The dreams of "leaving it up to the market" or of returning to a politically neutral gold standard cannot succeed because the nature of the monetary system has a profound impact on the interests of powerful groups and states. Affected groups and states will always try to intervene in the operation of the system to make it serve their interests.

The historical record suggests that the transition to to a new hegemon has always been attended by what I have elsewhere called hegemonic war.

In short, the elimination of the financial legacy of Reaganomics could force the United States to make some exceptionally difficult choices indeed.

The opposing tendencies of concentration and spread are of little consequence in the liberal model of political economy.

Despite its increased dependence on the international economy, America continues to behave as if it were either a closed economy or the leader whom everyone else should automatically follow.

The competitive nation-state system, with all its capacity for good and evil, is spreading in the Third World and is transforming that world.

The world economy diffuses rather than concentrates wealth.