Generalizing somewhat, the 20th Century’s most powerful economies emerged from a major Civil War, then recovered with an Industrial Revolution, creating a strong economy, which peaked or fell.Great Britain’s Civil War was with the American colonies in 1775-83, followed by the world’s first Industrial Revolution in British factories, leading to their dominance in the 19th Century.• America’s Civil War (1861-65) caused a devastating loss of life and destruction of our southern economy, followed by a Northern Industrial Revolution and dominance in the 20th Century.• Germany’s emergence from a gaggle of city states into a new nation in 1871 led to their own Industrial Revolution in heavy metal and armaments, leading to two devastating World Wars.• Russia’s Civil War between the Red Bolsheviks and White Russians, and others (1917-24) led to an Industrial Revolution under Mr. Steel (Stalin), emerging as a Superpower by his death in 1953.• Japan lost a major world war in the 1940s and was reduced to rubble, after which (with U.S. aid) Japan became the leading new economic superpower by the 1980s, before collapsing after 1989.• China’s Civil War (the Cultural Revolution, 1966-76) crippled that nation’s economy and people, but they revived under Deng Xiaoping’s industrial revolution to become a factory for the world.Each of these Civil Wars was very costly in human and economic terms. According to R.J. Rummel’s “Death by Government” (democide) studies, China killed over 65 million of its own people under Mao:This makes Mao the world’s worst killer, murdering the most number of his citizens: 65+ million:By comparison, our own Civil War resulted in just over 600,000 deaths, about 2% of our population. But it’s useful to compare our rapid growth in the 50 years after our Civil War to China’s growth since 1976. It’s almost like China is following America’s recovery – a century later – in its recent high growth rates.Past empires over-extended themselves and began to fail: Japan incurred too much debt and hit a speed bump in 1989, from which they never fully recovered. The Soviet Union was outspent in armaments, the only market in which they excelled, while starving their people to gin up a nuclear rivalry with the U.S.China’s phenomenal growth is now beginning to slow under the wings of its new Dictator for Life, Xi Jinping. Part of this is due to their “one child policy,” from which the nation never recovered and is now paying the price, with massive armies of elderly and retired Chinese who can’t be supported by a shrinking number of young laborers. This also puts pressure on the ubiquitous “Made in China” label.In 2024, Chinese deaths outnumbered births for the first time, signaling a peak population point, after which China is expected to decline for at least the next generation, until 2050 at the earliest, even if they start mass-producing babies now, which the newly spoiled urbanized Chinese are not likely to do.The result will be an inevitable decline from the current 5% (nominal, reported) levels to near zero in 2050.Our job in the U.S. is to learn from the past failures of Britain, Russia, Germany, Japan, and now China.