This attempt to capture all the world's variations under a single heading is a familiar refrain of hegemony in action, featuring U.S. capitalism as the end of history. Brief rejoinders are as follows. First, “American exceptionalism" (Lipset 1996) sheds a light on American capitalism. It is only since the 1980s era of neoliberalism that it has been upheld as the norm of capitalism, 25 “real capitalism.” Second, should we leave the definition of terminology to the global headlines? What prevails in the headlines is analysis squeeze: “globalization” is squeezed so as to fit the knowledge and decision-making frameworks of U.S. policy makers, New York boardrooms and the pages of the Wall Street journal and the Economist. Third, the United States should not be essential zed or treated as a single unit. While from the outside the U.S. appears as a superpower steering globalization and manipulating the IMF, World Bank, and WTO, within the U.S. “many, such as the labor movement, regard the U.S. as being constrained by globalization (Milner 1998). Fourth, neoliberalism is by no means a homogeneous or coherent project, economically, politically, or culturally (see Pratt 1998). Fifth, the Washington consensus has unraveled. Sixth in the wake of the Enron episode the mood, from Wall Street to Davos, has changed markedly. Seventh, the American imperial turn in the wake of the September 11 attacks introduces very different logics. It follows that neoliberal capitalism cannot be taken at face value.