The Liberal Virus

Samir Amin's ambitious new book argues that the ongoing American project to dominate the world through military force has its roots in European liberalism, but has developed certain features of liberal ideology in a new and uniquely dangerous form. Where European political culture since the French Revolution has given a central place to values of equality, the American state has developed to serve the interests of capital alone, and is now exporting this model throughout the world. American imperialism, Amin argues, will be far more barbaric than earlier forms, pillaging natural resources and destroying the lives of the poor.