2 Roman Empire
Roberts
In my view, while there has been a relative decline in US economic and political hegemony since the golden days of the 1950s and 1960s, from the 1970s onwards that decline has been gradual and possible challenges to US hegemony eg: Japan in the 1970s; Europe in the 1990s; and now China (+BRICS); have not and will not succeed in replacing it.
I likened the situation using the analogy of the decline and collapse of the ancient Roman Empire in the 3rd century ACE. Some scholars argue that the Roman Empire collapsed because of outside forces ie invasions and rising contender states (ie BRICS?). But others argue, rightly in my view, that the real cause was the economic disintegration of the dominant slave economy within Rome. Roman conquests had ended in the late 2nd century ACE and there were not enough slaves to sustain the economy so that productivity dropped off and eventually weakened financial support for the military. Rising and extreme inequality in Rome was a symptom of this decline and eventual collapse.
In the 21st century, globalisation has fallen away and regionalisation is emerging. Inequality of wealth and income in the US and the G7 is at extremes. But above all, the profitability of capital in the imperialist bloc is near all-time lows. The collapse of the Roman Empire also ended the dominance of the slave-owning mode of production, to be eventually replaced by a feudal system. The increased internal disintegration of the US economy could not only end its global hegemony, but also usher in a new mode of production.