Professor Michael Hudson, in a recent discussion, takes issue with those who speak today of the “decline of the US hegemon.” A decline implies something goes up and down, Hudson says, but it always recovers. “But there’s never been any such thing statistically as a cycle … There’s no decline, it’s a crash” — We’re seeing the ending of an era, not a decline, but an abrupt change. And this change is not stemming from without: The ending of the American power did not result from any foreign civil...