Tagline: Why the Unipolar Moment Failed — and What Must Come Next
The U.S. Empire Is Imploding
Since the end of World War II, the United States has failed to achieve its major military, economic, and geopolitical objectives. Instead, it is showing clear signs of internal and global decline:
1. De-dollarization: Many countries are shifting away from using the U.S. dollar in international trade—largely because the U.S. has weaponized the dollar through sanctions. This threatens the core of U.S. financial power: the ability to exchange digital dollars (created at zero cost) for real global commodities like oil, food, and metals.
2. Failed Wars: The U.S. has suffered military and political failures in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and now in its proxy war in Ukraine—costing trillions and thousands of lives, while producing no meaningful long-term gains.
3. Economic Fragility: U.S. military power has been funded by debt. The Treasury has steadily borrowed to finance wars, but demand for U.S. bonds is falling, and many countries are dumping their dollar reserves—further weakening Washington’s global leverage.
4. Military-Industrial Addiction: The only consistent winner in this process has been the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC). Its budgets have grown regardless of success or failure on the battlefield. Even after the Cold War ended, the Pentagon’s appetite for conflict only increased.
Economic Collapse and the Limits of Reform
The U.S. economy is hurtling toward what may be a crash worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s. The crises of 2008 and 2020 revealed that traditional reforms—bailouts, stimulus, interest rate changes—merely delay the inevitable.
– Quantitative Easing (QE) provided liquidity to financial markets but encouraged speculation rather than real growth. – Quantitative Tightening (QT) and rising interest rates now risk triggering a systemic collapse. – Debt addiction is unsustainable, and even the most powerful government cannot escape the math of compounding liabilities and shrinking real productivity.
True recovery would require structural reform—such as a new version of the New Deal, re-prioritizing industrial capital and reducing finance capital’s dominance. But there is little political will to take on Wall Street, and even less unity in Washington.
The Deepening Political and Institutional Divide
Internally, the U.S. ruling class is increasingly fractured:
– Disagreements over military aggression and intelligence strategy began in 2001, with divisions over the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. – Under Obama, proxy wars widened the divide further. – Trump’s election highlighted a rupture between traditional elites (the CIA, FBI, Democratic establishment) and more populist-nationalist factions aligned with Trump, including some elements of law enforcement and the military.
These splits affect every branch of government: the Executive (CIA vs. White House), Legislative (party gridlock), Judiciary (politicized rulings), and even local governments—as sheriffs and states defy federal mandates.
Collapse of Credibility and Rise of Dissent
The public no longer trusts U.S. institutions:
– The WMD lie in Iraq (2003), the fabricated Russiagate narrative, and the propaganda surrounding Ukraine have all undermined official narratives. – Independent journalists and whistleblowers, like Julian Assange, have been persecuted for revealing state crimes. – Blackmail, assassinations, and cover-ups have become common tools of foreign and domestic policy—behavior more akin to organized crime than democratic governance.
At the same time, alternative powers—Russia, China, Iran—have gained legitimacy for resisting U.S. hegemony through defensive strategies and multipolar diplomacy.
Why Full Spectrum Dominance (FSD) Failed
1. Static Worldview: The U.S. assumed that history had ended, and that global power could remain unchallenged forever. It failed to anticipate dynamism and resistance from other powers.
2. Economic Contradictions: Printing dollars to fund global wars while deindustrializing at home is unsustainable. Repeated bailouts (1989, 2008, 2020) merely postponed collapse.
3. Rising Global Opposition: Countries no longer accept U.S. domination. China, Russia, and others are building alternatives to Western systems—economically, politically, and technologically.
4. Loss of Moral Legitimacy: The U.S. has become known for invading weak nations, spreading propaganda, suppressing free speech, and enriching a tiny oligarchy. These are not values that inspire trust or loyalty abroad.
Conclusion: A Turning Point in History
Another severe economic crisis looms. Avoiding global catastrophe requires urgent structural change—not just economic, but political and media reform as well. True democracy must replace oligarchy.
To achieve this: – Laws must be passed limiting finance capital and restoring industrial growth. – Media must be decolonized to enable informed public debate. – Elected officials must represent the majority, not the wealthy few. – Candidates should commit to reform before elections and be subject to binding recall referenda if they break promises.
As analyst Andrei Martyanov warns:
“If the Globalists defeat Russia, they will ‘finish the job’ by breaking Russia into pieces, then turning to China, Iran, and any other state that dares to resist them… The rest of the world would be forced into obedience. But if they fail, the era of unipolar dominance will end.”
We stand at a crossroads between empire and democracy, collapse and renewal. The choice must be made now—by the people, for the people.
Mohamad Shaaf, MBA, PhD, is Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Central Oklahoma. He is an empirical research analyst whose scholarly work spans a wide range of economic issues, employing Artificial Intelligence, dynamic programming, and advanced econometric modeling. His publications appear in numerous professional journals, and his scholarly record can be accessed via Google Scholar under “Mohamad Shaaf.” He can be reached at mshaaf@uco.edu or drshaaf@gmail.com.
This article examines whether the concentration of capital and political power is a uniquely American phenomenon or a general tendency of capitalist development worldwide. Drawing on classical political economy, empirical studies of wealth distribution, and comparative country cases, the analysis demonstrates that economic and political inequalities are structurally embedded in capitalist accumulation. It also contrasts trajectories in the United States, Iran, and China to show how institutions and state strategies mediate the speed and form of inequality.
1. Structural Foundations of Rising Inequality in Capitalist Economies
Extensive scholarship demonstrates that modern capitalist economies tend toward increasing concentration of wealth and income (Piketty 2014; Milanovic 2016). Two mechanisms are central to this process:
1.1 Concentration of Capital
Classical and contemporary political economists have emphasized the tendency of capital to accumulate and compound over time. Marx described this process as “the accumulation of capital” and “the concentration of the means of production” (Marx 1867). Later empirical work confirms that returns to capital often exceed the growth rate of the real economy (Piketty 2014), resulting in exponential expansion of wealth among capital-owning classes.
1.2 Centralization of Capital (Mergers and Acquisitions)
The second mechanism, identified by Marx as “centralization,” refers to the absorption of smaller firms by larger ones (Marx 1894). In the contemporary era, corporate mergers and acquisitions have intensified, reducing market competition and consolidating economic power (Stiglitz 2012; Philippon 2019). This dynamic is evident in rising market concentration across technology, finance, energy, and consumer goods sectors.
2. Political Inequality as a Reflection of Economic Inequality
Political inequality closely follows economic concentration. Elite influence over policy outcomes, campaign finance, and legislative priorities is well documented (Domhoff 2014; Page & Gilens 2017). Page and Gilens (2014) find that ordinary citizens have almost no independent impact on US policy outcomes, while economic elites and organized business interests wield substantial influence.
This pattern is not unique to the United States. Winters and Page (2009) argue that “oligarchic politics”—the disproportionate political influence of the wealthy—is a global feature of high-inequality capitalist systems. The political activities of billionaires such as Elon Musk or Bill Gates exemplify how extreme wealth translates directly into political agenda-setting power.
Historically, state interventions have moderated inequality only during exceptional periods, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal reforms (Katznelson 2013), including minimum wage in 1938. These interventions temporarily reversed inequality by regulating finance, empowering labor, and expanding welfare institutions.
3. The Neoliberal Era and the Acceleration of Inequality
Beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s, advanced capitalist states—most notably the United States and United Kingdom—shifted toward neoliberal policies emphasizing deregulation, privatization, tax reductions for capital, and weakening of labor protections (Harvey 2005). Several policy changes were especially consequential for inequality:
3.1 Deregulation and the Erosion of Worker Protections
Neoliberal reforms reduced labor bargaining power, not raising minimum wage to keep up with inflation, and deregulated industries, contributing to wage stagnation and rising poverty (Hacker & Pierson 2010).
3.2 Legalization of Corporate Stock Buybacks (1982)
The Reagan administration’s reinterpretation of SEC Rule 10b-18 effectively legalized stock buybacks, transforming them into a dominant mechanism for increasing share prices without increasing productive output or creating any value (Lazonick 2014).
3.3 Privatization of Retirement Savings
The shift toward market-based retirement plans, such as 401(k)s, TIAA-CREF, channeled workers’ savings into financial markets, contributing to inflated stock prices while exposing workers to financial risk (Hacker 2019).
3.4 Expansion of the Military–Industrial Complex
Persistent increases in defense spending and continuous military engagements redirected public funds into private defense firms. Scholars argue that the modern defense sector operates as a structurally entrenched “permanent war economy” (Melman 2001; Bacevich 2010).
These neoliberal dynamics significantly accelerated the concentration of capital and political power.
4. Case Study: Iran — Post-Revolutionary Inequality and Neoliberal Transformation
Iran represents a paradoxical yet illustrative case. Despite the 1979 Revolution’s explicit rhetoric of social justice and protection of the Mostazafan (the oppressed), inequality has increased substantially. Scholars note that under President Rafsanjani (1989–1997), Iran adopted extensive and market-oriented reforms comparable to global neoliberal trends (Harris 2017; Maljoo 2020).
4.1 Privatization and Elite Accumulation
State assets were privatized, often through non-transparent processes that allowed politically connected elites—particularly those linked to state institutions, the clergy, and Guard—to acquire significant wealth (Keshavarzian 2007).
4.2 Financial Sector Expansion and Corruption
Iran’s rapidly expanding banking and finance sector facilitated lending scandals, mortgage crises, and institutional corruption, contributing to wealth concentration within elite networks (Salehi-Isfahani 2017).
4.3 Sanctions and Informal Oil Markets
US sanctions created lucrative opportunities for illicit or semi-regulated oil sales. Because these transactions were not fully reportable, large shares of oil revenue remained outside the formal state budget and were captured by military and political actors (Alamdari 2005).
Thus, despite anti-capitalist revolutionary ideology, Iran witnessed extreme capital accumulation by ruling elites.
5. Case Study: China — Mitigating Inequality Through Poverty Elimination
China presents a contrasting path. While its market reforms produced rising inequality during the 1980s–2000s (Xie & Zhou 2014), the state has maintained strong capacity to intervene in distributional outcomes. In 2021, China officially declared the eradication of rural poverty—a claim supported by independent assessments (World Bank 2021; Wang & Weaver 2022).
China’s state-led development strategy includes:
substantial public investment in rural infrastructure,
universalization of basic education and healthcare,
strict controls on land ownership,
and targeted poverty alleviation programs (Ravallion 2021).
While inequality persists, China has effectively eliminated destitution at the bottom of the distribution, in sharp contrast to the deepening poverty observed in many capitalist economies.
Conclusion
The concentration of capital and political power is not a phenomenon confined to the United States. It is a structural feature of capitalist development, observable across advanced, emerging, and hybrid economies. Comparative evidence from Iran and China illustrates that the pace and form of inequality are mediated by national institutions and state strategies, but the underlying dynamics remain global. Only deliberate and sustained state interventions—such as the New Deal or China’s poverty-elimination campaigns—have demonstrated the capacity to counteract these long-term tendencies.
Mohamad Shaaf, MBA, PhD,is Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Central Oklahoma. He is an empirical research analyst whose scholarly work spans a wide range of economic issues, employing Artificial Intelligence, dynamic programming, and advanced econometric modeling. His publications appear in numerous professional journals, and his scholarly record can be accessed via Google Scholarunder “Mohamad Shaaf.” He can be reached at mshaaf@uco.edu or drshaaf@gmail.com.
References
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Mohamad Shaaf, MBA, PhD 