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First Class Passengers on a Sinking Ship: Elite Politics and the Decline of Great Powers
The extent and irreversibility of US decline is becoming ever more obvious as America loses war after war and as one industry after another loses its technological edge. Lachmann explains why the United States will not be able to sustain its global dominance, and contrasts America's relatively brief period of hegemony with the Netherlands' similarly short primacy and Britain's far longer era of leadership.Decline in all those cases was not inevitable and did not respond to global capitalist cycles. Rather, decline is the product of elites' success in grabbing control over resources and governmental powers. Not only are ordinary people harmed, but also capitalists become increasingly unable to coordinate their interests and adopt policies and make investments necessary to counter economic and geopolitical competitors elsewhere in the world.Conflicts among elites and challenges by non-elites determine the timing and mold the contours of decline. Lachmann traces the transformation of US politics from an era of elite consensus to present-day paralysis combined with neoliberal plunder, explains the paradox of an American military with an unprecedented technological edge unable to subdue even the weakest enemies, and the consequences of finance's cannibalization of the US economy.
601 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 14, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
December 31, 2021
There's no such thing as capitalism without capitalists. And capitalists don't coagulate as an undifferentiated grey blob: they are organised along pragmatic lines and come into conflict with one another as much as with the working class. The clash between organisations defending particular elite interests, nested within a state that spans society, forms the core of Lachmann's final work. Especially for the US, where working-class organisations have been mum for 50 years, an analysis that takes into account intra-elite conflict as a motive force is necessary.
The late Lachmann follows in the footsteps of Ellen Meiksins Wood and the political marxists in centering contingent struggles of organised forces over abstract economic laws. In 450 pages he traces the organisational achievements governing the rise and decline of imperial France, the colonial Netherlands, Habsburg Spain and the British empire, and compares these to the United States after the election of Donald Trump. Lachmann has forever raised the bar for political economy -- seldom did I read authors willing to engage with so many other conflicting theoreticians, fleshing out their arguments for them and picking up their contributions. Like Radhika Desai, whose Geopolitical Economy is of a similar critical-materialist bent, Lachmann systematically avoids attributing motive force to abstractions, instead digging down to the historically concrete agents that make them up.
Review to be finished later
The late Lachmann follows in the footsteps of Ellen Meiksins Wood and the political marxists in centering contingent struggles of organised forces over abstract economic laws. In 450 pages he traces the organisational achievements governing the rise and decline of imperial France, the colonial Netherlands, Habsburg Spain and the British empire, and compares these to the United States after the election of Donald Trump. Lachmann has forever raised the bar for political economy -- seldom did I read authors willing to engage with so many other conflicting theoreticians, fleshing out their arguments for them and picking up their contributions. Like Radhika Desai, whose Geopolitical Economy is of a similar critical-materialist bent, Lachmann systematically avoids attributing motive force to abstractions, instead digging down to the historically concrete agents that make them up.
Review to be finished later
July 3, 2020
No easy read for this non-academic reader but I was riveted by the sweep, depth of analysis, even handedness and compelling nature of the narrative. The author helpfully suggests which chapters may be skipped by the non-specialist but I found even these pages very illuminating. A rewarding book that is undeserving of the pompously dismissive one-star review below.
October 20, 2023
Amazing book. The framework Lachmann lays out here is explained simply yet fairly comprehensively. An essential book for understanding the world imo. I’ll post a full review/notes when I can find a website I can put them all on, cause there’s a lot.
November 23, 2022
A good companion to Rise and Fall of the Great Powers even as it refutes elements of that. Lachman’s theory of hegemonic decline is worth considering as an addition to any historic worldview and his predictions for the US are both novel and likely. Spent a little too much time on certain modern events (08 crash) but hey, can’t really blame a guy
January 12, 2023
Политэкономия, не особо захватывающая. Из-за очень медленного темпа высказывания автора, сложно понимать в чем идея
April 23, 2020
Overly complex and heavy handed analysis of the challenges facing the United States. The writer uses a dense style and the argument gets lost. The chapter on the United States military is the best of the book. but the section of the financial problems facing America is simply a mess. Even the most dedicated reader will just start asking the author to get to the point.
November 18, 2022
Well worth the read, but I’m left feeling a little lost as one of the key premises of Lachmann’s hypothesis is never flushed out. He posits that in order for an empire to achieve hegemon status, it must fulfill four conditions, one of which is a colonial elite that has a high degree of influence on the politics of the metropole. However, this book doesn’t really touch on the US’s colonial projects at all, so I’m left without an understanding of how, according the Lachmann’s schema, the US achieved hegemony. I guess he’s treating the entire global economic system as an informal system of colonialism, but I’m still unsure as to whether this would support his hypothesis within his own framework, because he does not give specific examples of US colonial elites’ influence on the US metropole. That aside, there is still so much valuable information in the book that I think it’s well worth reading through yourself and evaluating his central claims from there!
October 20, 2022
The United States is a great power in a state of decline. But what does that mean and how can we try and chart a course for the future with that in mind?
Lachmann takes an academic approach uses two main frames to address the problem: the politics of elites and the nature of hegemony. Looking at the main European powers of the last 500 years, he first breaks down why it was only the Dutch and the British -- and not the French, Spanish, Germans or Portuguese -- who were able to establish control of global commerce.
It starts with the idea of elites: power brokers in their various shapes who wield social, military and economic power separate from the ruler or executive. They can be merchants, landed aristocracy, capitalists, or whatever shape a society molds them into.
He differentiates the different trajectories of empires based on colonial elites' level of autonomy from metropolitan officials and colonial elites' influence on the metropole's economy and/or politics. In essence, as a country expands from a core to new lands, how are the spoils distributed? And does the colonial booty upset the system that facilitated its looting?
Why did Spain not parlay their American empire into global hegemony? The Hapsburgs inadvertently recreated their continental relationship with elites in their colonies by granting them self-contained encomiendas. These provided revenue independent from the state and left the state impotent to collect the spoils of colonization to the crown.
How did the Dutch become hegemons? Unifying elite control against Spain and maintaining control of colonial elite in the metropole. The Dutch hegemony was undermined because Amsterdam merchants developed multiple veto points within the Dutch polity and pursued their interests at the expense of other elites and the state, causing it to calcify against the British challenge.
The British hegemony was undermined by the elites in their American colonies attaining greater degrees of autonomy. Financialization of the empire bound things together for a good while, but ultimately altered the material conditions required to maintain an industrial and military base to rival continental challengers.
The American example seems to be following the British most closely. Lachmann argues that the elite shift undermining American hegemony since the end of WW2 stems from the consolidation of regional banks into regional conglomerates. This had the effect of turning the traditional federal pork system that benefited local constituencies into one that siphoned federal dollars into siloed business interests that exist independent of the electoral system. The benefits of empire go exclusively to the capitalist elite, where once there was a brief period where they were shared. Like the British, the final retreat of the hegemon seems to be into the financial realm, where American capitalist elites are basically stripping the copper out of the walls.
Lachmann cites cultural intolerance of war casualties, profligate spending on ineffective weapon systems, a bloated careerist officer class, reliance on contractors and strategies of neoliberal plunder as reasons for the declining effectiveness of the American military to sustain hegemony in recent wars. The military exists now to make money. Consequently it doesn't build things to meet the challenges of a 21st century military. And it raises serious questions about its potential effectiveness in a larger conflcit.
It's a pretty grim perspective, but it's also not totally clear that there is another wave of hegemony on the horizon to replace the U.S. As Lachmann notes, China appears to be most interested in maintaining their regional sphere of influence. But it will be interesting to see if the hegemony of the dollar is able to be maintained in our lifetime.
In terms of what kind of read this is... it's very academic, very formulaic, very dry. But fascinating!
Lachmann takes an academic approach uses two main frames to address the problem: the politics of elites and the nature of hegemony. Looking at the main European powers of the last 500 years, he first breaks down why it was only the Dutch and the British -- and not the French, Spanish, Germans or Portuguese -- who were able to establish control of global commerce.
It starts with the idea of elites: power brokers in their various shapes who wield social, military and economic power separate from the ruler or executive. They can be merchants, landed aristocracy, capitalists, or whatever shape a society molds them into.
He differentiates the different trajectories of empires based on colonial elites' level of autonomy from metropolitan officials and colonial elites' influence on the metropole's economy and/or politics. In essence, as a country expands from a core to new lands, how are the spoils distributed? And does the colonial booty upset the system that facilitated its looting?
Why did Spain not parlay their American empire into global hegemony? The Hapsburgs inadvertently recreated their continental relationship with elites in their colonies by granting them self-contained encomiendas. These provided revenue independent from the state and left the state impotent to collect the spoils of colonization to the crown.
How did the Dutch become hegemons? Unifying elite control against Spain and maintaining control of colonial elite in the metropole. The Dutch hegemony was undermined because Amsterdam merchants developed multiple veto points within the Dutch polity and pursued their interests at the expense of other elites and the state, causing it to calcify against the British challenge.
The British hegemony was undermined by the elites in their American colonies attaining greater degrees of autonomy. Financialization of the empire bound things together for a good while, but ultimately altered the material conditions required to maintain an industrial and military base to rival continental challengers.
The American example seems to be following the British most closely. Lachmann argues that the elite shift undermining American hegemony since the end of WW2 stems from the consolidation of regional banks into regional conglomerates. This had the effect of turning the traditional federal pork system that benefited local constituencies into one that siphoned federal dollars into siloed business interests that exist independent of the electoral system. The benefits of empire go exclusively to the capitalist elite, where once there was a brief period where they were shared. Like the British, the final retreat of the hegemon seems to be into the financial realm, where American capitalist elites are basically stripping the copper out of the walls.
Lachmann cites cultural intolerance of war casualties, profligate spending on ineffective weapon systems, a bloated careerist officer class, reliance on contractors and strategies of neoliberal plunder as reasons for the declining effectiveness of the American military to sustain hegemony in recent wars. The military exists now to make money. Consequently it doesn't build things to meet the challenges of a 21st century military. And it raises serious questions about its potential effectiveness in a larger conflcit.
It's a pretty grim perspective, but it's also not totally clear that there is another wave of hegemony on the horizon to replace the U.S. As Lachmann notes, China appears to be most interested in maintaining their regional sphere of influence. But it will be interesting to see if the hegemony of the dollar is able to be maintained in our lifetime.
In terms of what kind of read this is... it's very academic, very formulaic, very dry. But fascinating!
September 30, 2025
“Those who profited from the era of American hegemony and from its decline will be able to insulate themselves from the consequences of their power and greed, which will be increasingly manifest in political dysfunction, mass despair, domestic and global strife, and rising sea levels on a planet no longer able to accommodate billions of humans. The views, from their remote hilltops and guarded apartment towers, though not from bunkers, will be marvelous.”
Thus concludes Lachmann’s swan song and prognosis of the United States. His powers of comparison in both sociology and history lend credence to his efforts to track why elites consolidate into hegemonic polities and how elites collapse hegemony, wittingly or not. Every American must grapple critically with the implications of Lachmann’s thesis, both politically and intellectually.
Trump II doesn’t seem to be changing the fundamental forces which led Lachmann to his prognostication. We’re in for a fun ride.
Also, first-rate title.
Thus concludes Lachmann’s swan song and prognosis of the United States. His powers of comparison in both sociology and history lend credence to his efforts to track why elites consolidate into hegemonic polities and how elites collapse hegemony, wittingly or not. Every American must grapple critically with the implications of Lachmann’s thesis, both politically and intellectually.
Trump II doesn’t seem to be changing the fundamental forces which led Lachmann to his prognostication. We’re in for a fun ride.
Also, first-rate title.
February 11, 2020
This book initially looked to me as though it had promise, but I had no sooner begun perusing it than I discovered that, in order to get to whatever core insights might be present, I would have to wade through blatant ideological biases worn on the author's sleeve. I pride myself on being able to keep an open mind; however, when a text with what I took to be a serious subject immediately rejects views not in keeping with the author's own biases, I have no interest in wasting my time reading it. I should note that my own biases are conservative. If you are open to the present madness sweeping through more liberal viewpoints, and are not interested in a more disinterested approach, you may be interested, and I wish you luck.
October 22, 2021
Interesting, but not incredibly insightful. Lachmann doesn't really tread any new ground here, and while his case studies are very detailed, they feel rather repetitive after awhile. This is definitely well-researched, but I don't think I would recommend it.
September 18, 2020
Mans inhumanity to man shows no limit and no end in sight.
We as a species are just fine with stepping on the neck of our fellow man.
Why is it that the rich and powerful are always such greedy evil bastards ?
R Lachmann has created a dense catalog of the past 500 years of hegemony.
The first half of the book is a tough crawl throuh the excesses of empire.
The second half of the book lays out the US in all its tyranny, sloth, and misguided last 50 years
of extreme hegemony. Thankfully that is coming to an end, but the wealth and government in
the US is too powerful and is completely devoid of a soul.
The moves required to change the course of these people does not seem likely.
Goodbye cruel world. See you in hell, I know who I will be meeting there.
We as a species are just fine with stepping on the neck of our fellow man.
Why is it that the rich and powerful are always such greedy evil bastards ?
R Lachmann has created a dense catalog of the past 500 years of hegemony.
The first half of the book is a tough crawl throuh the excesses of empire.
The second half of the book lays out the US in all its tyranny, sloth, and misguided last 50 years
of extreme hegemony. Thankfully that is coming to an end, but the wealth and government in
the US is too powerful and is completely devoid of a soul.
The moves required to change the course of these people does not seem likely.
Goodbye cruel world. See you in hell, I know who I will be meeting there.
November 29, 2021
Did not expect that I finished this book after the author, my committee chair, passed away. Very curious about our discussion if I read it eailer. Feeling that I could understand more about this relevant topic but still need to wait until I finish the whole section, to see what kind of memo that I can submit to my new chair.
Read
January 25, 2021Pain full reading - the name of the book promised so much but... leaving it in between
July 4, 2025
had to speed read this before returning to the library. Great to know that the dara supports the expected end of US empire - hopefully the coolareal damagemis not too traumatic for the world
July 7, 2025
really good stuff if you wanna get super depressed
February 12, 2025
On how empires fall not through external defeat but through internal competition for the dwindling seats in first class.
November 10, 2021
Paperback copy, not Kindle.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews