What if the Soviet Union had fallen earlier, leading to an earlier end to the Cold War?
What if the Soviet Union had fallen earlier, leading to an earlier end to the Cold War?
You're seeing that right now. The answer is... not good in a lot of ways. A superpower already tries to push the ideals of its nation on the world. When it comes to economics, for the USA that means neo-liberalism. Neo-liberalism has utterly failed every time it has been tried, and most of the time has forced the state to throw off in about 6 years.
The exception is Chile, but that was because of a totalitarian government, and the state still intervening to reduce inflation and even did bail outs. Why? The economy crashed so badly, and so frequently, that revolution was quite possible many times. Add in alcoholism increasing by four times compared to previous rates, and massive unemployment, and you get a failed experiment.
Chile was put into practice by the USA. The USA would've attempted to do more, and the world would've suffered for it. Chile was done through a CIA coup during the Cold War. If the Cold War ended, expect a lot more of that type of experiment.
Don't wanna get into an economic debate here, but I just wanna point out that the Chilean coup would have gone ahead without any US intervention at all. It wasn't just something the CIA cooked up; it had the whole Chilean Armed Forces behind it.You're seeing that right now. The answer is... not good in a lot of ways. A superpower already tries to push the ideals of its nation on the world. When it comes to economics, for the USA that means neo-liberalism. Neo-liberalism has utterly failed every time it has been tried, and most of the time has forced the state to throw off in about 6 years.
The exception is Chile, but that was because of a totalitarian government, and the state still intervening to reduce inflation and even did bail outs. Why? The economy crashed so badly, and so frequently, that revolution was quite possible many times. Add in alcoholism increasing by four times compared to previous rates, and massive unemployment, and you get a failed experiment.
Chile was put into practice by the USA. The USA would've attempted to do more, and the world would've suffered for it. Chile was done through a CIA coup during the Cold War. If the Cold War ended, expect a lot more of that type of experiment.
What about an earlier post-Cold War world? And how would the world do with the United States as the only superpower earlier?
What if the Soviet Union had fallen earlier, leading to an earlier end to the Cold War?