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1 IntroductionThis is really a four-part question, because it involves answers to the following four subsidiary questionswill the USA continue to wallow in the economic doldrums of Washington Consensus Macroeconomics, which is an unrealistic theoretical castle in the air, or will it re-adopt the economic insights of (FDR’s economic miracle 1938–44/Shimomuran-Wernerian macroeconomics) and then blossom into much higher growth?will China continue to practice some (but not all) of the precepts of Shimomuran macroeconomics or will it learn the Wernerian insights about how best to stimulate and fund SME invention and innovation, using the experience of other countries about how to to add invention and innovation funding to Shimomuran macroeconomics, and grow more rapidly once again?will the current growth trends of the USA and China continue as they have done during the last twenty years, and if so, when will China surpass the USA in incomes per head at PPP?the final size of an economy is related to its number of active workers who produce the goods and services and the population which produces the demand. China no longer has the “one-child” policy (which was phased out during 2015) but during the period of its enforcement perhaps 350 million wanted Chinese children were not born. During the period of the “one-child policy” it appears that perhaps 335 million abortions were also performed. Adding to that abortion estimate the induced miscarriages, there could have been perhaps another 400 million in total. China could have had 750 million more people and a current 2017 population of up to about 2.125 bn (+55% above current levels) if there had been no “one -child” policy and no abortions and miscarriages. The future population of China will be much larger due to the 2015 phased abandonment of that policy and the final size of China’s economy will grow in line with that increase. Recent developments (particularly the epigenetic research of Professor David Sinclair) will become common knowledge and a longer living, more economically active Chinese population will further ratchet up economic growth to heights never experienced elsewhere.In terms of total GDP at PPP, China has already surpassed the USA. See my previous Answer atGeorge Tait Edwards's answer to Is China really the world's 2nd largest economy? Why or why not?2 The Continuing Deadly Decline of The United States Of America and the Low-Growth Washington Consensus MacroeconomicsNeoliberalism has failed the West because it has no prescription for assistingleading to a continual rise in real living standards and widespread prosperityand providing a more balanced budget as CB-created credit provides invention and innovation and for increasing economic growth, and both of these are required for optimal economic development. The result since both Thatcher and Reagan from about 1980 adopted the philosophy of neoliberalism with the major political policy aspects of (anti-union legislation+monetarism+alleged ”free markets”+privatisation +austerity) has been the relative economic and the manufacturing decline of the West.Shimomuran Macroeconomics by contrast has led to four economic miracles - in the four countries of the Tokyo Consensus Zone - in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China.In Japan, the Shimomura-authored “income Doubling Plan” (which was adopted by the Ikeda Administration) doubled Japanese living standards between 1960 and 1966. Japan zoomed from poverty to prosperity between 1945 and 1972 becoming the second largest economy in the world by 1972. SeeHow Japan Zoomed From War Devastation into Prosperity 1945–52Under President Park, South Korea grew at an average rate of 14% per annum from 1960 to 1980.The astonishing small country of Taiwan has had a long-standing economic miracle for most of the 20th century and Shimomuran understandings and practises contributed to that outcome after 1945.In each of the above cases, when the country’s politicians were persuaded to adopt WC economics, sharp decreases in annual rates of economic growth resulted.During the last 40 years, China has lifted over a billion of its people out of poverty. There are more people below the official poverty line (about 48 million) in the USA than there is in China (45 million), despite China having 4.2 times as many people. SeeIs Washington Consensus a failure?One key aspect of Shimomuram Macroeconomics is Government action based on a realistic economic understanding about how no-cost credit creation in the central bank can be canalised to productive investment in private industry through a useful secondary banking system. The WC system seems ideologically opposed to that.The countries practising WC economics therefore do not havea realistic economic understandingabout how CB credit creation facilities economic growthwithin an alternative system (not CB-based) for controlling inflationleading to a better fiscal balance as booming tax revenues arising from the expenditure of fiat funds increase government revenues.This lack of economic understanding is not a good starting position for (say) the USA.The entire WC edifice is an amazing intellectual artifice and a politically and financially supported edifice for denying the possibility of any better economic system. The only “advantage” possessed by the WC system is that it serves as an intellectual excuse for the benefit of millionaires at the cost of limiting income increases to the vast majority of the people.The WC economists are in general denial that any better system than the one they understand could exist or exists. SeeCommon Responses To Shimomuran Economics – George Tait Edwards – MediumThe only positive aspect of the present position of the Western and Westernised economies is that if the mistaken neoclassical mindset could be changed, then the evidence suggests that a more effective economics could produce rising prosperity fairly quickly. This is illustrated by FDR’s economic miracle 1938–44FDR’s American Economic Miracle 1938-44, or the First Economic Bomb - The USA from 1938 to 1944 (Part 1)and by the rapid turnaround in the fortunes of post-war Japan and post-rapprochement China. But while three economists at the IMF are now questioning the benefits of liberalism, and suggesting that while it has a few benefits it has many deadly downsides - seeNeoliberalism: Oversold?it is clear that they appear to see no way forward about where they go from where they are, but I am in complete agreement with the last sentence of that report which says“Policymakers, and institutions like the IMF that advise them, must be guided not by faith, but by evidence of what has worked.­”The system of Shimomuran economics has worked and the evidence-based Shimomuran-Wernerian Macroeconomics works even better, but that’s another subject too large for this location. During the last 40 years I have co-authored two books and written a further five about this topic as well as over 150 articles and I think there may be a further few hundred thousand words on this subject, which is the focus of ongoing research.3 The Future Of Chinese Economic DevelopmentThe future of the Chinese economy depends in large measure on whether China can successfully make the transition from imitation of Western technology to domestic invention and innovation. Judging by China’s past, the Chinese people have probably been the most inventive in the world.The only criterion on which China does not lead the world is in its funding of high-technology SMEs. As in all other economies, Chinese SMEs are the greatest provider of employment and output. The OECD library reports that“In China, micro, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) comprise 97% of all firms, accounting for 80% of urban employment, and for 60% of total GDP in 2013. In 2013, there were about 11.7 million small and micro enterprises and about 44.4 million self-employed entrepreneurs; accounting for 94.2% of all firms. 60.2% of small businesses (excluding self-employed) operate in the services sector (with 36.5% in wholesale, retail and catering; 10.2% in tenancy and business services; 2.5% in information transmission services; 2.5% in real estate industries; and 8.5% in other service industries). In addition, 18.5 of small businesses operate in manufacturing and processing, 5% in construction, and 3.2% in agriculture-related industries.”See Financing SMEs and Entrepreneurs 2016China does not have a Sparkassen-type banking system and SME invention and innovation are consequently much less successful than they could be. The existing Chinese system for financing SMEs is helpful but not adequately sized, and although I can’t accurately calculate its size, the existing data indicates it is much too small. The numbers involved are, like most things about the Chinese economy, greater than anywhere else, but that’s another subject too large for this platform.This is not a minor issue.4 If The Current Inertia Of Existing Growth Trends ContinueThe USA had a $2016 PPP of $57,300 per head and an average economic growth rate over the previous three years of about 2.2% pa, The Chinese figures are $2016 PPP of $14,600 per head and an average economic growth rate over the last three years of about 7.0% pa.If the current growth trends relating to the last three years were to continue and the “ceteris paribus” (= all other things are kept equal) assumption is made, then the Chinese GDP per head would exceed the $2016 USA GDP/head within 21 years, by becoming more than $60,000 in the year 2037. Of course, within these two decades the USA would have grown, assuming 2.2% real GDP growth pa, to an income per head of about $90,500, so the tortoise would still be well ahead of the rabbit. Nine years later, in 2046, on these assumption China would have $111k/head while the USA would have about $110k/head, so China would exceed the USA on that measure within the first half of this 21st century.But we know the future world is not going to be like that, for there is a large pent-up demand for more Chinese children than recent policies have permitted. And the Chinese culture is shifting, slowly but surely, to give women a more equal place in society, to the benefit of all.5 The Chinese Economy Based Upon Different Population Growth Trajectories5.1 The Effect of The New Epigenetic Research on China's GrowthChinese economic growth is being limited by a shortage of workers.China could adopt a policy to keep its workers healthier for longer and by increasing the healthspan could enjoy an increase in the working life (or workspan) and lifespan of its people. That would have vast economic effects.The new epigenetic technology of Professor David Andrew Sinclair shows how.See What’s Wrong With Big Pharma? – George Tait Edwards – Mediumwhere I say“I think Professor David Andrew Sinclair’s research is some of the most significant investigations into anti-aging that has ever been done. Small doses of Resveratrol placed under the tongue may have a multiplier effect of up to 250 and that appears to be a very cheap way of avoiding most of the metabolic syndrome diseases (coronary diseases, cancers and central nervous system diseases) as a person ages. These diseases only constitute 75% of the medical causes of death so the AMPK stimulants such as Resveratrol are not a complete solution to aging but they are the greatest advance in health-span and life-span improvement yet discovered.”And especially note the follow-up articleThe Transition to a Longer Living Society Part 1 – George Tait Edwards – Mediumand the economic effects estimated atSome Economic Implications of The Longer-Living Society — Part 2I think the West knows a great deal about this but as usual Western Governments are not acting in the best interests of all their people.The elderly are generally regarded in Western economies as requiring high health expenditures, many so high that they could cripple the economy. The reality that a cheap pill a day would keep many very healthy, and would make them useful and productive workers for much longer, while reducing healthcare costs, has not yet been fully considered in the West.I think the Chinese economy of abundant capital should have abundant health among its abundant and productive people.Professor David Sinclair’s epigenetic research is one of the most important factors in all our futures.5.2 Population Dividends From More PeopleIn my view about two-thirds of the 750 million “missing” Chinese children will be rapidly replaced due to the new Chinese “many-children” policy, so I believe that the start position for future Chinese growth projections should be based on a “within-a-decade” population basis of about 1.9 billion people.The Chinese economy has not had a “population dividend” it has had a “growth reduction” due to the one-child policy. Shimomuran economies equip their workers with the essential equipment to enable their appropriate contribution to the economy. If China had not had the “one-child’ policy its economy would probably have been between 33% to 50% larger than it is, that is between about $28tr. and $31tr. in $2016 PPP.I think the Chinese Government knows this.The concept of a “population dividend” is based upon the idea of a fixed-GDP output being shared between fewer people due to population restriction. This idea has no applicability to China where investment credits suck spare labour into capital upgradings and higher outputs based upon a fully equipped larger workforce generating higher demand.The concept of a population dividend has complete validity if a country’s economic output is static and has more validity if economic growth is low, as it is in the WC economies.6 ConclusionsThe Chinese are probably not going to take 30 years to surpass the USA. How long it takes them will depend on whether they take the trouble to fully understand Shimomuran-Wernerian macroeconomics., and how the Chinese population dynamic interacts with their rapidly growing economy.7 AnswerI think the interaction between the higher Chinese net birth rate of about 3% plus a 7% growth rate produces a Chinese economy which will double its size every seven years, so within 21 years (by about 2038) it will be about eight times larger. That’s about $160 tr, roughly equal to about $48 tr. more than the current $112 tr GDP of the world.Even if the USA immediately adopted Rooseveltian-Shimomuran-Wernerian macroeconomics and grew at the fastest available barrier rate of 10% pa, the US economy in 2038 could “only” reach about $137tr, which is about $23tr less than the Chinese economy then.Needless to say, these calculations are more illustrative than realistic.I have tried to have a conversation with some Chinese economists via the Peking School of Economics but have had no positive response so far.Much more much later.

1 Introduction This is one of the most interesting political economics questions, and all economics is political. Nearly all economies follow one major sociological path into economic decline and this can be fully illustrated by the rise and fall of both historical and more recent leading nations and their associated cultures.2 Joseph Needham’s Question From his studies of China and India during the period 1948–1985, Joseph Needham (or Noel Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham [1900–1995] see Joseph Needham - Wikipedia) asked what has come to be known as Needham’s Grand Question or Needham’s Question:“Why had China and India been overtaken by the West in science and technology, despite their earlier successes?” or more definitively“Why did modern science, the mathematization of hypotheses about Nature, with all its implications for advanced technology, take its meteoric rise only in the West at the time of Galileo [but] had not developed in Chinese civilisation or Indian civilisation?”[13][14]A modern formulation of that question might be“Why have the previous hegemonic powers of Britain and the United States been thoroughly overtaken by China since 1980?”3 Needham’s Comprehensive Book about China As Wikipedia comments under the heading Science and Civilisation In China“In 1948, Needham proposed a project to the Cambridge University Press for a book on Science and Civilisation in China. Within weeks of being accepted, the project had grown to seven volumes, and it has expanded ever since. His initial collaborator was the historian Wang Ling (王玲), whom he had met in Lizhuang and obtained a position for at Trinity. The first years were devoted to compiling a list of every mechanical invention and abstract idea that had been made and conceived in China. These included cast iron, the ploughshare, the stirrup, gunpowder, printing, the magnetic compass and clockwork escapements, most of which were thought at the time to be western inventions. The first volume eventually appeared in 1954.“The publication received widespread acclaim, which increased to the lyrical as further volumes appeared. He wrote fifteen volumes himself, and the regular production of further volumes continued after his death in 1995. Later, Volume III was divided, so that 27 volumes have now been published. Successive volumes are published as they are completed, which means that they do not appeared in the order originally contemplated in the project's prospectus.“Needham's final organising schema was:Vol. I. Introductory OrientationsVol. II. History of Scientific ThoughtVol. III. Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and EarthVol. IV. Physics and Physical TechnologyVol. V. Chemistry and Chemical TechnologyVol. VI. Biology and Biological TechnologyVol. VII. The Social Background“See Science and Civilisation in China for a full list.“The project is still proceeding under the guidance of the Publications Board of the Needham Research Institute, chaired by Christopher Cullen[12]”Interested readers are invited to pursue this topic by looking up the 28-volume book series at Science and Civilisation in China - Wikipedia and the many pdf inernet-published chapters of the book which can be Googled atscience and civilisation in china pdfwhich produces 1.27 million hits in 39 seconds.4 The Rise and Fall of the American Hegemonic EmpireI think it is very instructive to ask “Why has the previous hegemonic power of the United States been thoroughly overtaken by China since 1980?”The Answer is not difficult to find if the observer is willing to look. Many Americans seem not to be willing to do that. There are three relevant periods of US economic history when their governments had radically different economic policies, as set out in paras 4.1 to 4.3 below.4.1 Frankin Delano Roosevelt’s Economic Miracle 1938–44Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945) was the 32nd President of the United States who served in that office from March 4 1933 until this death in office on April 12 1945. He was a democrat who won four presidential elections and successfully dealt with the Great Depression and provided outstanding leadership during the US involvement in the Second World War from the attack on Pear Harbour on 7 December 1941 until his death on April 12 1945. He did not live long enough to see the victory in the Pacific on V-J day on 15 August 1945.The United States of America under Franklin Delano Roosevelt (and his economic advisor John Kenneth Galbraith) experienced phenomenal economic growth averaging 12.2% pa during the 1938–44 period. Most Americans seem to be unaware of that historical fact. For some highlights of that growth, seeFDR’s American Economic Miracle 1938-44, or the First Economic Bomb - The USA from 1938 to 1944 (Part 1)FDR more than any former American President, and more than any since, united the American people behind his leadership as part of the New Deal (see New Deal - Wikipedia) and FDR passed the National Labor Relations Act of 1936 which was“also known as the Wagner Act, finally guaranteed workers the rights to collective bargaining through unions of their own choice. ... The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 set maximum hours (44 per week) and minimum wages (25 cents per hour) for most categories of workers.” SeeNational Labor Relations Act of 1935 - WikipediaandThe Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 29 U.S.C. § 203 (abbreviated as FLSA) is a United States labor law that creates the right to a minimum wage, and "time-and-a-half" overtime pay when people work over forty hours a week. It also prohibited most employment of minors in "oppressive child labor".See Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 - WikipediaMany right-wing Americans now see these FDR measures as socialistic and wish they had never occurred. The Reagan administration did not repudiate these Acts but made it clear that these would no longer be federally enforced.FDR’s economic miracle enabled the USA to have about 50% of the world economy during the 1946–50 period. It was the people of the USA who delivered, through responding in millions of SMEs through America, with the FED investment credit conveyed down through 26,000 local banks, in producing the millions of parts required for the jeeps, tanks, aircaft, and munitions, and all the tinned food, clothing and footwear for the eighteen million troops, who won the war for America. And it was the businessmen creating and operating the government-funded many massive American steel plants, high-strength aluminium plants, and over fifty artificial rubber plants that produced what then more backward businessmen of the USA had said could not be done.Many economists have criticised the way FDR created overlapping production powers and committees and mandated three or four people to deliver the results he wanted in many key issues. That looks wasteful. But FDR was crazy like a fox. He requested three or four leaders in three of four groups to do his bidding so that they would all compete to deliver. No one group could fail him because it did not matter if they did - others similarly empowered would succeed where they failed. SeeFranklin Delano Roosevelt, Champion of Freedom By Conrad Black, Public Affairs, New Yotk, c 2003.A vast increase in the prosperity of the American people occurred during the later years of Roosevelt’s presidency due to the great increase in SME production of war materials, the massive construction of new factories, the manning of these new manufacturing industries, and the growth and expansion of the ship-building docks on America’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and the massive increases in shipbuilding, FDR’s economic miracle rested upon the winning combination of the creation of FED investment credit to provide the new plant and equipment and the vast increases in American output. See The Statistical Yearbook, 1949–50, Second Issue, United Nations, New York 1950.Some indicators of US growth 1938–1948America grew rapidly from 1938–47 on the basis of as high growth manufacturing economy involving all of its people, which people FDR succeeded in involving to achieve the production of the goods required to win the war.Roosevelt’s successor Harry Truman did not appear to understand any of this. The production of aircraft - over 100,000, many of these heavy bombers - is omitted in the above table. Perhaps the more pertinent comment on US production came from Albert Speer:“As Albert Speer, Hitler's Minister for armaments production in the Third Reich, commented after the war:"When the United States of America entered the war not only Hitler laughed but so did many experts over the reports of war production plans reaching us from America.To start from nothing and within five years to produce more than 10,000 bombers seemed to us on the basis of our industrial experience to be Utopia, or, as was said at the time, typical American bragging.But the Americans exceeded their goal."4.2 The Postwar Keynesian Golden Age Of America 1945–79There are several aspects of decline of the USA to its current position and each of these merits as separate short heading and graph, as follows.4.2.1 The Us Economy as a percentage of the World EconomyThe USA started the postwar period with an immensely powerful manufacturing economy which was part of a total GDP output of perhaps about 50% of the GDP of the world in 1950 although that declined to 40% by about 1960.4.2.2 The Real Median Weekly Earnings of Full time Workers - Keeping up with Real GDP Growth 1946–1973, and being static after the oil crisis and after 1980 despite Real GDP Per Cap[ita GrowthThe increase in the real median weekly earnings of full time workers in the 1946 to 1973 era of almost full employment followed very closely the real GDP growth per capita as the following graph shows:But it all went seriously wrong after the oil shock of 1973 and the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980.4.3 The Reagonics Rule of America In The Interests of the Rich 1980–2018There is a vast amount of information about how the USA has grown from 1946–2014 but the above graph from the UK Bureau of Labour Statistics says much is necessary. One can note:the real median wages of full-time workers increased from 100 to about 175 between 1946 and 1973, so became 75% higherand the real GDP per capita increased from about 210 in 1980 to about 375 in 2014, so became about 79% higherBut the real 2014 median weekly earnings of workers was less than it had been in 1980 and workers received no gains from GDP growth.4.3.1 The Loss of US Family Purchasing Power 2000–2012For the first twelve years of the 21st century, US medIan family incomes fell by 8% while the cost of three of the necessities of life - housing, healthcare, medical care, chid care and higher education - all increased substantially.4.3.2 US Healthcare Is Very ExpensiveAmerica’s private healthcare system became a very large part of the US economy compared with the comparable levels in France, Germany, Japan, or the UK.4.3.3 But American Healthcare Does Not Result In A Longer-Living Population Despite Its Extraordinary High CostsFurthermore although Americans were paying much more for healthcare, the results in terms of longer average lives were less in the USA than in any of the other developed nations.4.3.4 Washington Consensus Economics/Liberal-Neoclassical-Economics Delivers Massive Incomes Inequalities and a High Share of GDP to the Top 1% and 0.1% of EarmersThe major result of Reaganomics was a great rise in inequality,as shown by the percentage of income apparently allocated to the top 1% of earnersAnd the income shares of the top 1% and the top 0.1% after taking onto account capital gains are even more extremeThat “Rule for the rich” is a major factor in producing US economic decline. The static incomes of the workers has supported a political redistribution of national income in favour of the very rich with Austerity for the workers.And Neoliberal economics has been very oversold because it does not produce the goods.4.4 Summary: The Three Periods of American Economic Development 1938–2014These wereRoosevelt’s economic miracle, 1938–44 which established the subsequent hegemonic dominance of the USA until Chinese GDP at PPP surpassed that of America after 2014The 1945–79 “golden age” of American almost-full employment when Keynesianism was practised by all US Presidents and when the right to collective bargaining wass legally enforced in the USA and when wages unil1973rose in line with US economic growth ratesThe 1980–2014 “Reaganomics” and “Washington Consensus” encompassing monetarism/Financialisation /Austerity/neoclassical economics/neoliberal economics whensuccessive US Governments enshrined a non-performing macroeconomics as the only one that should be taught in the American universitiesUS governments allocated the gains of growth to the already rich (largely to the top 1% or 0.1% of income earners)invention and innovation fell to about 5% of the level it had been during the 1938–44 period (and when that statistic could be proven when compared to the creation of “hidden champions” in Germany)the incomes of US workers remained at the same dollar income per hour as they had earned in 1980 and whenAmerica de-industrialised and the provision of key car components and other other essential capital goods (for example, for catering, making rubber goods, paper-making, medical examinations, etc etc) could only be supplied from abroad even for America’s defence industriesWhen financialisation produced a long-term and continual decline in the US growth rate which was reduced by credit crunches and continuing economic ineptitude.POTUS Trump blames foreigners for the economic weakness of America, but it is a self-inflicted economic injury due to the rule of the Republicans for the benefit of the rich and to the closed US neo-classical mindset about the causes of economic development. SeeThe West Is About To Lose The World Because Of Faulty Economic Understanding where I quote Alice Hoffenberg Amsden as writing:“The Second American Empire is now in decline, possibly from immoderation but principally from a lack of greatness: it has made little contribution to economic development due to what may be described as a closed mind. Can its way of thinking be changed, or it is too late?”I think it is now far too late.5 The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Empires of the Northern Song and the Yongle Emperor Within the Great Ming dynastyWhen the Mongols conquered China they shut down the Song Empire investment credit creation system which had produced China’s economic greatness. The Yuan Empire’s only purpose in its credit creation was to fund Mongol spending. Their cessation of credit creation to fund Chinese infrastructure - such as the rice terraces, canal maintenance and roads and bridges - had disastrous consequences for Chinese food production. Mongol credit creation produced an enormous rate of inflation and the short life of the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368 - less than century) was almost certainly due to the widespread starvation due to food shortage (as opposed to the vast food surpluses of the previous Song Dynasty) and the inflation combined with higher unemployment due to the cessation of infrastructure maintenance.The Ming Dynasty particularly during the reign of the Yongle Emperor restored the use of credit creation for productive purposes and the people and the Empire prospered.When the Conservatives captured the Ming policies after the decline of the Yongle Emperor’s great initiatives, they restricted credit creation, destroyed the seven great Treasure Fleets, and even tried to destroy the Chinese History which showed how great China had previously been. SeeGeorge Tait Edwards's answer to Which was the world's richest empire in ancient times by GDP (nominal) (300 BC to 1800 AD)?6 Oswald Spengler’s Decline of the WestThis book is a difficult read. It discusses a very broad and encyclopaedic view of cultural history partly in the obsolete terms of race and blood which makes it challenging for a modern reader. Yet its breadth and scope and conclusions suggests a framework for the explanation of many current developments.In this prophetic book, Oswald Spengler points out thatthe natural end of the democracies is an elective dictatorship in which the government acts mainly in the interests of the rich elitethat general education and the media (in Spengler’s time, the press) have no effect upon, and support that outcome, andthe emergence of very dominant leaders (Caesars) would result in disastersThe entire book is published on the Internet at https://ia800304.us.archive.org/12/items/Decline-Of-The-West-Oswald-Spengler/Decline_Of_The_West.pdfThe book’s final three Chapters XII-XIV - entitled XII The State - The Philosophy of Politics {p439–465) XIII Money - The Form-World of Economic Life- (466–496) and XIV The Form-World of Economic Life -The Machine (497–507)- contain his major messages for the future.6.1 The Natural Historical End of Democracies? Spengler argues that the continual struggle for power invariably results in the control of the apparently democratic process by the monied and privileged class. That result has come about so frequently that Spengler concludes that the natural end of all democracies is a plutocratic dictatorship, ruling in the interests of the rich. As he puts it on page 452 of his book“An Estate has instincts, a party has a program, but a following has a master. That was the course of events from Patricians and Plebeians, through Optimates and Populares, to Pompeians and Caesarians.”And“Far from this [system of party control candidates] being the shipwreck of democracy, it is its very meaning and necessary issue, and the lamentations of unworldly idealists over this destruction of their hopes only show their blind ignorance of the inexorable duality of truths and facts and of the intimate linkage of intellect and money.”p453 ibid. Part of the climax of Spengler’s argument is on p 456“But, meantime, that other democratic quantity lost no time in making its appearance and reminding men of the fact that one can make use of constitutional rights only when one has money.1 That a franchise should work even approximately as the idealist supposes it to work presumes the absence of any organized leadership operating on the electors (in its interest) to the extent that its available money permits. As soon as such leadership does appear, the vote ceases to possess anything more than the significance of a censure applied by the multitude to the individual organizations, over whose structure it possesses in the end not the slightest positive influence. So also with the ideal thesis of Western constitutions, the fundamental right of the mass to choose its own representatives - it remains pure theory, for in actuality every developed organization recruits itself.2 Finally the feeling emerges that the universal franchise contains no effective rights at all, not even that of choosing between parties. For the powerful figures that have grown up on their soil control, through money, all the intellectual machinery of speech and script, and are able, on the one hand, to guide the individual's opinions as they please above the parties, and, on the other, through their patronage, influence, and legislation, to create a firm body of whole-hearted supporters (the "Cau- cus") which excludes the rest and induces in it a vote-apathy which at the last it cannot shake off even for the great crises.”6.2 The Total Failure of the “Free Press” and the Western Media Again, Spengler’s opinions on the “free press” are scathing“And as for the modern Press, the sentimentalist may beam with contentment when it is constitutionally ..free" - but the realist merely asks at whose disposal it is.” and“Man does not speak to man; the press and its associate, the electrical news-service, keep the waking-con-sciousness of whole peoples and continents under a deafening drum-fire of theses, catchwords, standpoints, scenes, feelings, day by day and year by year, so that every Ego becomes a mere function of a monstrous intellectual something. Money does not pass, politically, from one hand to the other. It does not turn itself into cards and wine. It is turned into force, and its quantity determines the intensity of its working influence.”p460And“Formerly a man did not dare to think freely. Now he dares, but cannot; his will to think is only a willingness to think to order, and this is what he feels as his liberty. And the other side of this belated freedom - it is permitted to everyone to say what he pleases, but the Press is free to take notice of what he says or domain.strategi.st can condemn any" truth" to death simply by not undertaking its communi- cation to the world - a terrible censorship of silence, which is all the more potent in that the masses of newspaper readers are absolutely unaware that it exists.1 Here, as ever in the birth-pangs of Caesarism, emerges a trait of the buried springtime.2”p4636.2 The Emergence of “Caesars”?“The coming of Caesarism breaks the dictature of money and its political weapon democracy. After a long triumph of world city economy and its interests over political creative force, the political side of life manifests itself after all as the stronger of the two. The sword is victorious over the money, the master- will subdues again the plunderer-will.”Spengler sees the ultimate fate of the democracies is to be ruled by “Caesars” by which he seems to mean individuals who are egotistical, narcissistic, lacking any adequate depth of understanding or empathy, and imposing their invalid prejudices on their country and the world.p506Caesars such as Nero and Caligula, and leaders like Hitler obviously fit this description. Can you think of any recent political leaders who might also fit it?6,3 Final thoughts on Spengler The Decline of the West was published in 1933. Its Wikipedia summary (The Decline of the West - Wikipedia) is much clearer and more readable than the book. Try both and see.Spengler accurately seems to have predicted the rise of Hitler and his dominance over the bank-funded industrial power of Germany. But Spengler’s prediction that money would dominate the future of all the democracies was obviously wrong for several development eras.The rise of the USA under FDR’s economic miracle was in many respects a democratic economic miracle, involving all of the people, which created a world-dominating economy by 1945. The US government adopted the wealth-sharing precepts of Keynesianism during the post-war period, perhaps because war really was “the economic education of politicians.” The British Attlee Government set up the Welfare State and acted in the interests of all the British people by doing so. Many of the Nordic countries have been run for decades as social democracies not captured by monied interests.Of course, both Britain and the USA were captured by monied interests after 1980. Spengler regards the capture of governments by the monied elite as an inevitable process and it seems to have been normal for most governments throughout history.But it is not inevitable and it needs to be reversed.7 Answer: The Major Obstacles to Economic Development are7.1 A Lack of Economic UnderstandingAny Government which believes in practicing the policies of the Washington Consensus Macroeconomics/Neoliberalism is implementing a procedure which will impoverish most of its people. See Washington Consensus Macroeconomics Is Not The Best System For Increasing Prosperity and Economic…7.2 Rubbish Economics, or The Use Of Credit Creation For Consumption and Speculation If the central bank of a country creates credit for the Government to fund consumption, as the FED does, or to fund an asset speculation, as the BoJ did between 1986–91, then that credit will ultimately destroy national wealth by creating a credit crunch.In his interesting eighth book, Nippon wa Warukunai, 1987, Dr Osamu Shimomura argues that the USA should not be using the dollar reserve to consume/import much more more than the US economy produces/exports. The shortest translation of the title of that book may be “Japan OK, America Wrong”, but the longer and more diplomatic title is “Japan Is Not at Fault”. See the profile of Sr Osamu Shimomura’s life and the list of his eight books atShimomura Fellowship | RICF | DBJ7.3 The Political Choice of Introducing a “Rule for the Rich” which results in Low Economic Growth and Low Innovation The inevitable downside of running an economy for the benefit of the rich is that poverty disconnects the majority of the people from the process of economic development so economic decline occurs.8 Conclusions And the major enablers of economic development are8.1 A realistic competently implemented comprehensive economic understanding such as Shimomuran-Wernerian Macroeconomicssee The Most Successful Economic Policy Of All Time - The German Historical Economics Development of Shimomuran-Wernerian Macroeconomics8.2 The use of all the instruments of productive credit creation to maximise green economic developmentShimomuran-Wernerian macroeconomics is not just the central insight that credit creation at the Central Bank can be canalised to productive investment but an entire system of economic understanding containing eight major policy levers that deliver high economic growth with low inflation. SeeHow China Surpasses The EU and the USA, or The Seven Pre-Requisites for High-Growth Shimomuran…Shimomuran Economics is the Most Significant Advance Ever Made in Economic Understanding and the…George Tait Edwards's answer to What makes a GDP grow high or stay high? andWhy does George Tait Edwards see Shimomuran-Wernerian macroeconomics as the key understanding in the future of mankind?My researches continue, my current articles are not yet complete, but they will be after 2020.8.3 Achieve the highest interests of democracy and running the economy for the benefit of ALL the peopleOnly China seems to be doing this on a large scale now, although many of the Nordic countries have successfully done this for decades without understanding Shimomuran macroeconomics. Good for them and for their people. See What's the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of Nordic countries? which contains the Gallup TablePolitical systems focusing on delivering the “rule for the rich” do not produce the highest median household and personal incomes.