If America does collapse, it will likely be for political reasons. Maybe the people in power will let it crash and burn for some misguided principle, or they will do something immensely stupid with unforeseen consequences. American economy is strong, and the society is robust enough, but there are serious risks due to the combination of dysfunctional politics and a high degree of centralization.
I don't think a routine election counts as a collapse. A govt collapse in the US would mean some combination of elections failing, leaders keeping or gaining control through force, and a breakdown of rule of law with a lot of chaos, violence, and disruption.
I very much do not want to see the US collapse; it would not be a pleasant experience. I don't think it's too likely in the near future, but it's certainly possible and these sorts of developments often only seem obvious in hindsight.
What situation would the US collapse not be the biggest global catastrophe since WW2? No matter where you escape everything is collapsing at that point.
All though, to be clear, I think the risk of a collapse isn't worth worrying about. It's like prepping for a nuclear war. The chances of happening are tiny and the chances of surviving are even smaller.
Along with environmental and economic collapse, I'm worried about political collapse. Basically, I worry that democracies will either cease being democracies, or become so mired in their own bureaucratic processes that it's impossible to decisively act when an emergency arises.
We can say that the latter has already happened in the U.S., but it could always be worse and the emergencies we have to deal with can get worse too. We need to be able to deal the problems facing the next few generations by making rational decisions based on long-range planning. It doesn't seem to be happening, and when people get frustrated with the political process they don't just give up on their leaders, they give up on the whole democratic system and turn to strong-man leaders who can "get things done". The decline in public regard for democracy has been going on world-wide for awhile now.
The world literally collapsing would be much bigger than an economic problem. Yes markets would fail along with it, but the world wouldn't end. The US isn't the first with major economy or currency and its arrogant to think it will be the last.
The Roman Empire was unstoppable until they over extended themselves with endless war and tried to solve it by debasing their currency. It may not happen anytime soon, but America won't lead the world indefinitely forever, its only 244 years old for shit sake.
Honestly I think the bigger concern is a long erosion, not a collapse.
After WWII, the US had an economy so large we consumed half the oil that was consumed in the world. Our economy has grown since then but the rest of the world has too. We are down to half our percentage of energy use, and this is a general proxy for economic activity. So we are growing but developing nations are growing faster. Additionally we re incredibly dependent on oil to the extent that it would be a fair summary to say that the main job of the US armed forces is to protect international oil supply.
So the US isn't about to drastically collapse, but the role in the world is declining and will continue to decline. I think within my lifetime we will see the world shift from a unipolar model with the US as the sole superpower, to a world dominated by several major world powers.
We're headed towards a collapse either way, with many, many millions dying. Very possibly billions over the course of this century. Either it's a major society upheaval leading towards positive change, or it's just general societal breakdown as civilization as we know it becomes impossible. Our current political-economic system is simply not up to the challenge, so not having upheaval is not an option.
A comparatively mild collapse sooner is better than later. This really is an existential threat like we have never experienced.
The US is food and energy independent. If the rest of the world collapses the US will just close borders and trade. There'd be an effect, not a huge one.
The USA is overreaching and the further it overreaches, the greater the risk of various parts of the socio-economic system breaking. The more things break, and the more serious the problems, the faster the USA will collapse.
This is the real future of the USA if it is not able to curb and even to reverse its per capita energy consumption.
When any system grows beyond its capacity to manage itself, then that system tends to collapse. We see this most clearly in economic bubbles, but the same mechanisms are at work in foreign policy, in NATO, in the EU, in China, and so on.
There will never be a simple way to understand the problems of growth and overreach so this means that countries which have greater capacity for self reflection and thinking through the consequences of their actions, are the ones most likely to dominate and to thrive in the long term.
Right now it looks like the USA will be a historical oddity by the year 2500 if not sooner
If you're going to consider the possibility that the U.S. economy will go into a full-fledged collapse, you should also consider:
1.) The possibility of large tariffs on all international transactions.
2.) The possibility that certain nations will be declared "enemy powers" and all trade with them will be banned.
3.) The possibility that all communications outside the United States (yes, that means the Internet) will be banned for national security reasons.
4.) The possibility that the government will nationalize the Internet, your business, or both.
5.) The possibility of riots in major U.S. cities.
6.) The possibility that a mandatory draft may send you or your workforce to war.
7.) The possibility of mass propaganda campaigns and government nationalization of all media.
8.) The possibility that all computer professionals will be drafted into massive cryptographic projects.
All of these have happened historically after major economic crises. They almost seem to be inevitable after a Depression-level panic.
My point is that some eventualities shouldn't be planned for, not because they won't happen, but because you can't plan for them. Once political unrest starts, all bets are off, because the basic ground rules of society are gone. Some looter could come up to you with a gun and blow your brains out, and that would be the end of your business.
Any particular angle on how such a collapse might come about?
The biggest threats I see are the debt problems in the Chinese property sector explode causing their "commercial paper" market to set off a chain reaction causing global contagion due to China being nearly everyone's number one trading partner. Or the US has an internal conflict and that majorly affects things (which is what I'm considering in this question). The other is simply demographics spell the writing on the wall that populations will continue to shrink and shrink and I would imagine it potentially gets to a point where the amount of infrastructure we've built the modern world on top of wouldn't have sufficient human capital to keep it running below a certain critical threshold of population size, but that one is a bit longer off.
The most likely collapse will be a societal one due to growing inequality.
One strategy to survive this type of collapse would be to move to a country with very low inequality. For a billionaire this could be painful because the taxes will be high (they are the reason for the low inequality). But hey, better than being lynched by an angry mob, right?
A completely collapsed economy could trigger a society breakdown and will have deadly consequences as well, like violence (fighting over food, possesions) and bad healthcare
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