Is Conspicuous Consumption America's Enduring Legacy?

Noted sci-fi author David Brin argues for this in a recent article and on his blog.  He argues "that the period of Pax America has been generally positive", and considers U.S. policy in the years just after World War 2.

Instead of annexing territory and looting the defeated enemy, (e.g. Franco-Prussian war, Treaty of Versailles) President Truman, Nobel Peace Prize winner George Marshall, and General Douglas MacArthur,developed an unprecedented historical policy of "countermercantilism" to lift up the defeated. 

"the clearly stated intention was for the United States to lift up their prostrate foe, first with direct aid.  And then, over the longer term, with trade."

Before this, normal empires practiced mercantilism, favoring home industry, and using other countries, particularly colonies, as sources of raw materials and as export markets.  The British Empire is a prime example of this, but so were the Chinese, Moguls, Romans and Greeks.

"America became the first power in history to deliberately establish countermercantilist commerce flows.  Nations crippled by war or mismanagement were allowed to maintain tariffs, keeping out American goods, while sending shiploads from their factories to the United States ....

What this amounted to, however, was the greatest aid-and-uplift program in human history. A prodigious transfer of wealth from the United States to Europe, Asia and Latin America."

Now, some of this was done to defeat totalitarian Communism.  Which was also, overall, a good thing for humanity.  While he makes it clear that he is no neo-conservative, Brin calls for the reflexive America loathers to give it some credit:

"Even if America is exhausted from having spent its way from world dominance into a chasm of debt, the United States does have something to show for it the last six decades. A world saved. Billions of human beings lifted out of poverty. That task, far more prodigious than defeating fascism and communism or going to the moon, ought to be viewed with a little respect."

Should the 21st century become the "Chinese Century", as many have postulated, when historians look back upon it, will they find any similar commitment to uplift the human race?  One can hope.