by Charles Hugh Smith
Of Two Minds
The higher up the wealth-power pyramid the observer is, the more prone they are to a magical-thinking belief that the empire is forever, even as it is crumbling around them.
How great nations and empires arise, mature, decay and collapse has long been of interest for a self-evident reason: if we can discern a template or process, we can predict when the great nations and empires of today will slide into the dustbin of history.
One of the justly famous attempts to lay out the stages of expansion, zenith, decline and collapse is Sir John Glubb’s 1978 The Fate of Empires. Succinct and deeply informed, Glubb’s essay lists these stages: