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The Half Life of Empire (measured as share of world energy consumption)economicsfromthetopdown.com/2025/05/04/the-half-life-of-empire/
2074 sats \ 6 comments \ @k00b 14h econ
I like collapsing measurements of dominance down to one variable like this. I'm not sure how accurate it is, but it feels pretty darn accurate.
To measure the imperial half life, the main question is how we should quantify ‘dominance’. I suggest we use the empire’s share of world energy consumption. The idea is that when it comes to empire, there is nothing more important than the exploitation of energy. The flow of energy is what makes biological life possible, and it is the lifeblood of all human societies, including those that choose the path to globe-spanning power.
As the British Empire began to fade, the US empire was on the rise. From 1800 to 1945, the US share of world energy consumption grew nearly twentyfold. When American power peaked at the end of World War II, the United States consumed slightly more than a third of the world’s energy.
It happened with little fanfare in 2009. In that year, China’s share of world energy consumption first surpassed that of the US. Intriguingly, it was also in 2009 that the US exited its imperial half life, consuming (for the first time since 1889) less than half its peak share of world energy use. Since then, the tide of US power has continued to ebb, undeterred by the minutia of partisan politics. And the tide of Chinese power has continued to rise. Within a few years, China will consume double the energy of the United States.
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100 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 14h
I've never thought to look at a metric like this. It is very interesting.
I wonder how hard it would be to push back into earlier historical periods that predominantly used more mechanical energy sources, like muscles or wind.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 7h
There are many metrics you can look at and compare.
Across nearly all of them the USA is now in decline and China is rising.
Very rarely do citizens of empires in decline see and acknowledge the process, until it is too late.
It is arguably the sense of entitlement and invulnerability that slowly grows like a cancer in dominant societies, that is their ultimate undoing.
US exceptionalism being perhaps a case in point.
The naivety of the Libertarians 'markets fix everything' dogma and their dismissal of the importance of government in determining the wealth of nations being another.
https://unctad.org/topic/trade-analysis/chart-10-may-2021
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 7h
Reminds me of the Kardashev Scale which measures a civilization's advancement by its ability to harness energy.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @LibertasBR 8h
This is an interesting fact and seems to make a lot of sense. I don't know how reliable the data is before 1965 or so.
At Methodology from Energy Institute they explain how they measure the data, by means of equivalence between the thermal generation of the energy sources and the consumption of fossil fuels necessary for this. Interesting.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @OT 12h
I wonder if it really is that simple.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 8h
Of course its not but it is an interesting way of looking at it. No matter how you look at it - China is rising in relative power and the USA is in decline.
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