Ten years after 9/11: Two articles

“This first decade of the 21st century has seen the United States enter into sharp social decline and a notable erosion of its seemingly invincible former imperial authority. The issues confronting U.S. capitalism arise from the deeper crisis of global capitalism. Yet some aspects of today’s stunning dysfunction of American bourgeois politics reflect aftershocks of September 11, 2001,” argues the editorial in the latest issue of Against the Current.

What was the “War on Terror?” asks Richard Seymour in an article entitled “What was that all about?” He argues that “If the war on terror was a bid to advance US hegemony internationally, it could also be understood as an attempt to restructure relations of force domestically, tilting them in favour of business and a stronger coercive state. The same sequence was repeated in numerous advanced capitalist states.”

 

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