Western Societal Decline

Global Factors

Climate Change, Resource Depletion

Social Factors

Anomie, Social Fragmentation, Criminal Behavior, Lawlessness, Uncontrolled Immigration, Identity Politics, Disconnection, Loneliness, Decline in Traditional Institutions (marriage, religion), Secularism, Political Corruption

Counter-Argument

Societies are becoming more resilient to collapse

Economic Factors

Federal Spending, AI Job Displacement, Income Inequality

Foundational Text

The Decline of the West by Oswald Spengler

Historical Precedent

Cyclical rise and fall of civilizations (e.g., Roman Empire)

Key Proponent (2025)

Tucker Carlson

Predicted Consequences

Retraction of people and resources, increased immigration restrictions, widening gap between rich and poor, failure of democratic/liberal society, rise of stronger governments (e.g., China)

Associated Event (2025)

All-In Summit 2025

Primary Causes (Carlson)

Rapid Population Change, Housing Crisis, SSRI Epidemic

1918

1922

2017-04-18

2023-12-05

2025

2025-03

Will anomie be the next “pandemic”?

Web page about Western Societal Decline sourced during research.

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Permaculture Apprentice

Web page about Western Societal Decline sourced during research.

Also paralleling Rome, Homer-Dixon predicts that Western societies’ collapse will be preceded by a retraction of people and resources back to their core homelands. As poorer nations continue to disintegrate amid conflicts and natural disasters, enormous waves of migrants will stream out of failing regions, seeking refuge in more stable states. Western societies will respond with restrictions and even bans on immigration; multi-billion dollar walls and border-patrolling drones and troops; [...] dear today. “Western nations are not going to collapse, but the smooth operation and friendly nature of Western society will disappear, because inequity is going to explode,” Randers argues. “Democratic, liberal society will fail, while stronger governments like China will be the winners.” [...] Meanwhile, a widening gap between rich and poor within those already vulnerable Western nations will push society toward further instability from the inside. “By 2050, the US and UK will have evolved into two-class societies where a small elite lives a good life and there is declining well-being for the majority,” Randers says. “What will collapse is equity.”

The Decline of the West (German: Der Untergang des Abendlandes; more literally, The Downfall of the Occident or even more literally, "The Going-Under of the Evening Lands"; some of the poetry of the original is lost in translation) is a two-volume work by Oswald Spengler. The first volume, subtitled Form and Actuality, was published in the summer of 1918. The second volume, subtitled Perspectives of World History, was published in 1922. The definitive edition of both volumes was published in [...] [edit] [...] The "Decline" is largely concerned with the Classical and Western (and to some degree Magian) Cultures, but some examples are taken from the Chinese and Egyptian. He said that each Culture arises within a specific geographical area and is defined by its internal coherence of style in terms of art, religious behavior and psychological perspective. In addition, each Culture is described as having a conception of space which is expressed by an "Ursymbol". Spengler said that his idea of Culture is

groups press their way into parts of France, Spain, Italy, and even as far south as North Africa. The city of Rome itself came under attack by the Visigoths in 410 "Sack of Rome (410)") and was plundered by the Vandals in 455 "Sack of Rome (455)").[better source needed] A combination of internal strife, economic weakness, and relentless invasions by the Germanic peoples pushed the Western Roman Empire into terminal decline. The last Western Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was dethroned in [...] collapse" in the Western world. [...] rapid - taking no more than a few decades - and must entail a substantial loss of sociopolitical structure. Losses that are less severe, or take longer to occur, are to be considered cases of weakness and decline. [...] The fall of the Roman Empire is, in the West, the most widely known instance of collapse, the one which comes most readily to popular thought." (Pages 4-5)

History shows that increasing wealth inequality consistently precedes collapse, says Kemp, from the Classical Lowland Maya to the Han dynasty in China and the Western Roman empire. He also points out that for the citizens of early rapacious regimes, collapse often improved their lives because they were freed from domination and taxation and returned to farming. “After the fall of Rome, people actually got taller and healthier,” he says. [...] Today’s global civilisation, however, is deeply interconnected and unequal and could lead to the worst societal collapse yet, he says. The threat is from leaders who are “walking versions of the dark triad” – narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism – in a world menaced by the climate crisis, nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence and killer robots. [...] His first step was to ditch the word civilisation, a term he argues is really propaganda by rulers. “When you look at the near east, China, Mesoamerica or the Andes, where the first kingdoms and empires arose, you don’t see civilised conduct, you see war, patriarchy and human sacrifice,” he says. This was a form of evolutionary backsliding from the egalitarian and mobile hunter-gatherer societies which shared tools and culture widely and survived for hundreds of thousands of years. “Instead, we