States are unable to cope with economic turbulence and social disintegration. They face an escalating crisis of legitimacy and capitalist hegemony. Transnational state apparatuses are unable to bridge the gap between a nation-state-based system of political authority and a globalizing economy. The contradiction is deepening between the legitimacy function and the accumulation function of the national state. There is a growing complexity and tension in the relationship between national states and transnational capital as well as between distinct fractions of capital. The mechanisms of consensual domination, or hegemony, are breaking down. The ruling classes are ramping up the global police state and turning to militarized accumulation and accumulation by repression. International tensions and geopolitical conflict are escalating. The evolution of the U.S.-China relationship is indicative of all of these trends and tendencies. The concept of imperialism needs to be updated to twenty-first century realities, with a focus on the relationship between the U.S. and Western states and their intervention, on the one hand, and transnational class exploitation on the other.