ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the twenty-first-century rise of emerging markets—and most of all China—signifies far from American decline, but a closer realization of Henry Luce’s “American century” (1941) than ever before. I argue: (1) that the core of Luce’s vision in the 1940s was a world in which American corporations could expand capitalism and mass consumerism across the globe; (2) that this vision was only partially realized in the latter half of the twentieth century, with many challenges, including Third World attempts to decouple; (3) that the twenty-first-century capitalist rise and integration of “emerging markets” (no longer the Third World) finally allowed the expansion of mass consumerism to develop truly globally; and (4) that American corporations (and the US state) have been the primary drivers and benefactors of what is now called “globalization.” To bolster this argument, I provide data to show that American corporations continue to be at the pinnacle of global capitalism, with no contenders on the horizon, including China. Moreover, much of China’s contemporary efforts are to join, rather than supplant, the US-centered world order. Hence, the American century is only now being truly realized under the banner of globalization.
