It’s a popular topic of debate these days to argue over the magnitude of the waning influence of the United States. Many people see the country as a dying empire or as a corrupt and decadent society eating itself alive. Whatever the merits of this discussion I’d like to posit that this perception of a decline might have more to do with the human species than with the United States in particular. Although I do not pretend this is a new claim I do believe the arguments regarding it have never fully embraced the singular notion at the heart of the dilemma.
To emphasize this position I could point to climate change or the seeming inevitability of a world war where nuclear weapons are used. But to me, these potential catastrophes are only the end result of a paradigm which was constructed long before any of us were born. They are much like the toxins of a deadly bacteria, which although lethal, first require the existence of the bacteria.
Our degeneration has two main aspects. The first and most often discussed is our failure, as a species, to learn from our past mistakes or more generally to put into practice what we have learned throughout history. The question of a nuclear war, given what we know about the after effects of such a global calamity, should be only of theoretical concern in a classroom setting. However, that we still contend with it as a very real possibility simply indicates exactly how little we understand of what we already know. The issue of global climate change comes at the end of a very long history of lessons concerning the necessary and proper care of our local ecosystems. As well we have developed very well structured system of accruing knowledge of the natural world that is embodied in science. And yet there is an artificial and ongoing debate about whether the claim of the vast majority of climate scientists is actually true.  
Of course there are other lessons we have learned which could be of use to many contemporary problems. We know that owning slaves is wrong and yet the world still holds a large portion of its population in bondage. We know that the oppression of women is both immoral and idiotic from an economic standpoint and yet we know of countries that routinely and horrendously marginalize that 50% of their population. Yet all these insane aspects of the human populace still only act as indicators for the real problem we face. Because for thousands of years, for whatever reason ,we have created institutions where the determination of our fates was held in the hands of but a few, while the masses have been given little to no control over the world they live in. This then is not only a true foundation for our decline but is the ultimate mistake we continue to repeat.
Before going further it should be pointed out that whatever lies at the heart of our inability to accrue collective wisdom it certainly does not come from an innate depravity. We may not be wholly virtuous creatures who wish to do only good but we are also not wholly evil. Simple acts of kindness, cooperation, and the stability of civilization (thus far) should give us a hint that our natures are not completely corrupt. The flaw is found in the organizations our ancestors formed and in the pledges and promises of old that we continue to fulfill to this day. In short; it is the structure of society that is at fault, not the creatures who make that society up. Whether you agree or not with this conclusion it is still important to acknowledge that those societal structures we maintain are, for the most part, products from times in which all of us did not live. Acknowledgement of this should at least help us gain perspective.
At some point, perhaps in the beginning of human pre-history, our collective ancestry created institutions to organize their particular societies. These may be anything from the rule of law to language to marriage and sexuality.In the beginning we can believe that the general structure of a society was formulated on hierarchy only as a necessity. Decisions had to be made quickly and those who were the strongest or the most nimble of mind were able to put themselves in positions of leadership. As time moved forward and technology flowered many societal constructs were modified or destroyed and built again. These modifications to the structure of societies could take into account new offshoots in the population like an aristocracy of land owners or a mercantile class or artisans. But no matter how multifarious a society became there was still maintained a ranking of citizens where the largest portion remained the poorest and least able to make decisions concerning their own fates.
Despite that hurried description of civilization’s roots I think we can see, with some clarity, the foundations of our real problem. Because the world in which a few were once given power over the many is not a world far removed from the one we inhabit. Taking the United States as an example, someone would probably assert that the U.S. does not have a landed gentry or a single autocrat and therefore is not hierarchical like those societies of the past. To this I would ask that person how much control they had over the economic catastrophe of 2008 or the aggression against Iraq in 2003. We could go even further back and ask the citizens of the U.S. in 1965 whether they all wished to commit forces in Vietnam. Did every person alive in this country precipitate in the activities that lead to the Great Depression? How many white Americans died for the slave owning class during the Civil War? How many Americans stood up and demanded the removal of Indians from territories east of the Mississippi? How many Native Americans agreed with them? The fact is that no matter how far back you go and no matter in what country we find ourselves the same situation confronts us; we, the vast sum of the human populace, have little control over the direction our lives will take but are instead held to the sway of the mostly childish whims of the wealthy and privileged class. History is nothing if not a catalog of this large social experiment in hierarchy and with it a wretched lesson to its total failure.
Our decline and perhaps our inevitable ruination is this simple fact: the few have power over the many and the many lend their entire lives to the prosperity of those few. Our decline is inevitable because a system where most of the people are deprived of the right to true self-determination is a system which is unstable and functions only on the impulses of the few with power. Most of this system was created before any of us were born and perhaps because of that we fear dismantling it. At least since the French Revolution we humans have understood the necessity of wresting power from this minority and yet we have never completed the task.
Who makes up this minority? Although difficult to encapsulate it is not so difficult to point to. It contains politicians, but not all of them. It contains many of the executives of major corporations. It contains a business owner unknown on the national level but figurative in his or her local area. It contains the movie stars, musicians and the athletes whose arbitrary talent often times lifts them to a place of disproportionate influence. It contains a news reporter or two whose desire to be called by name by very important people trumps their desire to report the truth. It contains anyone who has been given undue influence disproportionate to their count of one in life. It’s a pastor who takes up his parishioner’s time with polemics about forgone conclusions like the right of homosexuals to marry. Who the people are is only of functional significance. We may need to know who they are to understand what’s wrong with the world we live in but the real evil lies in the system itself and that’s the part we must work to understand.
A good way of understanding this might be to take one of the potential calamitous events mentioned above; nuclear war. Most people in the United States tend not to care too much about the lives of the people in Iran nor in China. Yet if a war is provoked the citizens of the United States will be called upon to sacrifice themselves and their children to fighting those people. What’s more those people care very little about the daily lives of the citizens of the United States. But if war is made between our country and theirs they will be forced, by their controlling minorities as well, to sacrifice themselves.  Who stands to gain? Not the Chinese citizen and not the U.S. citizen but the controlling minorities.
Another way of understanding this is by examining what an average citizen of the United States does with their lives. One might say they work to own a home or to live a good life and while this sounds very serene and seems a life to aspire to it is in fact a lie (at least in a certain way). That average citizen lends his or her labor force to the continued accumulation of capital by those that employee him or her. This person follows the rules laid down in life and suffers the consequences of the failings of those at the top. If they should work their very best it is but of little concern to the maintenance of an elite’s desires. Even if less severe, as in the past, the peasant might have to go without food because of the unwise decisions of the lord of the manor.
But this is the real key, because even though it may appear otherwise this is no longer an argument concerning morality. The many, the masses, the vast majority, are bound by their place in this period of history to overturn the normal way of things. It is more than a moral cause; it is the cause of our species. Because if we let this minority decide our fates they may very well destroy the planet.  
The advent of globalization is a reality. With it come the realities of our precarious position. If we do not want to see this period as the last in our human experiment then we must make the next steps the steps of the majority not of the steps of the privileged class. We must decide whether we want a globalization for the few, where they manipulate our desires to meet their ends or whether we finally take control of our fates and the fate of the planet; all of us, the whole human species, together. 

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