Rivals Keep You Honest

Thomas Friedman hits it on the head (again). The cause of our economic implosion, in the most general sense: we no longer had a rival to keep us honest.

We lost our two biggest ideological competitors — Beijing and Moscow. Everyone needs a competitor. It keeps you disciplined. But once American capitalism no longer had to worry about communism, it seems to have gone crazy.

Once the Cold War ended, we no longer had anyone to worry about. We embarked on a decade-and-half long orgy of self-indulgence, greed, and sloppiness and this is what it has led to. It was bound to happen. Every great empire has to pay the piper eventually and the American empire is no exception. The hope is that this crisis will serve as the reform agent and we will self regulate. Not meaning “self-regulate” the financial markets (we all saw how that worked out), but self-regulate our ethics, goals, practices, expectations, and motivations. The early results of this bailout do not bode well for this hope, but if we don’t we can say goodbye to the American era.