The Great Depression of the 1930s was more than an economic collapse; it was an ideological crucible. As capitalism faltered, socialism surged, promising salvation through state control. Today, that battle rages anew, with the U.S. Federal Reserve at its heart. Martin’s metaphor of the Federal Reserve as a chaperone—removing the punch bowl to curb excess—once defined an era of restraint: intervene only to prevent instability, never to orchestrate outcomes. That era is dead. The Federal Reserve has abandoned its traditional neutrality, embracing Keynesian dogma and becoming a partisan weapon in the war between capitalism and socialism, a war that threatens American economic sovereignty.

For decades, the American establishment clung to the gospel of globalization, open markets, cheap goods, and the promise of shared prosperity. Yet beneath the surface, this grand experiment hollowed out the nation’s industrial heartland, eroded economic security, and fuelled a populist backlash that upended politics from Ohio to
Washington. The opioid crisis, the decay of small towns, and the anger of those left behind are not mysterious—they are the predictable fallout of an economic order designed by and for elites, insulated from the consequences of their own policies.