Why empires – ancient and modern – fall

Over the last three centuries, the West dominated the planet. The Western superpowers made the rest of the world colonies or extensions of western culture. Then around the start of the new millennium, history began to change. The West began to decline compared to the global periphery that it had previously colonized. This is not the first time that the world has seen such a rise and fall. The Roman Empire followed such a similar story from a global power to disintegration.

This is the grand theme of a newly released book entitled “Why Empires Fall: Rome, America, and the future of the West” by Peter Heather and John Rapley, published by the Yale University Press, 2023. The two authors have interesting backgrounds.

Peter Heather is a historian and is chair of Medieval History at Kings’ College, London. His previous books include The Fall of the Roman Empire, Empires and Barbarians, The Restoration of Rome, Rome Resurgent, and Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion, AD 300-1300.

John Rapley is a political economist at the University of Cambridge and a senior fellow at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study. His books include Understanding Development, Globalization and Inequality, and Twilight of the Money Gods: Economics as a Religion and How It All Went Wrong.

The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 uses Roman history as the background and framework for understanding the rise of the modern West. It shows the similarities between the economic and political evolution of the modern West and the Roman Empire. It illustrates the domination of the world economy of both periods and then analyzes why this domination can ebb and in fact, is doomed to do so.

The two authors in the book purportedly write that the challenge from a developing periphery is now at an early stage. They also write that it was the role of a rising periphery that undermined and caused the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Part 2 of the book examines more closely the key factors that caused the Roman collapse. The chapters examine the relevance of these factors to the modern West.

In Part 2, the two authors arrive at conclusions that may not be acceptable to many other historians and political scientists. They write: “It is not possible to make the West great again in the sense of reasserting an unchallenged global dominion, but the necessary process of adjustment can either hardwire the best of Western civilization into an emerging new global order or undermine the best hopes for the continued prosperity of Western populations in a remade world.”

Presently, the rise of China is seen as a possible successor to Western dominance. However, this rise has been contested especially in view of the current economic and political problems in China.

According to the two authors, the decline of the West began in 2008 when the global economic recession was transformed into an economic stagnation for the West. According to them, the share of the West of global output declined from 80 percent to 60 percent and has continued to fall. Real wages have fallen, youth unemployment has soared, and public and private debt has risen dramatically.

The question that the authors did not sufficiently tackle in my view is that these same factors are happening also in China.

Again, the two authors wrote that the self-confidence in the 1990s in the Western liberal democracy has been questioned even in Western democracies and has caused internal divisions. According to them, the authoritarian central planning of the Chinese state has become increasingly influential on the world stage.

However, I find authoritarianism has in fact undergone setbacks as several countries have veered away from populist leaders.

One of the most interesting topics discussed in the book is the question of the increase in inequality of wealth. The two authors have said that countries that want to reduce internal tensions must find ways for the top 10 percent who benefitted the most from globalization in the last few decades to contribute “… more resources to build a new type of social-political model.”

Among the suggestions proposed by the authors are debt moratoriums, a universal basic income that guarantees everyone a more generous minimum standard of living, policies to increase home building so as to widen access to properly affordable housing and perhaps, a shift to larger taxes on wealth as opposed to income.

I find that the proposal on wealth tax rather than income tax is really worth trying out. This will not be easy since those who are the wealthiest have so much more influence within the present political system. However, this is what the two authors wrote: “But, in addition to the fact that wealth taxes target those most able to pay, they can also help reenergize the economy: by rewarding those who invest their wealth to create new incomes and penalizing those who try only to accumulate more wealth whether in land speculation or superyachts, wealth taxes can steer money towards more productive uses.”

Harper and Rapley have written an insightful book on how civilizations rise to dominate the planet. Their conclusions about the future are however, debatable. The world is in a crisis and this book will certainly help the reader understand the root causes much better.

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