ABSTRACT
Theories of a ‘new imperialism’ that proliferated in the years following the events of
September 2001 assume that the United States has set about extending global empire
to offset the decline in its hegemony amidst heightened inter-imperialist rivalry.
These theories rest on a crustaceous bed of assumptions that need to be peeled back if
we are to get at the root of twenty-first century global social and political dynamics.
Grounded in the classical statements of V.I. Lenin and Rudolf Hilferding, they pre-
sume a world of rival national capitals and economies, conflict among core capitalist
powers, the exploitation by these powers of peripheral regions, and a nation-state
centered framework for analyzing global dynamics. Hilferding, Lenin, and others
analyzing the world of the early twentieth century established this Marxist analytical
framework of rival national capitals that was carried by subsequent political economists
into the latter twentieth century via theories of dependency and the world system,
radical IR theory, studies of US intervention, and so on. This outdated framework of
competing national capitals continues to inform observers of world dynamics in the
early twenty-first century. The following assertion by Michael Klare is typical:
