Ramanan — Paul Krugman, Empire Man

I would simply add to what Ramanan says in this post that the US is functioning like all previous empires, for good and ill. The good is that empire reduces transaction costs in international trade and the imperial economy, so it is a benefit to belong to that system. On the other hand, it is the empire that formulates and enforces the rules, for the "benefit of the empire," which means in practice that the core comes first rather than the empire as whole being considered as an integrated social, political and economic system.

Paul Krugman, like most of the elite of the empire and the most favored minions, focuses on the benefits as positive externality while ignoring the considerable negative externality.

The question now is whether the world is ready for a cooperative system that provides the benefits that empires have provided in the past without the negative externalities associated with empire. This is the "case for concerted action."

The Case for Concerted Action
Paul Krugman, Empire Man
V. Ramanan