Review of First-Class Passengers on a Sinking Ship: Elite Politics and the Decline of Great Powers

First and foremost Richard Lachmann was my friend, professionally and personally. We spent the last decade meeting nearly every week during the academic year to discuss his research and mine, catch up, and opine about state-side or nation-wide political debacles. We grew closer over the years. Our conversations about our research oftentimes evolved into spirited debates. Defending your research findings against Richard’s keen observations and piercing criticisms required mettle and valor. Conversely, Richard was prepared to stand by his research conclusions, while practicing patience and kindness towards those challenging his conclusions or remaining skeptical. Our debates over his brilliant book, First-Class Passengers on a Sinking Ship, exemplified this weekly give and take. A basic question I asked Richard was what motivated him to write FirstClass Passengers on a Sinking Ship? He replied that despite the United State’s wealth, resources, technology, and extensive armaments he could no longer ignore the telltale signs of American decline: dropping life expectancy and school achievement, decreasing incomes, inaccessible health care, stagnating infrastructure, inept responses to societal challenges, and an inability to assert its influence and win wars. He wanted to explain why the United States would eventually join the club of past world powers that wilted into ignominy.

He explained that the United States was following the downward trajectory of past world powers. Though rich and possessing ample resources, he argued that past world powers decayed due to elites appropriating the treasuries of each nation and coopting their bureaucracies to serve their own interests. The elites' actions thereby stopped national governments from marshaling resources and implementing policies that could have prevented decline and fended off challenges from ascending powers. The outcomes of the elites' corrosive, selfinterested meddling in the United States' national affairs and machinery of government would be political cynicism among the populous and a rise of authoritarian leaders and extremist parties.
I reflected to Richard that his analyses in First-Class Passengers on a Sinking Ship painted a dismal picture of future American life. He replied not necessarily. In the book, Richard wrote that the decline could be thwarted if success occurred in changing government policies and redirecting spending towards social programs. The American electoral system had to demonstrate political efficacy and show the benefits of electing politicians who could stymie elite demands, with or without concomitant street protests. Electoral victories among progressives could remold policy while undermining elite autarky in the United States.
Reflecting on our conversations about the book, I now more deeply appreciate Richard's analyses and conclusions. The following review shows First-Class Passengers on a Sinking Ship is profoundly insightful and ingenious in its analysis, but it is not without weaknesses. Richard, the undaunted intellectual voyager, would defend his book's conclusions while equally eager to build upon the critiques for his next project.

REVIEW
In the social sciences, there is no shortage of works on great powers and their foreign policies. Abundant attention has also been given to national politics and its effect on elite domination and social inequality. Little scholarship, however, has made effective connections between the two topics. Lachmann's latest and, sadly, last book First-class Passenger on A Sinking Ship breaks ground in this regard. The book investigates how internal political dynamics shape the external enterprises of the great powers. Surveying five great powers, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Britain and the United States, it makes a provocative and potent argument that the structures of elite relations have determinative effects on the rise and fall of world hegemons. Elite unity contributed significantly to the ascendence of hegemonic polities. Hegemonic decline, on the other hand, could be largely explained by elites pursing their narrow and short-term interests at the expense of strategic gains for their polities.
The patterned transitions in imperial trajectories, from dynamism to stasis and ultimately paralysis, seems hard to avoid, as Lachmann poignantly observes. Elites' expansive adventures in commerce and finance, previously instrumental to imperial development, eventually overshadowed more territorially bounded sectors, especially manufacturing, and undermined the competitiveness of imperial economies. The rise of new elites, bred by the processes of imperial expansion, could also be destabilizing. The interests of new elites conflicted with those of their predecessors, as seen in the relationships between colonial elites and metropolitan officials, financiers and landowners, and interloping merchants and chartered companies, unraveling the empires from within by undermining the coherence of their global strategies. Therefore, Lachmann suggests that hegemons needed "reform" of a political kind to maintain power and cohesion. Empires fell not because they were costly to sustain, but because elites were protective of existing gains and failed to band together to mobilize necessary resources for long-term purposes.
One of the apparent strengths of the book is that it assigns authorship to empires. Yet foregrounding elite actors is also accompanied with relentless analytical efforts to ground them firmly in institutions. As a result, the book's breathtaking account of large-scale historical transformation is enlivened with portraits of identifiable protagonists and also does justices to the specificities of administrations, parties, policies, laws, and patterns of practices that became the bases of elite action. The book is not specifically about the state as such, but its historical analysis makes it clear that the most important institution that coevolved with the elites was the imperial state. Lachmann essentially sees elites and the state entering a dialectical relationship in the course of empire building. Elites made states; they were also constrained by the states they made. The book thus effectively addresses the classical debate on whether states act in the interest of the ruling class or can advance the common good. Lachmann demonstrates that the answer was not either/or. Cohesion of ruling elites is a form of state capacity. It can be translated into a consensual ability to raise large sums of governmental revenues and investment capital, necessary for deploying empires to broaden elites' advantages. Strong states challenged narrow elite interests and insisted on the necessity of taxing the rich to continue to build their fiscal and military prowess. Weak states, however, became prey to elites, who, in the American case, coordinated with only a narrow segment of state functions, primarily the Federal Reserve and military officials. Thus the management of elite-state relations was emphatically part of the formula for any imperial project, which, according to Lachmann, meant a political project.
Elites pursue empires in world-historical contexts. Such contexts transpire as hegemons wax and wane through different periods. To what extent has the American hegemon faced a distinctive global context requiring its elites to develop a different approach to and relationship with their own hegemony? This is the question about which the book is most empirically lavish but theoretically modest. Mastering a dazzling scope of knowledge concerning American and world politics from 1960 to 2016, the book directly and indirectly concedes that the US hegemon grew and declined against a backdrop that differed from those faced by previous empires. The US faced a world where nation-states ruled, democracies spread, liberalism prevailed, and global connectivity developed to a degree of intensified "globalization," which itself was a product of the US's hegemonic rise and elite aggression. Altered global political economy has farreaching implications for contemporary and future hegemons, with attendant benefits and perils. Lachmann discusses financialization as one example of such alteration, noting that while the turn to finance was a symptom of hegemonic decline for Britain, it was fairly effectively weaponized by the US to prolong its global dominance. The book suggests that part of the reason was that no rival nation or its currency was capable of challenging the US's financial preeminence. This reader wonders whether the infrastructure of globalization, partly built by US-led efforts to deregulate capital flows and liberalize trade across borders, also created a networked global economy that amplified the importance of a regulatory hub (occupied by the Federal Reserve) and accrued a network effect to the global reserve currency (the dollar).
Globalization is also a double-edged sword for hegemons, as Lachmann subtly indicates. Present-day American elites have a large degree of freedom to invest in many parts of the world and ally with dubious local governments not necessarily in line with national political interests. American political elites find it harder to bend the will of business elites to suit a strategic agenda than their British counterparts two centuries ago. When elites do develop a stake in other countries, they conduct business according to neoliberal standards of economic success, in financially defined terms and for quick profits. This array of predatory behavior, as Lachmann points out in the case of Iraq, was loathed by the locals, and reveals clues about the US's multiple failures in peripheral countries. The American experience, as the book painstakingly details, highlights the tension between global economic liberalism and hegemonic expansion. Insofar as global connectivity remains the context, future hegemons will likely tackle similar dilemmas in either creative or destructive ways. The current turn to nationalism, in both the US and its alleged challenger China, may point to a way to unify the elites, but it falls short of solving the dilemma and may contradict the logic of hegemon.
In sum, by uncovering the myriad ways in which elites developed stakes in foreign policies and hegemons' global presence, this book elevates our sociological imagination by approaching large-scale political formations with a focus on intentional actors and their structured actions. This intellectual tour de force showcases a powerful analysis of the linkages between domestic inequality and inter-state competition as the world continues to become more socially unequal and geopolitically unstable before our eyes. This masterful book therefore sends a powerful invitation for scholars to draw comparative lessons from hegemons in order to study how elites can be less destructive and how non-elites can have better chances to thrive in the shadows of hegemons.
In the social sciences, there is no shortage of works on great powers and their foreign policies. Abundant attention has also been given to national politics and its effect on elite domination and social inequality. Little scholarship, however, has made effective connections between the two topics. Lachmann's latest and, sadly, last book First-class Passenger on A Sinking Ship breaks ground in this regard. The book investigates how internal political dynamics shape the external enterprises of the great powers. Surveying five great powers, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Britain, and the United States, it makes a provocative and potent argument that the structures of elite relations have determinative effects on the rise and fall of world hegemons. Elite unity contributed significantly to the ascendance of hegemonic polities. Hegemonic decline, on the other hand, could be largely explained by elites pursing their narrow and short-term interests at the expense of strategic gains for their polities.
The patterned transitions in imperial trajectories, from dynamism to stasis and ultimately paralysis, seem hard to avoid, as Lachmann poignantly observes. Elites' expansive adventures in commerce and finance, previously instrumental to imperial development, eventually overshadowed more territorially bounded sectors, especially manufacturing, and undermined the competitiveness of imperial economies. The rise of new elites, bred by the processes of imperial expansion, could also be destabilizing. The interests of new elites conflicted with those of their predecessors, as seen in the relationships between colonial elites and metropolitan officials, financiers and landowners, and interloping merchants and chartered companies, unraveling the empires from within by undermining the coherence of their global strategies. Therefore, Lachmann suggests that hegemons needed "reform" of a political kind to maintain power and cohesion. Empires fell not because they were costly to sustain, but because elites were protective of existing gains and failed to band together to mobilize necessary resources for long-term purposes.
One of the apparent strengths of the book is that it assigns authorship to empires. Yet, foregrounding elite actors is also accompanied with relentless analytical efforts to ground them firmly in institutions. As a result, the book's breathtaking account of large-scale historical transformation is enlivened with portraits of identifiable protagonists and also does justices to the specificities of administrations, parties, policies, laws, and patterns of practices that became the bases of elite action. The book is not specifically about the state as such, but its historical analysis makes it clear that the most important institution that coevolved with the elites was the imperial state. Lachmann essentially sees elites and the state entering a dialectical relationship in the course of empire building. Elites made states; they were also constrained by the states they made. The book thus effectively addresses the classical debate on whether states act in the interest of the ruling class or can advance the common good. Lachmann demonstrates that the answer was not either/or. Cohesion of ruling elites is a form of state capacity. It can be translated into a consensual ability to raise large sums of governmental revenues and investment capital, necessary for deploying empires to broaden elites' advantages. Strong states challenged narrow elite interests and insisted on the necessity of taxing the rich to continue to build their fiscal and military prowess. Weak states, however, became prey to elites, who, in the American case, coordinated with only a narrow segment of state functions, primarily the Federal Reserve and military officials. Thus, the management of elite-state relations was emphatically part of the formula for any imperial project, which, according to Lachmann, meant a political project.
Elites pursue empires in world historical contexts. Such contexts transpire as hegemons wax and wane through different periods. To what extent has the American hegemon faced such a distinctive global context that it required the elites to develop a different approach to and relationship with their own hegemony? This is the question about which the book is most empirically lavish but theoretically modest. Mastering a dazzling scope of knowledge concerning American and world politics from 1960 to 2016, the book directly and indirectly concedes that the US hegemon grew and declined against a backdrop that differed from those faced by previous empires. The United States faced a world where nation-states ruled, democracies spread, liberalism prevailed, and global connectivity developed to a degree of intensified "globalization," which itself was a product of the United States' hegemonic rise and elite aggression. Altered global political economy has far-reaching implications for contemporary and future hegemons, with attendant benefits and perils. Lachmann discusses financialization as one example of such alteration, noting that while the turn to finance was a symptom of hegemonic decline for Britain, it was fairly effectively weaponized by the United States to prolong its global dominance. The book suggests that part of the reason was that no rival nation or its currency was capable of challenging the United States' financial preeminence. This reader wonders whether the infrastructure of globalization, partly built by US-led efforts to deregulate capital flows and liberalize trade across borders, also created a networked global economy that amplified the importance of a regulatory hub (occupied by the Federal Reserve) and accrued a network effect to the global reserve currency (the dollar).
Globalization is also a double-edged sword for hegemons, as Lachmann subtly indicates. Present-day American elites have a large degree of freedom to invest in many parts of the world and ally with dubious local governments not necessarily in line with national political interests. American political elites find it harder to bend the will of business elites to suit a strategic agenda than their British counterparts two centuries ago. When elites do develop a stake in other countries, they conduct business according to neoliberal standards of economic success in financially defined terms and for quick profits. This array of predatory behavior, as Lachmann points out in the case of Iraq, was loathed by the locals and reveals clues about the United States' multiple failures in peripheral countries. The American experience, as the book painstakingly details, highlights the tension between global economic liberalism and hegemonic expansion. Insofar as global connectivity remains the context, future hegemons will likely tackle similar dilemmas in either creative or destructive ways. The current turn to nationalism, in both the United States and its alleged challenger China, may point to a way to unify the elites, but it falls short of solving the dilemma and may contradict the logic of hegemon.
In sum, by uncovering the myriad ways in which elites developed stakes in foreign policies and hegemons' global presence, this book elevates our sociological imagination by approaching large-scale political formations with a focus on intentional actors and their structured actions. This intellectual tour de force showcases a powerful analysis of the linkages between domestic inequality and inter-state competition as the world continues to become more socially unequal and geopolitically unstable before our eyes. This masterful book therefore sends a powerful invitation for scholars to draw comparative lessons from hegemons in order to study how elites can be less destructive and how non-elites can have better chances to thrive in the shadows of hegemons.