Why Empires Fall: Rome, America, and the Future of the West by Peter Heather and John Rapley
Summary and takeaways from the book.
Keywords:
Capitalism
Socialism
Wealth Transfer
Money
July 29, 2025
ISBN: 978-0300273724
Published: September 5, 2023
Pages: 200
amazon
Peter Heather is Chair of Medieval History at King’s College, London.
John Rapley is a political economist.
The authors "
explore the uncanny parallels, and productive differences, between ancient Rome and the modern West".
The key point here is that, "like ancient Rome, the modern Western Empire is facing a crisis of its own making."
Consequences of fall of empire
"
In the past, when domestic political stability was threatened, governments in Western societies were able to release pressure by outsourcing exploitation to the periphery.
Today, that option is gone: they [the West] can only exploit their fellow citizens.
If Western countries are to reduce their internal tensions, therefore, it seems inescapable that the better-off citizens, particularly the top 10 per cent who benefited the most from the globalization in the last few decades, will have to contribute more resources to build a new type of functioning social-political model, in the absence now of large flows of wealth from abroad. "
Suggestions by authors to reduce the decline
"
policies to increase home-building so as to widen access to properly affordable housing".
"
a shift towards larger taxes on wealth as opposed to income. Again, this wouldn’t be easy, not least because the wealthy have a lot of influence within the political system."
"
secure employment, decent minimum wages, free tuition and generous job-retraining schemes to afford the unemployed decent incomes while retooling for a changing job market, this would not only build greater social cohesion but arguably also more productive businesses".
"
International treaties on greenhouse gas reduction and a Green New Deal".
"
Western countries will surely have to reform their pension systems to restore their long-term viability."
All (some?) of the suggestions above are socialist policies. They will only lead to bigger inefficient government which needs to exploit the public to sustain itself. Move to sound economics and Libertarian Capitalism will be more effective.
"
None of these necessary choices will be simple to achieve. But whatever happens, the West simply can’t ever make itself great again in nineteenth- and twentieth- century terms. "
"The fundamental structures of the world economy have shifted in too profound a fashion for that ever to be possible, and some of its leaders need to stop pretending that this can be otherwise."
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