Slow Fade

What we witness now is unlike anything that has happened in history before, because it is the rise of the poor to challenge the hegemony of the rich. The nations which are surging now - China, India, Brazil to name but three - are also home to a vast well of poverty which though it will be ameliorated for many of their people is never going to be eradicated. Yet those nations with a majority living at or below today's poverty line are acquiring power and influence; and India is en-route to becoming a regional superpower with the ability and the will to project its power beyond its borders The economy of China if it continues its current trajectory, will see it double in size every eight years - against a doubling in the developed nations every 25 - America included. So why is America in decline?

Firstly it must be understood that this is a slow and gradual process and America is not about to switch off like a lightbulb. It is going to be a superpower perhaps for decades to come, but its light and power is irrevocably waning. The annual prosperity index published by the Legatum Institute in late 2009 ranked the U.S. as the ninth most prosperous country in the world, down five places on 2008. We may find this unsurprising given the depth of the recession that the world is crawling out of - except that the rest of the world has endured the same recession and other countries are recovering faster than America. China and India bounced back quickly, Brazil is on-track for recovery and Australia is currently growing faster than was expected (which worries some Australians who fear their economy has been over stimulated and that the bubble will burst yet again.)

As all this activity goes on, America is struggling through a weak and, for many jobless, recovery that could make prosperity a goal far ahead. Real household incomes in the U.S. have reached a plateau and the middle class, that bastion of Americanism, struggle to keep pace with inflation. They are not going to be helped by the federal government because the ballooning federal deficit means 'no bail-outs' - unless you are a bank and even they may have had their last sip at the Cup of Plenty. Healthcare is a monster that eats everybody in America sooner or later and the insurance mafia will do its best to scupper Obamas reforms (think aging unhealthy workforce) and the manufacturing base erodes by the month. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan drain the treasury, and have deeply damaged the image of America globally and sapped national morale. This is not a recipe for success. True, there are still millions beavering away at making their small corner of America rich but overall the picture is one of a nation falling behind.

Reasons? Many, varied and interlocked. Jobs first. The IMF predicts that the U.S. unemployment rate for 2010 is going to hover around 9.3%; lower than some European states but higher than in Canada and a lot higher than Scandinavia and much of Asia. Seen globally, the U.S. unemployment rate is about average for an advanced economy but that is not enough to qualify it for global leadership. A similar picture of 'middling' comes with growth predictions. The economy will grow by 1.9%, at par with the average for all advanced economies - but at least 10 of the developed nations will grow faster.

A lot of Americans are poor and many of them abjectly so. The US has a poverty rate of 17% according to the OECD, and is rated third-worst among advanced states by the OECD. Soberingly, only Turkey and Mexico score worse. Despite giving the impression of being universally highly educated, American 15-year olds score below average for literacy in maths and the sciences - think a workforce that a generation hence will not have the trained and agile minds that drive innovation and growth. Future America is not going to be so inventive. According to the World Economic Forum assessment, America does still hold the edge for competitiveness - outranked only by the Swiss who are no threat to anybody. As for prosperity, America is ranked by Legatum at number 9 - respectable enough but America is not in the top ten for the economic fundamentals, safety and security, or governance. America is fat...as in obese, and Legatum ranks it at 27 for the health of its citizenry and life expectancy is below average out of a basket of 30 advanced nations. It also spends far more per capita on health care than any other nation on earth - yet is chronically unhealthy and set to get more so. The UN human development index attempts to measure 'well-being' - Norway, Australia, Iceland and Canada are at the top - America is thirteenth. And America is far from being a happy place. It is ranked 11th for 'life satisfaction' by the OECD in a survey conducted before the recession bit hard, so there are likely to be a lot more unhappy Americans today than there were three years ago.

Overall, the picture whilst not exclusively downbeat is one of a slow fade. The power paradigm is getting re-written in Beijing and Mumbai and Kuala Lumpur and Brasilia. The post-colonial nations are coming into their own, history is moving in their direction and the future is no longer American.

Chris Cork is a British social worker settled in Pakistan. He writes extensively on Pakistan’s domestic politics and society.

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