First Class Passengers on a Sinking Ship
Elite Politics and the Decline of Great Powers
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A history of why great powers decline, from Spain to the United States
The extent and irreversibility of US decline is becoming ever more obvious as America loses war after war and as one industry after another loses its technological edge. Lachmann explains why the United States will not be able to sustain its global dominance, and contrasts America's relatively brief period of hegemony with the Netherlands' similarly short primacy and Britain's far longer era of leadership.
Decline in all those cases was not inevitable and did not respond to global capitalist cycles. Rather, decline is the product of elites' success in grabbing control over resources and governmental powers. Not only are ordinary people harmed, but also capitalists become increasingly unable to coordinate their interests and adopt policies and make investments necessary to counter economic and geopolitical competitors elsewhere in the world.
Conflicts among elites and challenges by non-elites determine the timing and mold the contours of decline. Lachmann traces the transformation of US politics from an era of elite consensus to present-day paralysis combined with neoliberal plunder, explains the paradox of an American military with an unprecedented technological edge unable to subdue even the weakest enemies, and the consequences of finance's cannibalization of the US economy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
SUNY Albany sociology professor Lachmann (Capitalists in Spite of Themselves) supports his thesis that America's decline is inevitable (and already underway) by examining the histories of France, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom since 1492 in this dense and technical jeremiad. While Spain and France failed to translate their colonial revenue and military power into hegemonic control, Lachmann writes, the Netherlands, the U.K., and the U.S. benefited from stronger state apparatuses and a relative degree of unity among elites. He traces the decline of Dutch and British power to a growing separation between financial concerns and national interests, and argues that the U.S. has been moving "from consensus to paralysis" since the 1960s. Deregulation and corporate mergers, he writes, have created ultrawealthy citizens who have few reasons not to pursue profits above domestic and global stability. Meanwhile, mass membership organizations such as the American Legion, labor unions, and the U.S. government have failed to muster the political will necessary to challenge these elites. Lachmann's copious citations and academic terminology favor readers who have a specialized knowledge of the subject matter, and those looking for a way forward won't find it in his grim predictions about the decline in quality of life as American society becomes more polarized and unequal. Though this provocative and sobering indictment often hits its targets, nonacademic readers will find themselves adrift. (Jan.)
