[zozbot234]

Our countries may not be authoritarian but they're certainly rigid in the sense of having a huge amount of accumulated "technical debt" in their social organization, that by definition is simply not amenable to gradual change. A collapse of some sort is then the only feasible form of restructuring, and is a natural consequence of such circumstances especially given outside stressors. So I would definitely not put it beyond the realm of possibility.

[pfraze]

I do agree that the US is rigid in its thinking. We accumulated a lot of wealth in the mid-20th century and a lot of national policy debates are around how that wealth is distributed rather than about undertaking new national ventures to bring in significant new wealth. It's understandable to a degree - we have a lot to risk by taking big national projects - but it feeds into our distribution problems because we want to be capitalist but we don't have enough new frontiers for capitalism to create opportunities for the younger generations.

I'd argue we're in a preservative/cost-cutting mindset rather than a generative/competitive mindset, which can be seen reflected in anti-trust policies. The philosophy has been to focus anti-trust around consumer benefit (eg lower prices) rather than to ensure competitive markets. We're more concerned with consumers' purchasing power than producers' opportunities.

[zozbot234]

> a lot of national policy debates are around how that wealth is distributed rather than about [creating] significant new wealth

This is a marker of a failed country - one where the collective political discourse is no longer geared towards actual social benefit but has been taken over by competing votebanks of entitled moochers, led by their uber-mooching enablers in the policy-making "elite". Acemoglu's How Nations Fail is a clear and comprehensive discussion of these dynamics.