In addressing the question posed by David North in his opening remarks to this meeting—Is world capitalism on an upward trajectory, or is it in decline and heading for explosive upheavals?—it is particularly important to draw a balance sheet of the trajectory of American capitalism.
The relative strength or weakness, health or morbidity of American capitalism, and its trajectory over an extended historical period, is in the most fundamental and objective sense a world question. The fate of world capitalism over the past century has been linked to that of the United States more than to any other national economy or national state.