When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

You've reach your limit of free articles.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime.

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Ad-free experience NEW

Exclusive international news coverage

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Monthly Access

30-day free trial, then $2.90 per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
eyes on the U.S.

The United States As Global Monarch, A Different Kind Of Empire

Since the end of World War I, the United States has been methodically establishing a global state, in the same way European kings built power.

The United States As Global Monarch, A Different Kind Of Empire
Philippe Fabry

-OpEd-

PARIS — It is often said that we are heading towards a multipolar state, that the American predominant influence is just a parenthesis, like that of the British Empire between the 19th and 20th centuries.

But such a prediction fails to acknowledge that American hegemony established after 1918 and especially after 1945 has been completely different than the leadership of the British Empire. The latter was a colonial empire, the imperial domain of a nation that was conceived as a European power player seeking its own salvation in the strategic depth of a naval empire and the promotion of a continental balance of power.

At no time did the British Empire believe it had exceeded the European national order and these traditional rivalries: England was the greatest power and, from time to time, it would arbitrate between its playmates.

For the "American Empire," things are very different. From the start, the U.S. acted with the intention of creating rules, not just to arbitrate conflicts and manage the world order one day at a time, but also to build a common order. This led to the creation of a series of international institutions: the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and, of course, the United Nations, the embryo of a global parliament, and all its offshoots.

The U.S. has also become the global police force, especially via NATO, and funds the expenses this involves thanks to the status of the dollar as reserve currency.

Unlike its British elder, it's not about being the greatest of powers and staying that way by playing on the divisions of others. It's more about organizing a common government for world affairs by gathering all the powers into one supranational system. But the U.S. uses this supranational system in a relatively nonreciprocal way, as it allows it to impose its authority on other nations by assigning it a collective authority that goes beyond national sovereignty. Yet it refuses to see its own sovereignty contested.

The same method as European kings

It's clear that by doing so, the U.S. not only acts very differently than British imperial politics, but also in exactly the same way European kings built their power and went beyond feudality by building modern states.

To do so, kings didn't just become the most powerful lords of the feudal order, which would have corresponded to what the British Empire did, but they also made sure that they went beyond this feudal order. To do this, they built a legal system to the scale of the kingdom, which imposed itself notably through its guaranteed neutrality and authority, in comparison with the local justice systems that were less experienced, strict and often corrupt. They developed courts capable of judging lords themselves.

But the major step was made by implementing representative authorities for the entire social body: clergy, nobility, middle class, which allowed the monarchy to suddenly cover the entire feudal order. This was done in 1295 with the Model Parliament, in France in 1302 with the Estates General, in Spain in 1476 with the Cortes de Madrigal, in Germany with the 1495 Reichstag, in Russia with the 1549 Zemski Sobor. Each time, the creation of these assemblies enabled the development of a general police armed force, funded by a permanent tax — in other words, the implementation of a sovereign power, which meant the beginning of the end of feudality.

After 1945, this is what the U.S. did on a global scale. It created an assembly, the UN, and a whole chain of authorities that make it possible to cover the traditional international order. The Bretton Woods system of monetary management fundamentally established the implementation of a world tax, which privileges the dollar. It has allowed the U.S. to fund its army, which serves as a global police force, to guarantee the security of communication channels, and to regularly to catch dictator-crooks or punish "rogue states."

The way towards the universal state

Right now, the United States is what England never was: the monarch at the head of the global state. For now, it is essentially sovereign, although its missions are growing in number. The IMF serves as a redistribution tool towards the countries that are in the most difficulty, and it is possible that in the decades to come, the WTO will become an increasingly interventionist organization. Currently, this includes the implementation of the much disputed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), or its Trans-Pacific equivalent, the TPP.

And that's where the danger could lie in the future: A state doesn't stop growing after its emergence. On the contrary, it has its own logic and moves towards absolutism. It's what Rome ultimately did, with the influence of the Roman global state becoming more and more important and carrying more weight. Eventually, this is what will happen to us.

In any case, this radical difference in nature with the British Empire makes it impossible to conclude that the American predominance will disappear in the decades to come. In this system, China and Russia aren't rivals, which is a reading of relations that has been out of date for 70 years. They are feudal vassals, recalcitrant to the monarch. Like the major feudal vassals of the monarchies in the past, these will struggle to admit the development of the royal power, and are looking for a step back that will not come but will instead lead to a global civil war.

Some people, those who continuously denounce capitalism, see a conspiracy in this. It's not the case: It's simply the natural progress of power towards the universal state that historian Arnold Toynbee wrote about. Rome was such a universal state. In that case, there is indeed always an ideology behind this natural course of events: Such societies produce such ideas that lead to the creation of such institutions that push towards the mutation into such society, etc. Today, when we talk about "globalization," we say it's good to be a "citizen of the world."

In Antiquity, the Stoics used to say "the wise man's city is the world."

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

eyes on the U.S.

A Foreign Eye On America's Stunning Drop In Life Expectancy

Over the past two years, the United States has lost more than two years of life expectancy, wiping out 26 years of progress. French daily Les Echos investigates the myriad of causes, which are mostly resulting in the premature deaths of young people.

Image of a person holding the national flag of the United States in front of a grave.

A person holding the national flag of the United States in front of a grave.

Hortense Goulard


On May 6, a gunman opened fire in a Texas supermarket, killing eight people, including several children, before being shot dead by police. Particularly bloody, this episode is not uncommon in the U.S.: it is the 22nd mass killing (resulting in the death of more than four people) this year.

Gun deaths are one reason why life expectancy is falling in the U.S. But it's not the only one. Last December, the American authorities confirmed that life expectancy at birth had fallen significantly in just two years: from 78.8 years in 2019, it would be just 76.1 years in 2021.

The country has thus dropped to a level not reached since 1996. This is equivalent to erasing 26 years of progress.Life expectancy has declined in other parts of the world as a result of the pandemic, but the U.S. remains the developed country with the steepest decline — and the only one where this trend has not been reversed with the advent of vaccines. Most shocking of all: this decline is linked above all to an increase in violent deaths among the youngest members of the population.

Five-year-olds living in the U.S. have a one in 25 chance of dying before their 40th birthday, according to calculations by The Financial Times. For other developed countries, including France, this rate is closer to one in 100. Meanwhile, the life expectancy of a 75-year-old American differs little from that of other OECD countries.

Keep reading...Show less

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

You've reach your limit of free articles.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime.

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Ad-free experience NEW

Exclusive international news coverage

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Monthly Access

30-day free trial, then $2.90 per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch

The latest