reparations and instead started subsidising the Polish socialist nation with cheap resources and industrialising it.
What part of 1969 is relevant to you?
The USA was securing international trade lines. After WW2, they started doing it to counter communism and build friendships. (Cannot attack your trading partners.)
This was not entirely popular with Americans, see “Team America: World Police”.
Another country or coalition could step up. Just build a navy that rivals the USA one to secure shipping lanes.
We were unspoiled by WW2. This gave us an unnatural ability to pull ahead economically while other nations rebuilt. We taught our citizens that this was deserved and the propaganda has stood until pretty recently. This unfair advantage is slowly then quickly unwinding.
“America is the best! Nobody could match our manufacturing!”
Well no, you were just the only hevay industrial country that wasn’t bombed in the 40s. America didn’t rocket ahead through the 60s, they just helped kneecap the competition.
And for the god damn 10th time, Mexico and China didn’t take the manufacturing. They didn’t raid the US and deport Ford to them. Ford walked it all over very politely.
US manufacturing was dominant through the thirties and forties. It really shone in the 40s under a war time economy. It was a sleeping giant and the world knew it. Pennsylvania outputted more steel than Japan and Germany combined. Audacious goals set by President Roosevelt were mocked by Hitler as audacious Hollywood goals. The US easily surpassed these goals.
It was an amazing display of competence. The only other countries to match the intensity of growth would the USSR during the five year plan and the PRC during the eighties. But both of them were starting from an agricultural economy. The USSR never reached the American manufacturing peak and China has surpassed.
The unprecendent dominance is due in no small part because the rivals needed to rebuild. But under representing America’s position with regards to labor, capital, resources and state coordinated mobilization would be a serious error.
Please be respectful. Millions of Americans just protested the Trump administration’s policies during the No Kings Day gatherings. Citizens are not the same thing as their administration. Please do not broadly label them the same. Thank you.
You can ask, but you will still keep getting side-eyes. Source: am Hungarian.
We’re accustomed to the side-eyes. Feel free to continue those.
(If possible) I’m absolutely going to visit your country and ramble on about how my great-grand-something is from there, and how good it feels to be back, and then I’ll buy souvenirs and permanently incorrectly adopt parts of your heritage that amuse me. That’s all on me. Guilty on all counts.
But I’m not a fan of my government being a pain-in-the-ass on the international scale.
As a pain-in-the-ass American, I value having a non-pain-in-the-ass government, so that I can still travel the world and be…uh…myself.
Uh…I maybe could probably have presented this better…
We’re taught to compete with each other basically at birth cos that’s what benefits capitalism and no one will break the cycle of this evil shit
