ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an analytical history of the rise and fall of the US Empire. The rise of US capital to world dominance was the direct result of its ability to supply, at a profit, the oil that fueled the Allied war machines. Both neoliberalism and neoconservatism were born of the attempt to project a faltering American 'leadership' into the distant future, but in the face of opposition both failed to achieve that result. However, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon shifted world attention from neoliberalism and the anti-globalization movement. It provided the 'evildoers' that, like the Soviet Union, could be employed to justify neoconservative and unilateralist policies. The basis for the Great Recession is the growing gap between the fortunes of capital and labor in the United States. Despite the threat to capitalism, capitalists have become even more shortsighted and rapacious.
