End of Empire thesis
Rise of empire → expansion and wealth → decadence and inequality → crisis → collapse → regime change
Economic expansion
→ Imperial overstretch
→ Economic crisis
→ Political crisis
→ Social fragmentation
→ Moral decadence
→ Regime change.
Go to offset 9.32.
This clip shows people who are happy and relaxed, knowing that they are doing what they believe is right and, in the local spirit of martyrdom, ready to meet their maker if it saves their country.
Compare that with the people in this video, who are partying somewhere in a basement:
For anyone looking for historical parallels of moral decadence preceding civilisational collapse, is this not reminiscent of the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah?
Unconventional sexual behaviour and violence, mobs disrupting public life, abuse of immigrants, disregard for justice, and a general atmosphere of indulgence and cruelty.
This is another end-times type of story that could become our fate. In the biblical story the tale ends with divine destruction of hell fire and brimstone.
What about the moral decline of Rome? Banquets, strange sexual practices, cruel gladiatorial spectacles in the circus, loss of patriotism, civic duty and military discipline, and extreme inequality between the aristocracy and the people.
Is this what awaits us in the fall of the American empire? Are we almost there already?
It was similar under Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Gambling, fashion and lavish banquets, with the aristocracy living completely detached from what was happening in the lives of ordinary people.
It was also the same kind of moral and administrative corruption that set in among the Ottomans well before the First World War: the sale of public offices, tax farming, etc etc.
The end-of-empire idea is that decadence, as one might call it, is a symptom of decline. It is the familiar hundred-year rise-and-fall story of societies (rebuilding, awakening, unraveling and Neil Howe's crisis of the fourth turning). Towards the end, continuous expansion becomes too costly to sustain. Economic crisis leads to political crisis. Inequality and immigration lead to fragmentation and fighting. Amid the chaos and disorder, moral and behavioural norms break down, simply because the system has already become unstable. The final step is regime change and the emergence of a new Order.
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