There have often been comparisons made between modern America’s decline and the fall of Rome, with Internationalman.com, giving an interesting take. The parallels are mass immigration of “barbarians’ (as the Romans called them) or more kind, people who are ethnically and culturally distinct, spiralling taxation, unsustainable welfare, imperial overshoot from military adventures, and general cultural decline.
What occurred in ancient Rome, was that cultural decadence was produced by too much abundance, as argued by Lewis Mumford in his book, The City in History (1961). It was a case of the great quote by author G. Michael Hopf, that “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.” The quote, from a sums up a pervasive cyclical vision of history, and the West is a part of this, not immune from the same forces.