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Why the US Can't Win the Iran War | China, Oil, and the End of American Industry
Posted
May 6, 2026
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19,744
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May 6, 2026
19,744
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40:16Now PlayingThe US bombs Iran. Oil prices surge. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. And Trump heads to Beijing next week — to ask China for help reopening it.
This is what imperial decline looks like in real time.
In this conversation, economist Costas Lapavitsas (SOAS, University of London) and Clara Mattei trace the deeper structure beneath the headlines: why capitalism has been aggressive from its origins, why the US has lost the industrial capacity to compete with China, and why military spending can't fix what financialization broke.
Drawn from our full episode on the Iran war and the new imperialism, this conversation focuses on the systemic argument — the part that explains not just this war, but the next one.
In this conversation:
Why the market doesn't make peace — it makes war
The WWI parallel and what it tells us about today
How the dollar still functions as imperial leverage
Why China can build what the US can't — and what that means for the future of American power
The military-industrial complex: corrupt, inefficient, and incapable of restoring US productive strength
Why escalation has no natural stopping point
Where Costas sees real grounds for hope
GUEST:
Costas Lapavitsas is Professor of Economics at SOAS, University of London, and a scholar of contemporary capitalism and imperialism. His latest book is The State of Capitalism (2023). Recent articles include "A Topography of the New Dollar Imperialism" (New Left Review) and "Trump's Chaotic Imperialism" (Socialist Register).
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#IranWar #China #USImperialism #StraitOfHormuz #CapitalismNeedsWar #MilitaryIndustrialComplex #ClaraMattei #CostasLapavitsas #PoliticalEconomy #Deindustrialization #FREEPodcast #OilCrisis #Imperialism
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