"The United States is on the decline." Kali Akuno and Richard Wolff are right — here's why

Matthew Rozsa draws on his academic as well as journalistic experience

Kali Akuno works with low-income Americans every day. As the co-founder and co-director of the Jackson, MS community group Cooperation Jackson, an organization of worker cooperatives and community-led programs that fight for economic relief and justice.

Thus when he talks about things all Americans "know in our bones," he does so from a uniquely insightful vantage point. Whether you are a Wall Street financier or an ordinary 9-to-5 worker, the chances are you can sense America is losing its competitive advantage to the world's other remaining superpower, China. Yet it is important to understand why — because capitalism, the economic system whose fate is inextricably linked to our own (at least at the present moment), is experiencing inexorable decline.

"China is on the rise, the United States is on the decline, we all know this in our bones," Akuno said. "Those of us who live in the United States one way or another, this empire is on the decline," Akuno said. "The roads won't be fixed. We don't have universal healthcare, but we have all these tremendous ailments within this society around health, be it due to age or be it due to all these different things, which is why you get this weird old man in the form of RFK Jr. running now conspiracy theories as official government policy around health.”

(This section begins around the 23:30 Mark)

To better understand this subject, I spoke with economist Robert Shapiro. An extremely warm and intelligent man who currently runs the economic advisory firm Sonecon, Shapiro worked as undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs under President Bill Clinton and principal economic adviser to Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, as well as co-founder of the center-left Progressive Policy Institute. I asked him a blunt question:

Does he agree with the common critique that America is experiencing End Stage Capitalism?

“We may be in a late stage of the current phase and form of capitalism, and I suspect it will be succeeded, over the next decade or two, by the next phase and form—presumably organized around the emerging information and biological/biochemical technologies, the pressures on the environment and climate from global warming, the associated large-scale migrations, the aging of advanced societies, and developments we don’t yet appreciate,” Shapiro said. “Insofar as capitalism now entails the use of using regulated market to distribute resources efficiently, as it has for two centuries, I don’t expect tectonic change, though the regulation will change.”

At this point I asked Shapiro if he thinks the democratic socialist proposals of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and New York Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortes are the correct solutions to the problems of End Stage Capitalism. These include not only rampant income inequality, but also ecocidal practices like climate change and plastic pollution.

“Solving the problem of poverty is a straightforward issue: People are poor because they lack sufficient funds, including the resources to secure housing, healthcare, and education,” Shapiro said. “All directly solvable—provide the funds, housing, healthcare and education. The real issue here is political: How to pay for it, and how to secure the resources to do so.”

For the former, Shapiro argued that “the first step is political reform, starting with constitutional amendments to severely limit private financing for campaigns and making Senate seats by state based in part on population. Americans have done it in the past, when we passed amendments for the direct election of senators, the income tax, and the vote for women coming out of the progressive and populist movements.”

I then asked Shapiro about the value of wealth redistribution. Personally I am a fan of “Share Our Wealth,” a program suggested by Louisiana Senator Huey Long during the 1936 presidential election cycle. He advocated capping personal fortunes at $50 million each (roughly $1.17 billion in 2025) and use the resulting revenue to provide free higher education and vocational training, pensions for the elderly and veterans, free health care and a universal basic income for all Americans earning less than one-third of the national average income. His goal was that every American should have a home, an automobile, a radio and other ordinary conveniences. In addition to these measures, Long wanted a national debt moratorium, a shortened work week and mandatory month-long vacations for employees to boost employment.

“We have it in a weak form today. through Medicaid and housing subsidies for the poor and tax benefits for the rich—both ‘share the wealth,’” Shapiro said.

Personally I’d argue that we need much more, that indeed Long’s programs in 1935 (he was assassinated before he could make it to 1936) would still work today. Yet whether one falls between the more moderate Shapiro beliefs and the more radical ones held by myself and Long, the bottom line is clear:

America can have its End Stage Capitalism, or it can have its status as a supreme economic and military superpower. If we continue to allow income inequality and ecocide to worsen under the status quo — and that is guaranteed under End Stage Capitalism — we will have that choice made for us.

Back Seat Socialism

Column by Matthew Rozsa who is a professional journalist for more than 13 years. Currently he is writing a book for Beacon Press, "Neurosocialism," which argues that autistic people like the author struggle under capitalism, and explains how neurosocialism - the distinct anticapitalist perspective one develops by living as a neurodiverse individual - can be an important organizing principle for the left.

Twitter (X) @MatthewWRozsa