January 25, 2025
Trump is Accelerating America’s Decline
Philip Kotler
President Donald Trump thinks that his current strong actions will increase the world’s respect for America. He believes that the world’s nations will see America as great again.
I predict the opposite. Other countries will lower their opinion of America. They will look down on Trump’s “America First” policies. The idea of placing 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico will lead these countries to raise their tariffs on American imported goods. The idea that the U.S. can resume ownership and operation of the Panama Canal insults Panama’s government. That America can take over Greenland doesn’t sit well with Greenland’s government or citizens or with Denmark. Trump’s urging Canadians “to consider becoming the 51st member of the United States” is an insult to Canada.
What has happened to our country that once stood as the hope and incentive for so many other countries to build their own democracy. What is left of the idea that the U.S. helped create such important international organizations as the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary System. Didn’t America fight in World War 1 and World War 2 to preserve the freedom of other countries not to cave in to Germany or Russia. Didn’t America set up the Statue of Liberty to welcome the citizens of other countries to come to America.
Trump is reverting to an older system of American thinking, isolationism. Isolation was the Republican party’s posturing during the outbreak of World War 2. Their party’s chief spokesman was Charles Lindbergh who wanted President Franklin D. Roosevelt to stay out of the European War. Lindbergh had accepted Germany’s Medal of Honor, knew Hitler, and admired the quality of Germany’s aircraft. He said little about Hitler’s bombing of Poland, Germany’s invasion of Belgium, France and other countries, and he never acknowledged the brutal rounding up of European Jews, imprisoning them, and slaughtering them.
Roosevelt managed to declare war on Germany and Japan and win the wars. America achieved the admiration of the free world and in the postwar period invested in the Marshall Plan and other plans to create a speedy recovery after the war. America was seen as a superpower bent on establishing peace and prosperity. America then spent 44 years (1945–1989) protecting many of the free nations against Russia’s fight to control them. More recently, America has fought against China’s growing effort to influence and control many free nations.
Trump’s “America First” is a return to America’s isolationism. Trump’s leadership is now about how much America can get from other countries and not about what American can give to other friendly nations. Trump sees geopolitics as a zero-sum game played in a zero-sum world. One person wins at the expense of others who lose.
Other nations are losing trust in the U.S. In 2006, Brazil, Russia, India and China created the Bric group designed to bring together countries to challenge the political and economic power of the wealthier nations of North America and Western Europe. Subsequently, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, United Arab Emirates and Indonesia joined the Bric’s group. Some other nations are partners but not members. The U.S. is obviously not a member. The Bric group hopes to build an alternative financial system to counter the power of the dollar.
Trump, in his first days of power, announced canceling U.S.’s membership in the Paris Agreement which was set up to achieve climate control. Trump also announced canceling his support of the World Health Organization. As a further move against health care, Trump proposed raising the prices of drugs going to Medicare and Medicaid patients.
All said, the U.S. under Trump has abandoned America’s interest in making the world a better place for the world’s citizens. Trump’s aim is fixed on increasing America’s wealth. His main focus is on how to increase the wealth of the wealthy. He favors lower taxes on the rich. To accomplish this, he will likely cut Social Security and Medicare, thereby making the poor poorer.
Under Trump, the world has lost the top country giving the world hope for a better future. Trump is busy making America weaker and more vulnerable. The world is without a backup country to provide worldwide leadership in peace and prosperity for all.
From now on, governments around the world will each think only about what is in their best interest, not what’s in the world’s best interest. Nations will pursue the largest GDP growth as if GDP is a sufficient measure of human progress and wellbeing. But all that a rising GDP shows is that a nation has improved its wealth. It doesn’t mean that members of the working class are living better, are happier, and enjoying more wellness. American Capitalism has not delivered on its promises. The number of poor citizens has increased, the middle class has downsized, and the rich have become much richer. The myth that the wealth of the rich will trickle down to the poor is the bald face lie of Capitalism. Capitalism offers the great deception that everyone will be richer in the future if they patiently accept the current gross inequality and human suffering. Most rich Americans care little about the deprived condition of most Americans. The rich see their responsibility to mainly provide enough low paying jobs for the poor so that the citizens don’t revolt.
Peter Georgescu, former head of the advertising firm Young and Rubicam, warns that “capitalism has been slowly committing suicide.”
Nordic Capitalism
Fortunately, a few countries manage a tamer form of Capitalism that produces citizens who are healthier, happier and more educated. Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Ireland practice an aspirational form of Capitalism. These countries worry as much about the distribution of wealth as about growing wealth. They assure that the members of the working and middle class receive a decent share of the new wealth. These countries favor unions to press for a good share of the gains in wealth. They all believe in progressive taxes where the rich pay a higher tax rate than the poor. They believe that families deserve a longer vacation than just two weeks of the 52 weeks in a year. They believe that women just giving birth to children should have several weeks without work to nurse and support their newborns.
The evidence that Nordic citizens benefit from their version of capitalism is that the Nordic countries are always in the lists of the top 10 countries having the best educational and health systems. Adult citizens in the Nordic countries are more educated and healthier than the citizens of most countries.
Should Capitalism Transition to Peopleism?
What is the proper measure of how well a country is helping its people to be healthy, happy, and well-educated? We showed that GDP-measured economic growth is not enough. We need to show that the created wealth is well shared by all the participants in its production. Are all the citizens better off?
An original answer to this question came in the 1780s from Jeremy Bentham, a leading English philosopher and writer on law and politics. He helped develop the concept of the Common Good. He asked of any proposed legislative, social or political change: Does it increase the common good? Does the proposal make more people happy than sad. If yes, that proposal creates more total happiness and deserves popular support.
Bentham dismissed getting into questions of who became happier or sadder with the proposed policy. It didn’t matter if a wealthy person became sadder and a poorer person became happier. The score is not altered by the age, education or wealth of the sadder person. The common good is advanced when a policy makes more people happier than sadder. People are all equal in measuring the common good.
Today, Ravi Chaudhry, is his new book Capitalism to Peopleism, has proposed a “common good” measure of well-being. He insisted that the economic system be judged by the degree to which all people’s lives have improved. Are they better fed, dressed, housed, respected and cared for? If yes, that economic system is practicing Peopleism. If not, the economy is only bettering the few who are rich.
Ravi points to the beneficial practices of the Tata family in India. The Tata Group manages companies in the airlines, hotels, financial services and automotive sectors. The Tatas are among the richest families in India. All the profits of the company flow into charitable causes.
A distinction is needed between good capitalists and bad capitalists. Bad capitalists pay low wages to their employees and show little regard for them. Ravi sees the solution as getting more capitalists converted to Peopleism. Capitalists would be admired not for how much money they make but how they treat and invest in improving the lives of people.
Bill Gates is my model of a good Capitalist. He and his wife Melinda set up the Gates Foundation to support good causes in developing countries such as providing cleaner drinking water, finding ways to kill mosquitos causing malaria, creating better schools and better health facilities. Gates then formed the Giving Pledge to recruit billionaires who sign the pledge that they would give away half of their wealth in the next ten years to good causes. So far, 236 billionaires from 28 countries have signed the Giving Pledge. That Bill Gates cares about other people is manifested also by sharing his views on the promise of specific new technologies and periodically publicizing experiences of the best fiction and nonfiction new books to keep the public informed.
Conclusion
Donald Trump was inaugurated for a second term as U.S. President on January 20, 2025. His purpose is to “Make America Great Again.” He will accomplish that by focusing on “America First in all of his policies and actions.” He is essentially shifting America from a country promoting democracy and hope in the world to a country judging how much he can take from other countries to benefit Americans. He will put higher taxes and tariffs on other countries, including our traditional allies, and dissociate from participating and supporting some important international organizations and some worthwhile causes such as cleaner air, Social Security and Medicare.
I unhappily predict that Trump will make America lesser, not greater, in the eyes of the rest of the world. Donald Trump carries all the traits of Bad Capitalists who primarily want to build their personal wealth, power and influence and assist other Bad Capitalists to do the same.
