<html> Except that it still needs one - just one - strong central imperial state to guarantee the lesser fragments.  That would be the USA. Remember, capitalist development, especially on a global scale, is necessarily combined and uneven.  This applies to the level of nation-state as well.  Hence in the current, actual configuration, the USA is necessarily the exception (and excepted from) the rule applied to everyone else.  Centripetal fragmentation means greater integration at the center. Otherwise, why be imperialist if it doesn't mean schluffing the problems of capitalism off on everyone else, and then "guaranteeing" the result at the point of a gun? This structure BTW makes a US "soft landing" possible.  Depends on how much the rest of the world - especially W.Europe and Japan - is willing to bend over and take it from Uncle Sugar.  The utterly rotten Tokyo regime could bend over forever, I'm convinced, but W.Europe is another matter. -Brad Mayer At 09:33 AM 1/4/01 -0500, you wrote: <blockquote type=cite cite>John K. Taber: > ... > On the other hand, maybe destroying the United States is > something this group should consider. Maybe it would reduce > us to several mutually suspicious states (what Madison feared), > and lead to the end of our imperialism. > > Hmm. There might be several imperialisms then, but each would be > less powerful. Probably, Capital is less well served by the nation-state than in former times.  Hence multilateral imperialism, as in the Balkans.  _Divide_et_impera_. </blockquote></html>