Doug Casey On The Collapse Of Western Civilization & Why It’s Accelerating Now

Authored by Doug Casey via International Man,

International Man: Paris was once the cultural capital of Western civilization. Is what’s happening there today a preview of the West’s broader collapse?

Doug Casey: Today’s Paris is a very different place than it was back in the ’60s, or the way it was portrayed in movies like “An American in Paris” or “Amélie.” The last time I was there, just before the COVID hysteria, the area around the Arc de Triomphe was overrun with poorly dressed and poorly behaved migrants, mostly from Africa.

Now the invading barbarians, abetted by local cucks, have gotten completely out of control. The situation is much more serious than it was in the late 60s and early 70s when students could be heard chanting “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Civ has got to go.” It seems the student Yahoos, reinforced by mobs of migrants, are about to get their wish.

So what is Western civilization? It has unique characteristics that make it far different from and superior to any other civilization. I love certain aspects of Chinese culture like martial arts, Taoism, and Peking Duck. Even India has brought a few things to the party, like yoga and curries. Compared to Western Civ, however, everything else is a rounding error.

Let me list a few things that are basically – indeed almost entirely – unique to Western Civ. Some other cultures have adopted elements of them and have prospered as a result. But it’s often just a veneer. If the West falls as a culture, as a civilization, most other parts of the world will likely degenerate radically.

• Free thought. Free thinkers are unique to the West. They’re being overwhelmed by political correctness and fear of thought crimes.
• Free speech. Everywhere in the West, the language is being corrupted. There are notions and even words that you dare not utter for fear of being prosecuted and jailed.
• Free markets. Free markets allow free thinkers, inventors, businessmen and industrialists to put their thoughts into practice, to the benefit of all. But the public fears them and wants more regulation and protections.
• Limited government. Everywhere, the hoi polloi are clamoring for more government, bigger government, socialism, and even communism.
• Individualism. Every other culture in the world has tried to quash this essential aspect of the West. It’s being replaced by identity politics wherein you are no more than a member of a group.
• Rationality. It’s said that this is a white vice. Science and logic are thought to be destroying the world. They’re being replaced by superstition.
• Liberty. This concept wouldn’t even exist without the West. It’s now seen as a danger where we need to hide in Safe Spaces.
• Concept of progress. Many now prefer a static society where everybody is maintained by a guaranteed annual income. Progress is dangerous because it leads to inequality where some are left behind.
• Privacy. In the primitive pre-Western world, everyone knew what everyone else was doing. We’re reverting to that with omnipresent Flock cameras and the surveillance state.
• Property rights. They’re being replaced by the concept of “You’ll own nothing and be happy.”
• Rule of Law. In other societies, law was what the king, the emperor, or the sultan said it was. Justice is being washed away in the West, delegitimized by millions of Kafkaesque laws and regulations.
• Industry and enterprise. People have been taught to hate these Western virtues, thinking that they endanger Mother Earth and lead to inequality. Entrepreneurs are to be feared. Everybody should become an employee.

These concepts are unique to Western civilization. But Europeans, which is to say white people, have been taught that they’re evil and destructive. As a result, the West is collapsing from within, from self-hatred and a terminal lack of self-confidence. “Conservative” political parties are devoid of any moral center, have no core philosophy, and stand for nothing. Almost without exception, Western leaders are actually traitors to the concept of Western civ. Americans foolishly supported Trump, mistaking his bravado for wisdom.

International Man: How have government policies contributed to the decline of Paris and other major European cities?

Doug Casey: Government policy is heavily responsible for the decline of Europe, both directly and indirectly.

Governments are directly responsible for the wholesale import of alien races, cultures, languages, traditions, religion, and beliefs, not as visitors, but as permanent residents. Worse, they are actively subsidized with free food, free apartments, free cash, and DEI-style hiring preferences.

It’s not just Europe, but every Western country. I like to joke that there’s nothing wrong with Canada that importing 50 million Nigerians and 50 million Indians can’t cure. Of course Canada would cease to exist. But it would be interesting to see who wins the resulting race war.

Immigrants today are totally different from the waves who arrived in the 19th and early 20th century. They were mostly penniless, but were opportunity seekers – the best type of person – who integrated and made their way. Many of today’s migrants to the West, however, are attracted by welfare benefits. They see current residents as obstacles to be looted and conquered.

Governments are indirectly responsible for making higher education free almost everywhere. Academia is a magnet for the leftist, Marxist, and Woke professors who have been indoctrinating naive students for generations. They hate the idea of Western civilization and everything it stands for. Their opinions have been adopted by their students and the population in general. Professors with classical and traditional views have basically been ostracized and canceled.

The situation can only get worse because new immigrants, predictably, are very political and essentially taking over government at all levels, in both Europe and the US.

International Man: Has Western civilization reached a point of no return? What would it take to reverse the decline?

Doug Casey: Western civilization reached its peak just before World War I. Most governments took no more than 5% of GDP from the populace then, mostly in import duties and excise taxes. The long 19th century from 1815 to 1914 was the most prosperous and peaceful in world history. Now income taxes are 50 to 60 percent in most countries, plus VATs of over 20 percent. Wealth taxes are becoming popular as “Eat the Rich” sentiments grow. Penalties are being imposed on wealthy people who want to emigrate.

Not only did World War I wipe out a great many educated young men, but the experience imbued the survivors with bad ideas and bad habits. The war bankrupted governments, and raised all manner of taxes to maintain themselves. Runaway inflations destroyed several currencies and the savings of citizens in Germany, France, Austria, Hungary, and Italy. Then the Great Depression made things even worse. Followed by World War II, with many millions more deaths, and the rise of communism in half the world.

The point is that Western civilization has been degrading for many decades. Generations of students have been indoctrinated to believe that capitalism, free thought, free markets, and the other things I just mentioned, are the reason for economic and social problems. So there’s every reason to believe that the negative trend now in motion will continue in motion until we reach a genuine crisis, perhaps in the form of World War III, accompanied by what I call the Greater Depression.

I recently read “The Camp of the Saints” by Jean Respail. It’s a novel written in 1972 and pretty well describes why the West is collapsing. It quite entertainingly describes a credible scenario – the mostly peaceful invasion of France by a million degraded and starving Indian boat people who walk through the rotten front door and conquer a spineless civilization. It seems to be happening, although the invaders turned out to be mostly Muslim, not Hindu. Let me also recommend two non-fiction books, “While Europe Slept” (2006) by Bruce Bawer, which chronicles the ongoing conquest of the continent by Islam. And “The Strange Death of Europe” (2018) by Douglas Murray, which is a very appropriate title for its subject.

International Man: What parallels do you see between what’s happening in France and the rest of Western Europe and the direction the United States is heading?

Doug Casey: America truly is the exceptional and indispensable nation. Although that concept has been given a very bad name due to the horrible people, mostly neocons, who have associated it with their fascist and warlike actions.

The US was unique. It was overtly founded on the principles of Western Civ and has been insulated from foreign wars by the ocean. It’s degraded more slowly than Europe. But it’s moving in the same sorry direction, as it gradually morphed into an empire. As such, it’s following the fate of all empires. Including the Romans, the Spanish, the British, and the Soviets, among many others.

Unfortunately, the Republicans, and Donald Trump in particular, have somehow managed to falsely cloak themselves in the mantle of American ideals. It’s understandable that the average American voted as they did a couple of weeks ago, as a reaction. But it’s a pity they have so little understanding of history and economics. They’re prone to believe that the Democrats, who are completely captured by socialists, Wokesters, and worse, can kiss everything and make it better. They’ll do the opposite.

America used to be different and better, from the point of view of personal freedom and prosperity, than any other country in the world. But America is ceasing to exist. It’s become very much like any of the other 200 nation-states that cover the face of the globe like a skin disease.

International Man: What does the decline of Western civilization mean for investors, and how should they position themselves for what’s coming?

Doug Casey: I read a lot of history. It helps me keep current events in proper perspective. We’ve had civilization for roughly 5,000 years. That seems like a long time. But the lives of only 100 men could easily have overlapped by about 25 years each with someone who came before and someone else who came after. Civilization is still just a pup.

Certain trends, however, are quite visible. Most important is that technology has advanced exponentially. Another is that there have been some severe speed bumps along the way.

The first speed bump, which we’re still learning about, was the Bronze Age collapse of about 1200 BC. More important was the collapse of classical civilization and the Roman Empire in the West starting in the third century. The populations of Britain, France, Spain, Italy, and North Africa, among other places, became largely illiterate. Cities, money, and trade largely disappeared. And it took about 500 years for things to recover, during a time known as the Dark Ages.

Could the same thing happen today? It’s entirely possible. World War III, which is still in its early stages, could turn nuclear. More than likely, it could be a biological war, affecting both people and crops. It will certainly have cybernetic elements, which would be catastrophic because the whole world runs on computers. The world also runs on various distillates of petroleum; those products don’t appear by magic.

If we lived in a free market world, I would have little concern as hundreds of millions of productive people around the world constantly work to create and improve things. But civilization has become extremely top-heavy, highly regulated and bureaucratized, and full of unproductive supernumeraries.

Both novels and movies are replete with post-apocalyptic survival tales describing what could happen next. As a science fiction fan, I’ve read lots of both highly optimistic and pessimistic visions of the future. I’ve just finished reading the “World Made by Hand” series by my friend Jim Kunstler. It’s a credible projection of one way things could work in the very near future.

In the real world, we’ve had very good times for a long time. But there’s a fair chance that things are starting to come apart at the seams in lots of different areas.

Let’s put it this way. If Western civilization and the ideas it’s built on fall – and they’re in process of falling as we speak – things could get very bad very quickly.

At that point, what happens to the stock market will be the least of our problems.