Quote:
Originally Posted by roachboy
empires are expensive. they've tended to bankrupt the imperial power. it's happened again and again.
personally i don't think the collapse of empire is a bad thing. i don't see it as a cataclysm. more a gradual slide away from hegemony, a gradual slide out of the illusion that power is transparent. a gradual becoming-austria. so not like rome---no sacking by the barbarians. more like the hapsburgs.
|
Specifically what has proved to be expensive was maintaining the military strength needed to control vast empires and inefficient means of exploiting resources to benefit the treasury.
Both of these problems can be solved with 21st century technology. Going along with this line of thought a 21st century empire can and would look very different from one 100/200/300/etc. years ago.
The first step might be to naturalize military threats, like perhaps those that would come from Iraq/Iran/N. Korea. Another step might be economic control through currency and banking systems. And of course you would want a rubber stamping agency like the UN to misdirect the agenda of the controlling country. Wow, perhaps the American empire is strong and getting stronger. Heck even china is subject ot US whims since they hold so much of US debt and are dependent on US consumption.
