Interesting reference to Allende and Peron.

All thoughts against the current extremist illogical rightwing stuff is most welcome. Debate keeps minds balanced.

Agreed. Global trade must be two ways or multi-ways to be sustainable. Otherwise, countries will fall deep into debt and will not rise from it, ever. Debt can convert emerging markets to submerging desparates!

Globalization was and should be a multilateral network, like the Internet and not like a hub-and-spoke mechanism to allow a few to control trade, interaction and or business. And that is where it does not fit the American version, from oil to just about any other product. However, big economies like America should not be worried about what is happening elsewhere. When other countries become better educated and more prosperous, they will be better customers and better places for American investments.

The author's point of skinny direct investments is a point that must be considered.

James Buchanan:

It is interesting to read the rambling of arrogancy, the USA is incapable to bring the oil market to heel. To change the USA from oil dependency to some kind of energy self-sufficiency will take at least 50 years with present policies, and possibly cut it to 30 years if the economy undertakes a strenous and expensive overhaul. During this time Asia/S America/Africa will grow in economic terms, and demand more oil than available. Prices will rise, living stnadards will fall for the USA, as the other countries play catch-up.

If Latin America wants to play the Socialism game, they're welcome to it. When the US leaves Iraq and the oil market is brought to heel by the US finally (someday) moving from a pure petroleum transportation infrastructure and Chinese controlled subsidization of African oil, they'll be back to square one and ready for re-assimilation as satellite nations, except, they won't be US satellites, they'll be Brazillian satellites. The one intelligent nation on the whole damned continent. I wish them a prosperous climb into the First World.

I don't agree with the author at all. This socialistic backlash in Latin America is going to be felt around the continent in years to come. Everybody has seen what happened to the old socialistic governments in the region that decided to de-privatise industry. Everybody gets lazy and sloppy. Look at Peru before Garcia was elected. The compesinos wanted the former president who was convicted of embezzlement back simply because of the ag subsidies he gave out. They got paid to sit around and not produce. They don't care about the corruption until it affects the personally.

Oil booms are allowing these dictators posing as socialists to take power and distribute wealth to the masses. Watch what happens when the oil runs out. These guys get voted in from a populous that remembers socialist Latin America years ago when they didn't have to do anything to get a paycheck. Socialism in Latin America appeals to the lazy side of humanity and unfortuantely these governments will crumble quickly. Like Ghandi said about Western civilization; socialism is a great idea. Its been tried, along with communism and look at the results. Fidel stands alone in communism, and unless you're a scandanavian country (norway, sweden, finland), good luck with socialism. Its a fun, exciting ride for a while.........

As for Mama's comments, the settling pond of democracy does seem to take 300-400 years for the scum to rise to the top and stay there. If we can't cleanse the pond we'll go down the chute as well. Democracy or any other form of government entrenched within a 200+ year history is too slow to change for a globalising world. Fortuantely America helped open the door innovatively to the technology boom as has some of the best infrasturucture in the world. I'm sure we'll ride this out until the world finds another massive consumer.

Interesting comparisons. I have to agree that we need a completely new formulation.

I simply think that Globalisation was a scam dreamed up to let countries to open their markets on the promise of investments, but the investments never arrived. Just as all of those countries with IMF deals never managed to reduce their debt load in a significant way.

Domination is an old way of thinking. Partnerships and alliances and understanding of two-way deals.

I agree with MaMa above.

We need to take a step back and calm down and look at the world from a wiser point of view. The world has gotten much smaller and thus issues much closer to all of us, from global warming to global trade to global rules.

Yes, we need a new world order. A world that has order and it is on an even playing field with rules for every one.

Modern times needs modern thought. Agree with the author that we ought not to be nostalgic.

In all of history, empire rise and then decline and then fall flat on their face. It looks like USA is following the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire had a long internal crisis about 30-40 years into its third century and it looks like USA is going in that direction. As always, it is not a single decision that leads to that, but a series.

If you look at the USSR, UK and France as the last of the colonial powers, you can see that they all went down a one-way road. France used to be the 5th largest economy in the world only 10 years ago, and now it is 13th all because they didn't want to change their ways of doing things.

Most people now agree that the Iraq invasion, beyond being a complete waste of money, has effectively handed the future of the region to the Iranians. Today it is just a question of how many more Americans will die before we exit. I would have preferred that this had not happened, but my viewpoint did not prevail in 2002-3.

Very interesting and clearly explained.

The world lurches between ineffective populist/socialist policies and corrupt plutocracy. On both Left and Right, the leaders are all too fond of their power, to the detriment of the people. Competitive markets and competitive elections, not rhetoric and entrebchment, will create wealth and competent government for the people. But market economies and democracies are all too easily hijacked by a wealthy few who use their money to obtain government intervention to entrench themselves rather than face competition.