What’s Causing America’s Imperial Decline?
And why is it ushering in an age of primitive accumulation?
Some big questions have been on my mind recently. As I sometimes do, I thought I’d work them out with a camera and a mic, recording this one on location, in the wilds of New Zealand’s Kapiti Coast.
Why is America declining? Why is the US engaged in predatory behavior abroad? And if we’re past the era of neoliberal globalization, what is US decline ushering in its stead? Grand strategists, pundits, and scholars have been debating the best label for US foreign policy during the Trump presidency: illiberal hegemony; neo-royalism; reactionary nationalism; predatory hegemony.
But aside from being unable to explain much of what we see happening, none of these labels offer an account of themselves. The answer, as I explore in this episode, can be found in imperialism and its causes. A crisis of capitalism is accelerating imperial decline, which is leading to an Age of Primitive Accumulation. Geopolitics has fundamentally changed, and if we don't recognize the shift as a turn to imperialist foreign policy—which facilitates primitive accumulation—we will fail to understand and respond to the darkness washing over the world.
Because the analysis and concepts involved in this episode are both important and a little dense, I’ve included a transcript of this episode below for patrons.