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FeaturesJanuary 2012 Pax Americana On what the world would lose with the decline and fall of the United States. The specter of decline and fall has long haunted the Western mind. For fifteen hundred years after the fall of Rome, the causes of its collapse have been examined. The most common lesson was that decline was integral to the system, just as death is integral to life: the responsibilities of a great power ultimately generate its own collapse. Edward Gibbon wrote: the decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and as soon as time, or accident, had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. Immanuel Kant agreed: “the laws progressively lose their impact as the government increases its range, and a soulless despotism, after crushing the germs of goodness, will f ... This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 30 January 2012, on page 17 Copyright © 2013 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Pax-Americana-7249
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