June 1, 2025 by jackrasmus
In addition to my lengthy article and Introduction to my forthcoming book, ‘The Twilight of American Imperialism’, in the post immediately preceding, listen to my May 30 Alternative Visions show presentation on the theme at the following podcast:
https://alternativevisions.podbean.com/e/alternative-visions-is-the-us-empire-about-to-collapse/
While the capitalist system has undergone numerous restructurings throughout its history, capitalist elites purpose in restructuring has remained the same: to restore and/or extend their hegemony. The current restructuring, operative since 1978, is called Neoliberalism. The book examines Neoliberalism as both an Idea and an historical practice composed of a particular mix of fiscal-monetary-trade-industrial policies that began with the latest US capitalist restructuring in the late 1970s, continuing to evolve to this day. The book further explains the deeper material forces giving rise to - as well as now undermining - the Neoliberal policy regime, with special focus given to the crisis of Neoliberalism in the wake of the 2008-09 global crash, Obama's failure to resurrect it, and Trump's current doomed effort to restore it in a new, more aggressive form. Evidence why Neoliberalism is destroying US Democracy concludes the book's analysis.
Describes how US federal governments, often in cooperation with the largest US private banks, introduced and expanded central banking functions from 1781 through the creation of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Based on an analysis of the evolution of the US banking system - from pre-1781, through the 1787 US Constitutional Convention, Congressional debates on Hamilton's reports to Congress, the rise and fall of the 1st and 2nd Banks of the United States, and through the long period of the National Banking System form 1862-1913, the book shows how central banking in the US evolved out of the private banking system, and how following the financial crash of 1907 big New York banks pushed through Congress the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, creating a central bank which they then managed for their interests.
(Click on image) CENTRAL BANKERS is a comprehensive critique of central banks’ policies in the 21st century, explaining why the massive injections of free money to the banking system since the 1970s enabled the creation of excess corporate debt that has led to financial bubbles and repeated crises. The book addresses the growing contradictions of central banking, why they are failing in their functions, targets and tools, and proposes a radical democratization and restructuring to transform them to serve the public interest and not the private banks.
(Click on image) LOOTING GREECE, A New Financial Imperialism Emerges. This book - Reveals clearly who calls the shots in the Eurozone—the hardliners, not the remnants and political residue of what was once European social democracy, - Follows the negotiations in their excruciating detail as the Troika tightens the screws from 2009 to the present, - Shows how Europe’s financial elite enriches itself on Greek debt, privatizations and financial manipulations, turning Greece into an Economic Protectorate.
(Click on image): This book offers a new approach to explaining why mainstream economic analyses have repeatedly failed and why fiscal and monetary policies have been incapable of producing a sustained recovery. It explains why the global economy is slowing long term and becoming more unstable, why policies to date have largely failed the trend, and why the next crisis may therefore prove even worse than that of 2008-09.
(Click on image) Obama's Economy: Recovery for the Few, explains how the weakest and most lopsided economic recovery since 1947 has been the direct outcome of failed economic policies of the Obama administration and US Federal Reserve bank since February 2009. Includes a detailed 'alternative program' in the final chapter. Includes the book, a video DVD presentation, and 66-slide PPT slideshow.
(Click on image) Obama's Economy: Recovery for the Few, explains how the weakest and most lopsided economic recovery since 1947 has been the direct outcome of failed economic policies of the Obama administration and US Federal Reserve bank since February 2009. Includes a detailed 'alternative program' in the final chapter.
(Click on image) A theoretical analysis, with historical case examples, of origins, causes and future evolution of the recent--and continuing--economic crisis in the U.S. and global economy. Includes predictions in 2009 of the inevitable failure of Obama policies and more serious crisis to come, 2013-15.
(Click on image) Seven specific reasons why economic recovery under Obama since 2009 has failed for all but the wealthiest few and largest corporations. The book spells out eight specific areas as an Alternative Economic Recovery Program.
(Click on image) The War At Home: The Corporate Offensive From Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush, is a 534 page, extensively researched, nonfiction book that describes the evolution of corporate-government policies from 1980 to 2005 that have shifted more than a $1 trillion dollars a year, every year, from 90 million American middle and working class households to the wealthiest 10% and corporations.
Dr. Jack Rasmus @drjackrasmus
Jack Rasmus 
The sweeping economic description of empire through millennia was appreciated.
However, I perceive a major gap in the economic history of the US in the forthcoming book—specifically the US civil war. Although it had a genuine populist cover—-ending slavery—-and 750,000 soldiers died in the struggle,* fundamentally the real role that the US civil war played was to jump start capitalism in the US, that is to change it from a primarily agricultural country with thousands of small independent farmers into an industrial giant with landless workers. So in effect, all that happened to the lower 90% is that they traded chattel slavery for wage slavery although a peculiarly vicious form of chattel slavery was reserved for African Americans stranded in the South: debt slavery. Hundreds of thousands of African Americans were first wrongly incarcerated for bogus debts and then worked to death by such Fortune 500 companies as US Steel; ultimately their bodies were thrown into mass anonymous graves. [See e.g. Slavery by Another Name] To this day I am livid that the self appointed literary elites heaped lavished praise on Solzhenitsyn and ignored the much larger US Gulag right under their lazy noses.
*To give the US civil war death toll current context, the death toll would be in present population numbers about 1.5 million
A good point David. I will of course address the civil war. The draft Intro was amiss in not saying so. I see the civil war as the conflict needed for the empire to ‘clear the deck’ and complete its continental expansion. The war conclusively ended the contest between the various ‘modes of production’ in north america: the slave mode in the south; the hunter-gatherers mode in the Indian lands; and eventually (last) the Jeffersonian yeoman farmer producing mostly for subsistence and not for the global market. The capitalist mode defeated them all and wiped the land clean for capitalist expansion leap beyond the continent in the US-Spanish war of 1898. The 20th century is all about US capitalist entry, competition and eventual conquest of other capitalist (and pre-capitalist) empires, which was completed by 1945 in part and by 1990-92 with the collapse of the USSR. 1992 to present is US empire running amuck, expanding economically, militarily and technologically at the expense of all would be challengers and countries seeking to break away and become independent. However, the world has changed, beginning in 2008-10 and now accelerating 2022-25. Instead of expanding, which peaked around 2005-07, the empire has failed in a number of attempts to keep expanding and no longer has the economic, technological or military dominance it previously had. How this plays out over the next decade 2025-35 will determine the fate of the empire. Empires experience crises and overcome them sometimes. Sometimes they don’t, however. I disagree with those on the left that the empire is collapsing (Hudson, Wolff). There’s too much wishful thinking in their analysis and they underestimate the material resources the empire still has. I learned decades ago as a local union president, negotiator and strike leader never to underestimate your opponent. In fact, better to over-estimate when considering strategy and tactics. And always plan to have at least three responses in your pocket to every possible move your opponent will likely make. Of course, thinking ahead like that is not what US politicians today tend to do. The empire had much smarter leaders in previous decades. Since Bill Clinton, a crass opportunist, it’s been downhill in the quality of leadership. Just think about it: Jr. Bush (who let Cheney run the show), Barack Obama (a poverty pimp black intellectual picked by the capitalists for his dominant character of ‘go along to get along’), volatile and impulsive Trump, and that empty suit turned demented fool, Joe Biden.