West being a good guy

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Think of different regimes: Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, China, Islamic World, and Britain/USA. The only good regime is Britain/USA and it is leading, at least so far. Now, how do you guys interpret it? Do you think we are simply really lucky, or do you think it is because winners rewrite history?

The other thing that suggests that winners rewrite history is that if we think of the "running regime" in the past (such as Spanish Inquisition), it wasn't that good. Yet, whatever runs the world today is good.

I would say that it works like this: winning gives you wealth, and wealth promotes a liberal society. So winning makes you a good guy.

The foreign policy of the West is extremely cynical, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it evil (with a few exceptions). Leaders in the West have to at least come up with a nice-sounding story for their meddling, which means that they can't do anything too crazy.

Which glasses do you see through?

The USA with a small pecentage of the world's population, (as I gather from internet research but I'd have to look it up again) has been consuming about 60 percent of the worlds's wealth. Asia with a a large percentage of the world's population, India and China alone are about a third, consume a very low percentage. I am not sure luck comes into it, so much as the US go getter philosophy and pursuit of the American Dream. I think democracy has a big part to play in it. China has long been ruled by a serf system, which has made economic expansion and global domination impossible.

All this is changing at a rapid rate now. China is very much at the beginnings of being a consumer society. They want their share of what the USA has long taken for granted. It is a share, because there obviously isn't enough to maintain the same standard of living, or supply of oil for the giant US military machine.

I think China can win out eventually by economic means, but we wait and see. There is another debate web site where I pick up on a hatred for anything Chinese. Now why would that be?

I don't buy it. Where did this American Dream mysteriously come from? Why is the United States exempt from the material factors of history?

The United States had vast internal markets, was rich in resources, and was not devastated by World War 2. That's a sufficient explanation for why it is the only remaining superpower.

The last time I checked, the percentage of the world population that lives in the US is roughly 5% and it consumes 25% of the worlds resources.

Those statistics are probably outdated now.

I want to check this out, especially in terms of trends. A quick check shows the obvious, that Europe isn't much different to the US.

Here's an interesting link
Consumers of the Future

A growing share of the global consumer class now lives in developing countries. China and India alone claim more than 20 percent of the global total—with a combined consumer class of 362 million, more than in all of Western Europe. (Though the average Chinese or Indian member consumes substantially less than the average European.)
Developing countries also have the greatest potential to expand the ranks of consumers. China and India’s large consumer set constitutes only 16 percent of the region’s population, whereas in Europe the figure is 89 percent. Indeed, in most developing countries the consumer class accounts for less than half of the population—suggesting considerable room to grow.

Every day in 2003, some 11,000 more cars merged onto Chinese roads—4 million new private cars during the year. Auto sales increased by 60 % in 2002 and by more than 80 % in the first half of 2003. If growth continues apace, 150 million cars could jam China’s streets by 2015—18 million more than were driven on U.S. streets and highways in 1999.

While the consumer class thrives, great disparities remain. The 12 percent of the world’s population that lives in North America and Western Europe accounts for 60 percent of private consumption spending, while the one-third living in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa accounts for only 3.2 percent.
The consumer society has strong allure and carries with it many economic benefits, and it would be unfair to argue that the advantages gained by an earlier generation of consumers should not be shared by those who come later. Indeed, lack of attention to the needs of the poorest can result in greater insecurity for the prosperous and in increased spending on defensive measures. The need to spend billions of dollars on wars, border security, and peacekeeping arguably is linked to a disregard for the world’s pressing social and environmental problems.