America's Braudelian Autumn

Factions of capital in the second Trump administrationHegemonic decline, according to the historian Fernand Braudel, has historically come with financialization.Amid declining profitability in production and trade, capital owners increasingly shift their assets into finance.This, according to Braudel, is a "sign of autumn," when empires "transform into a society of rentier-investors on the look-out for anything that would guarantee a quiet and privileged life."This specter of Braudelian decline haunts key figures in the second Trump administration."Tell me what all the former reserve currencies have in common," Scott Bessent, now Treasury Secretary, mused during the campaign."Portugal, Spain, Holland, France, UK How did they lose reserve currency status?