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Gerald Horne concludes his fine new book, “Blows Against Empire” with a chapter titled “U.S. Imperialism Unbound?” It is a chapter that should be must reading both for progressives and for what an old Communist once called “the smart rich,” those in the U.S. who realize that the policies of recent decades, however profitable they have been in the short run, are producing disasters which seriously threaten their wealth and long-term class interests.

Meanwhile, the world of unregulated global hedge funds, with trillions of assets, becomes increasingly a sort of economic al Qaeda (my turn of phrase) for U.S. imperialism, a Frankenstein monster of the anti-regulation frenzy led by right-wing U.S. governments over the last three decades. Today these funds engage in the sort of late 19th century "robber baron" looting of businesses which led to the development of regulation of industrial and finance capital in the first place.