It’s not often that we see the decline of a great power without being hyperbolic. Yet power structures come and go, some burn out with a passion, others whimper quietly into irrelevance. In 1989 the USSR was the vanguard of the socialist world, just two years later tricolors flew above Moscow. In the early 1800s, Spain ruled the Western Hemisphere, and then there was Bolivar.
When people ask about the future, I often reply with an unsure optimism for humanity, but that conviction changes when asked about the state of America. As I see it, the United States is in a state of slow but mounting imperial decadence. As American society and quality of life declines, the sovereignty of the global periphery gradually expands. The two are related.
The root of America’s decline, and why I find it to be irreversible, isn’t rooted in moral decline, or birthrates, or demographic changes, or immigration or any mainstream answers. The real answer is that America survives and maintains itself by perpetuating a system of exploitative relationships with the international community, creating a cycle of exploitation and reliance at the hands of American capital, and at the expense of (almost) everybody else.
The Reality:
Since the 1980s, the United States has gone through extensive changes in economic and foreign policy, mostly caused by the dual forces of the introduction of Neoliberalism and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Neoliberal principle of deregulation and privatization has since then completely given the keys of the empire to capital. Before neoliberalism, there was a fair amount of regulation and state sponsored programs, but more importantly, American leadership had a sense of self preservation, something they have since lost.
Before neoliberalism, the American state acted as a collective capitalist, managing the system’s stability, regulating markets, and maintaining imperial order in the name of capitalism as a whole. After the 1980s, that role changed. The state ceased managing capital and began serving it directly, subordinating national and social interests to the immediate demands of finance and global accumulation. Even if it means shooting the empire in the foot.
Let’s look at the US backed coalition invasion of Iraq in 2003, by the early 2000s, the American oil industry was showing slow profit margins(page 3-4), a time of economic strife caused by wealth destruction during the dot com bubble burst, and a military industrial complex foaming at the mouth for a chance to mobilize again after the cold war. Thus American capital looked to Iraq, home to the world’s second largest proven oil reserves, and a nationalized oil industry since 1972.
Most importantly however, is that this oil industry slowing was coming too close for comfort to the status of the Petrodollar, the system which weighs all oil trade in United States Dollars, one of the keys of US hegemony. All these piling contradictions created the perfect storm for an American invasion of Iraq. Soon enough, the Bush administration began to work with the media to manufacture consent for the invasion of a sovereign state in the interests of capital.
There’s no better example than this for the American state serving the immediate needs of capital. Iraq was subjected to a gigantic invasion over something that was proven to be US spread misinformation. Their leaders executed, oil and gold reserves stolen, and their land raped by tanks, mines, and bombs.
Here’s another example that vindicates my point. The housing crisis, since the early cold war, the United States had given the promise of the “American Dream” to their citizens. Loyalty to the empire was rewarded with land, a home, and a wife(not to objectify women but that is clearly how it was advertised.) Thus, it’s natural to examine, how, in 21st century America, is loyalty to the empire rewarded? Wages continue to stagnate despite record super-profits from American employers. Housing prices skyrocket, making early adulthood home ownership unattainable for even many petit-bourgeois Americans. Young Americans can’t start a life because neoliberal policies enable corporations to raise the cost of living for the Empire’s most important asset, the working class of the Imperial core.
There’s no lure, no pull to submit to the forces of imperialism, no economic promise, no wife, land, house, or kids. The American dream is dead. All that’s to ask now is what is to be done with the young people of America? Naturally, that answer would usually be to align with the world’s revolutionary forces. But America has no coherent revolutionary potential even post-American Dream. No vanguard party or sweeping class consciousness, the most many ever get is classic trade unionism consciousness, but that doesn’t account for the contradictions of Imperialism.
These facts further echo the theme of decadence. But the housing crisis can be solved, and Iraq was more than 20 years ago. What about the current geopolitical situation? That supports my point even more. Right now (Oct 2025) the United States has three main enemies; Iran, China, and Russia. Each one of those countries, although not natural allies, have a vested interest in the fall of US hegemony.
Up to this point, we have analyzed how the US state machinery is now directly controlled by capital. Each one of these three powers poses a threat to American capital in different regions in the world. Russia, in Europe poses a threat to the expansion of NATO and the interests of arms manufactures and military contracting. Iran is a little more complicated because it ties directly to Israel. Israel is somewhat of an “unsinkable carrier” in the middle east, which essentially means that Israel is a glove of the hand of US imperialism. This means that any threat to Israel, is a threat to US power in the region.
Finally, and most importantly, we have China. China is the most important and most powerful country on this list. Modern China is the biggest manufacturing power in all of world history, and has the biggest market in the entire world. However, unlike Russia and Iran, who are both capitalist nations that threaten US power in the immediate sense, China, although not yet subject to ongoing aggression, is the biggest threat, as it poses an ideological threat, above any material/economic threat.
China is a socialist state. Although it currently runs on a market based means of production, the CPC still has great oversight in the economy, as is a core principle of “socialism with Chinese characteristics”. China’s internal politics and state machinery’s relationship with domestic capital greatly contrasts that of the United States. Chinese capital, although given rights under the CPC, is still subordinated to the wishes of the CPC’s agenda of domestic and global south development.
That’s why China is a threat, China is by far, the biggest threat to the longevity of American Imperialism. Since the decline and fall of the USSR, China has been at the forefront of shifting the world, specifically the third world, towards development and revolutionary conditions. Unlike the USSR’s militant approach, China is much more economic and diplomatic.
In the past decades, the rise of China as a diplomatic and economic power has bought loyalty from both the peoples and ruling classes of global south countries, unlike the diplomatically exploitative economy of the US and western allies, China’s economy is based primarily on manufacturing and trade, and a certain amount of development is required for adequate trade relations, or else it wouldn’t be profitable to Chinese capital to develop these nations. This explains (beyond ideological motives) why China has been involved in so much aid in global south development.
I could go on about the Belt and Road Initiative, De-dollarization, etc. But here’s why it’s relevant to American decline; because our economy is a beast, with dwindling food to eat. The United States and the west was only so powerful because they were more developed than the third world, they ravaged the global south and forced them into poverty, they faced a threat (USSR) and overcame it, after that they relaxed (Neoliberialism) and couldn’t put themselves back together to face the new threat (China) and that’s how American imperialism will be thrown onto the backburner of history.
It’s like the ancient Egyptian tale of a snake eating itself, the snake, starved of prey, will continue to eat even with no food, thus, it will inevitably resort to eating itself. All the vicious forces of oppression that boosts imperialism and keeps the supremacy of American capital intact, will become too weak to have a global stranglehold as the global south develops. Thus, the ruling class of America and the west will inevitably have no choice but to inflict upon its own people what it has inflicted upon the global south for centuries. A dreadful, damning decline. This is the fate of the United States.
A final call & will to rebuild
In this last part, I want to more specifically state the proper standpoint of America as it is now. This article is no loving obituary, it is a foretelling of imminent mounting collapse. I, nor does anyone else know exactly how America will fall, but we know well what will bring it about. As for specification, I want to point out that this is not a call to save America;, it is, if it’s even a call at all, to help and educate others through the inevitability of the fall’s destruction.
As I see it, the fall of America’s standing state apparatus is long overdue. Since the interwar period, the United States has served as the vanguard of the world’s imperialist forces. Looting, killing, colonizing, and oppressing the colonized peoples and lands across the world. What well meaning and non-imperialist Americans should feel, is not loss over the fall of the USA, but a will to build a new post-colonial society when the decline comes to fruition.
It’s by this worldview, one purged at all costs of social chauvinism and imperious sentiments, that North America will be rebuilt, not under the star spangled banner, but by the leadership of the well meaning sector of the American people willing to abandon their fake national identity to lay the foundations for new (and old), real nations to arise from Uncle Sam’s Grave. That’s what, above all, you should get from the day lady liberty lowers her arm.
