It is interesting and perhaps instructive to study the ancient Roman Republic and its transition into the Roman Empire to get a sense of how we may be transitioning from the American Republic into the American Empire. This may seem a bit of an overstatement but let's examine some of the similarities.
The economy of the Roman Republic was dominated by artisans and small farmers (the typical farm was approximately ten acres in size). The economy was prosperous and few were very wealthy but few lived in abject poverty either.
However, as the Roman Army conquered more and more territory, they brought back slaves from the vassal states. (At the time of Christ, there were approximately three million slaves in the Roman Empire while there were only four million Roman citizens.) The small farmers of the Roman Republic could not compete with slave labor and soon went bankrupt, selling their land to wealthy landowners who increased the size of their estates to huge proportions. A small estate would have been 1000 acres. These estates were called latifundia. Some of the latifundia in the central portion of the Italian peninsula were in the nature of 250,000 acres worked by tens of thousands of slaves. The wealthy owners of the estates had enormous incomes--perhaps 1000 times that of the average Roman citizen who was--as often as not in the Roman Empire--on the dole in a Roman city. The products of the Roman artisans also could not compete with the plunder brought back to Rome from afar and also, freemen could not offer their wares in competition to that produced by slaves. They too went bankrupt and onto the dole.
Now, how is this like the United States? Once our economy was dominated by small business and small farms. Now, the huge agribusinesses work huge tracts of land (much of which was forfeited by small farmers) with illegals--the next best thing to slaves. At the same time, small businesses here cannot pay good wages when they are being undercut by cheap imports from the multi-national corporations. The power elites who own and run the major corporations have enormous incomes--often thousands of times what the average American receives. And yet the rapacious greed goes on. More and more plunder is sought by the owners of the nation. At present, it is oil that is feverishly sought, but eventually it may be uranium or even water. Will any place be safe from the ravages of American empire building? At present, we don't appear to have any real rivals. The Europeans would love to wield the kind of power that we do--so would the Russians and the Chinese. However, as Mao once famously observed, "Power flows out of the barrel of a gun." Just as the awesome might of the Roman Army had no competitors--neither does the awesome might of the American military machine. But just like the Romans, our military adventurism is draining our national treasury (and, at the same time, lining the pockets of the war profiteers) and we will eventually have to pull in our horns.
Ike once warned us to beware of the military-industrial complex. We should have heeded his warning.