Reconciling revelation and reason

What can a group of people sharing a common resource do?

1. Every each exploits it on his own sharing only his dreams about the future.
2. All work together to maintain and advance their prosperity.
3. Factions form that fight over the distribution of the wealth.

Apart from aggregation and superposition that covers it and a quick glance at American popular culture from the last century exposes that America's self-image  has gone through all of these states relative to the Cold War:

1. state prior to the Cold War,
2. state during the Cold War and
3. state since the Cold War.

The significance of the rush to China since the end of the Cold War seems to be that wealth could shift from production to distribution, formerly known as trade, thus globalising it in nature and creating a common aim for greed worldwide, i.e. a common game, a common prize, a common resource, namely the labour of the global workforce.

The distribution of wealth mentioned under 3. thus doesn't mean American wealth, but global wealth, and it is of some import that that wealth is legal in nature, i.e. consists in the possession of licenses, as is exemplified in the record fines that the European Union has dished out against the company which hosts this blog, among equally illustrious others, i.e. Microsoft and Apple. (An unintentional joke, but too good to be removed.)

Differently put we have to regard the present era as a global competition over privileges. It lies in the nature of things that this makes for sweeping changes the likes of which outpace people's ability to adapt.

I still don't see how this will lead to a conflict between New York and the United Nations on one side and the United States on the other, but it does occur to me that the wealth already invested in the global prize will hinder any effort to shift the wealth back to a steadier form.

And it also heightens the likeliness that the eventual return to stability, i.e. the ascent of the beast, will not be confined to the United States alone, but rather a concerted international effort.