Why the American Empire Was Destined to Collapse — Nomi Prins interviews Morris Berman

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AlterNet
Why the American Empire Was Destined to Collapse

Nomi Prins interviews Morris Berman

See also Peter Radford, American Decline To Accelerate? at The Radford Free Press:

I have a number of American friends who are Republicans. For years they have berated Obama for a lack of leadership. They consider him arrogant yet ineffectual. They blame him for what they perceive as a decline in the power and prestige of America.

This is twaddle. But it is commonplace. 

My reaction is thus: 

If there is decline it is an internal rotting away of its vaunted middle class. It is a neglect of its infrastructure. It is a loss of ambition. It is a dumbing down of its politics.
This began in 1980 and the ascension of Reagan and his economic agenda which was a deliberate redistribution of both risk and wealth within the economy. Reaganite policies were designed to shift “responsibility” – aka risk – onto the shoulders of the citizenry. 

They were designed to limit the influence of government. They were designed, consequently, to heighten the ability of private enterprise to accrue, uncontested, a greater share of aggregate wealth. The goal was to create a harsher, more competitive, and less certain environment for the people. It was a pro-business and anti-social agenda from the outset.…