Climate catastrophe means those who own actual supply chains and physical production and healthy humans with technical knowledge will probably do a lot better than those who don't. As we enter a brutal climate for the 21st century, China kept it's 1.3 billion people healthy while the US faces tens of millions of newly disabled young people. The fantasy US wealth made of paper financial investments will be the same worth as one with gold who is dying in a desert.

So China is immune to the impacts of climate change? The one thing that differentiates the first 3 examples from China is also a free market economy. You can argue China is free market at this point but there is still a heavy state hand and due to this their ability to grow and adapt is going to be stunted. China could find its much easier riding the US coattails than being the world economic leader.

During the early phases of each war, America just sat back and ate cheese. England was in the thick of it. The first war killed off many Englishmen -- even the upper classes. In the second one, their cities were bombed. Both times America came in late, did what needed to be done, and won. In the second world war, while every other country was having their factories blown to bits, ours were thriving. Rosie the Riveter won the fucking war -- cranking more armaments than the rest of the world put together. After the war, those companies just switched to making cars, appliances, and other crap. Good public policy helped, of course.

You're saying that China hasn't been hurt by this pandemic? Come on man. Yes, a lot of Americans are dying off, but most of them are stupid. From an economic standpoint, this is just a blip. China got hammered just as hard.

Same goes for global warming. It will be fucked for everyone, but especially those without money or the good sense to make the right decisions. China will be just as fucked as us, if not more. Now Finland is a different story ...

The US's economy overtook the UK in about 1890 and by 1913 was over twice as large as the UK's. There are some timeline with this theory.

Also, what catastrophe was it that caused Japan to lose its spot as the world's second largest economy to China? Does this stuff only work for the first place spot? Was devastation the US is suffering from global warming enough to knock Japan out of second place decades before it happened, much like the World Wars caused the US to replace the UK decades before they took place?

I can't see how Charles can possibly make this comparison.

The economics, technology, ideology and markets are completely different.

The British Empire was based on colonialism while the US is based on economic competition & capital with the odds heavily weighted to our advantage.

@5: Not only that, but at the end of the First World War, the British Empire dismembered the Ottoman Empire, and took some choice pieces for itself. The British Empire was thus larger after the war than before it.

@6: "I can't see how Charles can possibly make this comparison."

Because it fits his simple narrative, about capitalism needing war.

The US economy is growing and thriving in part because of and not in spite of China's economic growth. It's not a zero-sum game.