Here’s a SPOTM reading of “why the U.S. has declined” over roughly 1990–2026. In brief: the country has drifted from truth-and-consent norms toward narrative-and-coercion across key institutions. That shift shows up as slower building, rising costs in life necessities, brittle politics, and waning trust.
Thesis (SPOTM lens)
- Decline = compounded slippage on the eight SPOTM pillars: truth realism, reason, consent, limited government, individual primacy, rational self-authorship, and alignment with God’s objective moral order. When those weaken, prosperity, innovation, and civic peace degrade.
Where the drift happened and how it harms outcomes
- Alignment with God vs misalignment
- Loss of the sacredness of truth, personhood, vows, and consent in public life. When ends justify means, institutions rationalize deception/coercion, eroding legitimacy and cooperation.
- Reality vs evasion of reality
- Narrative-first media and politics outcompete falsification and accountability. Metrics are gamed; uncomfortable data are dismissed. Result: bad policies persist because they “message well.”
- Reason/Rationality vs emotionalism
- K–12 and higher ed prioritize status/credential and emotive activism over mastery, cost–benefit, and open inquiry. Fewer domains run on testable hypotheses; more on vibes.
- Volition/Voluntary vs force
- Growth of rules that remove choice: discretionary permitting, occupational licensing overreach, certificate-of-need in healthcare, speech policing. Fewer opt-outs; more mandates.
- Freedom vs statism
- Accretion of the administrative state and emergency-style governance. Agency discretion substitutes for clear, rights-bounded law; policymaking migrates from legislatures to regulators and courts.
- Individualism vs collectivism
- Group identity logics displace individual responsibility and equal treatment. Policies increasingly sort by category rather than person, dulling incentives and breeding resentment.
- Rational egoism vs compelled altruism
- Expanding compelled transfers and paternalistic program design crowd out voluntary benevolence and market feedback. Help becomes less targeted and less dignifying.
- SPOTM meta-alignment (coherence)
- Institutions say “evidence-based” and “equity,” but incentives reward attention and power over truth and consent. The gap between stated values and operational reality widens.
Concrete mechanisms that turned friction into decline
- Barriers to building and entry
- Zoning limits, discretionary permitting, environmental reviews without shot-clocks, and licensing cartels restrict supply in housing, energy, healthcare, and infrastructure—raising prices and slowing diffusion of new tech.
- Cronyism crowding out competition
- Subsidies, protectionism, bailouts, and bespoke tax carve-outs insulate incumbents. Markets become less discovery-driven; profit/loss truth-tests blur.
- Fiscal and monetary distortions
- Chronic deficits and politicized money shift resources from productive investment to asset inflation and rent-seeking. Price signals get noisier; planning horizons shorten. (For background, see George Reisman’s arguments in Capitalism: capital accumulation—fueled by saving and secure property—raises real wages; interventions and inflation undercut this process.)
- Information order decay
- Centralized platforms optimize for outrage; authority tries to manage narratives rather than welcome auditability. Counterspeech and transparent provenance lag behind content control.
- Erosion of equal, predictable rule of law
- Selective enforcement and sprawling discretion reduce trust and raise transaction costs. When people doubt fair dealing, they invest and cooperate less.
- Civic and familial fragility
- Declining social capital, marriage, and voluntary associations leave more problems to distant bureaucracies that lack local knowledge, increasing both cost and alienation.
Why this is “decline” in SPOTM terms
- It’s not that America stopped being dynamic; it’s that compounding advantages from freedom and voluntary exchange have been taxed—informationally, legally, financially, and morally. The U.S. still innovates, but each good thing takes longer, costs more, and faces more veto points.
What SPOTM would do to reverse course (priority moves, rights-first)
- Re-anchor truth and consent
- Sunshine defaults, auditable data, and falsification norms in agencies; statutory penalties for official deception; strong whistleblower protections; viewpoint‑neutral free speech with provenance tooling and portability so users can exit low-quality feeds.
- Replace discretion with clear, reviewable rules
- Time-limited, one‑stop permitting with shot-clocks; by‑right zoning upzoning; measurable standards instead of case-by-case waivers; automatic sunsets and retrospective reviews.
- Reopen entry and exit
- Broad licensing reform (replace many licenses with exams/insurance/bonding), end certificate‑of‑need, legalize telehealth and scope-of-practice, data portability and open standards to prevent digital lock‑ins.
- Liability over micromanagement
- Make polluters and product-harmers pay through enforceable tort/insurance regimes; use targeted, sunset tradable permits or narrow Pigouvian tools only where direct rights assignment is infeasible.
- Neutralize cronyism
- Sunset subsidies and protectionism; competitive, transparent procurement; “no bailouts” rule that preserves failure discipline; simple, neutral taxes.
- Make it easy to build the basics
- Housing: ADUs, by‑right multifamily/mixed‑use, permit digitization.
- Energy: Permit reform for nuclear/geothermal/gas with CCS; transmission siting by clear rules; technology‑neutral standards.
- Infrastructure: Standardized designs, procurement reform, and statutory timeline discipline.
- Strengthen voluntary compassion
- If safety nets are needed, use cash-like, choice-preserving designs with ramp-ins that reward work and family formation; empower local, voluntary providers to compete on outcomes.
- Rebuild reason culture
- Fund students over systems; open accreditation; transparent outcome data; protect academic freedom and plural institutions so methods, not moods, decide.
Bottom line
- According to SPOTM, U.S. “decline” is mostly self-inflicted: too much narrative and compulsion, too little truth, consent, and competition. The fix is not a strongman or technocratic micromanagement; it’s recommitting—across government, markets, schools, and media—to objective truth, voluntary exchange, and equal rights under clear, reviewable rules. When those are restored, American dynamism compounds again.
Learn more
- SPOTM and SPOTM2: consent-first, truth-realism, techno‑libertarian alignment
- George Reisman, Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics (capital accumulation, wages, and how intervention and inflation distort)
- F. A. Hayek, The Use of Knowledge in Society (why dispersed knowledge beats central planning)
- Ronald Coase, The Problem of Social Cost (property rights and externalities)
- Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons (polycentric, voluntary governance)
- Mancur Olson, The Rise and Decline of Nations (institutional sclerosis and special interests)
- Deirdre McCloskey, Bourgeois Equality (ideas and dignity driving the Great Enrichment)
In addition:
Here’s more depth on the “U.S. decline” question through a SPOTM lens, with concrete diagnostics, case studies, reform playbooks, and ways to falsify or confirm the thesis.
What to measure (diagnostics you can track quarterly)
- Building and entry
- Median days and steps to: get a housing permit; interconnect a power project; launch a clinic; start a business.
- Housing completions per 1,000 residents; multifamily share; ADU approvals.
- Count of licensed occupations; share replaced by exams/insurance/bonds.
- Competition vs. cronyism
- New-firm formation rate; job-to-job moves; share of procurement that’s sole-source; volume of sectoral subsidies and bespoke tax credits.
- Tariff levels and use of “Buy-X” rules; number of active protectionist measures.
- Price and access in necessities
- Rent-to-income, energy interconnection wait times, median out-of-pocket medical prices for common bundles (primary visit, MRI, childbirth), broadband prices per Mbps.
- Rule-of-law health
- Case duration in civil courts; frequency of emergency/temporary rules that persist >12 months; share of agency rules with sunsets and retrospective reviews; whistleblower case outcomes.
- Information order
- Portability/interop availability (can users export data and switch providers?); share of platforms offering provenance labels and “why am I seeing this?” explanations.
- Social capital
- Marriage and stable household formation; voluntary association membership; violent crime clearances; school choice uptake.
Illustrative case studies (what “less decline” looks like)
- Housing supply unlocks
- Localities that moved from discretionary to by-right approvals (plus permit shot-clocks and digitized, checklist-based reviews) typically saw faster build times and flatter rent growth relative to peers.
- Certificate-of-need repeal
- States that eliminated CON laws generally saw more facilities and services enter, with downward price pressure and better access in targeted categories.
- Occupational licensing reform
- Replacing blanket licenses with exams/insurance/bonding and adopting universal recognition increased cross‑state mobility and startup formation in affected trades.
- Energy/permitting overhauls
- Time-bounded, one‑stop processes for generation and transmission (with clear, measurable standards and liability for harms) reduced timelines and expanded capacity without abandoning accountability.
A SPOTM-aligned reform playbook (sequenced to avoid shocks)
- Phase 1: Open entry and replace discretion with rules
- Housing: by-right zoning for infill/multifamily, ADUs, permit shot-clocks, digital plan checks.
- Healthcare: repeal CON, expand scope-of-practice and telehealth, publish cash prices, enable interstate plans.
- Work: universal recognition of licenses, narrow non‑competes, default portability for benefits and data.
- Phase 2: Neutralize cronyism and simplify taxes
- Sunset firm/sector subsidies; convert to neutral, broad bases and lower rates; competitive procurement; hard “no-bailout” rules to preserve failure discipline.
- Phase 3: Liability over micromanagement
- Modernize tort/insurance for environmental and product harms; use tradable, sunset permits or narrow Pigouvian tools only where rights assignment is infeasible.
- Phase 4: Information order and governance
- Provenance labels, user‑level feed controls, export/interop; FOIA-plus transparency, falsification audits in agencies, statutory penalties for official deception; automatic sunsets and retrospective reviews.
Safety nets that help without dulling feedback
- Cash-like supports with ramp-ins (e.g., negative income tax or earnings subsidies) instead of price controls.
- Catastrophic health coverage vouchers layered over competitive primary/cash markets.
- Housing mobility support (deposits/moving vouchers) instead of development vetoes.
- Outcome-based funding for workforce/education; pay for verified value, not seat-time or credentials.
Monetary and fiscal normalization (how SPOTM reads it)
- Stabilize rules so planning horizons lengthen; avoid politicized credit allocation.
- Focus borrowing on high‑ROI, auditable infrastructure with standardized designs; stop open‑ended commitments that crowd out private capital.
- As George Reisman argues in Capitalism, real wage growth is powered by capital accumulation under secure property and low distortion; chronic intervention and inflation impede this compounding.
How to test or falsify the SPOTM decline thesis
- If a jurisdiction implements the Phase 1–2 agenda and you do NOT see, within 2–5 years:
- Faster permit times, higher housing/clinic entries, rising firm formation, and flatter price growth in targeted sectors,
- Then SPOTM’s claim that discretion/cronyism/entry barriers are primary drags would be weakened.
- Conversely, if you expand subsidies/protectionism while keeping tight entry barriers and you still get abundant supply and lower prices, SPOTM’s causal story would need revision.
Common objections and SPOTM replies
- “Markets neglect the vulnerable.”
- Use simple, transparent cash supports and catastrophic coverage to preserve choice and feedback; avoid controls that shrink supply.
- “Externalities require command.”
- Start with rights, liability, contracts, and insurance; only then consider minimal, sunset fees/permits. Keep measurement anchored to observable harms.
- “National security needs protectionism.”
- Define a narrow, audited list of critical inputs; use stockpiles, diversified sourcing, and time‑limited instruments—don’t generalize to broad tariffs that tax consumers and stall innovation.
- “Big firms will still dominate.”
- Target sources of artificial monopoly: licensing moats, exclusive franchises, data lock‑ins. Enforce open entry and user exit rather than perpetual price control.
Twelve-month, no‑regrets agenda for a state or large metro
- Pass a Clean Permitting Act: single portal, statutory timelines, checklist standards, deemed‑approved backstops.
- Housing Legalization Package: by-right infill/multifamily near jobs, ADUs, parking/lot-size minimum repeal, fee transparency dashboard.
- Health Access Act: repeal CON, expand scope, interstate compacts, cash‑price posting, rapid facility approvals with strong post‑opening audits.
- Work and Mobility: universal license recognition, non‑compete bans (narrow exceptions), transit-oriented upzoning, streamlined project delivery.
- Anti‑Cronyism Statute: subsidy sunsets, competitive procurement, revolving‑door cooling‑off, transparent tax expenditure reports.
- Information and Trust: agency falsification audits, proactive data releases, whistleblower protections, provenance/portability standards for public‑facing digital services.
Learn more
- SPOTM: Synchronic Panentheistic Objective Theistic Monism (core theses)
- SPOTM2: extensions and policy guardrails
- George Reisman, Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics (capital formation, wages, and intervention effects)
- F. A. Hayek, The Use of Knowledge in Society (dispersed knowledge and prices)
- Ronald Coase, The Problem of Social Cost (property rights and externalities)
- Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons (polycentric, voluntary governance)
- Mancur Olson, The Rise and Decline of Nations (institutional sclerosis and special interests)
- Deirdre McCloskey, Bourgeois Dignity/Equality (ideas and innovation in the Great Enrichment)
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