The West is Rome, 2025 Edition: The Golden Age That Forgot How it Got Golden, By James Reed

Rome didn't fall because the barbarians got stronger. Rome fell because Rome got weaker — fat, entitled, and convinced that the good times were permanent.

Sound familiar?

In 2025 we are living through the most astonishing golden age in human history, and we are doing exactly what the late Romans did: treating the miracle like background noise, expanding the bread-and-circuses budget until the numbers no longer add up, and demonising the very things that made us rich in the first place — trade, talent from anywhere, meritocracy, and honest money.

Johan Norberg's warning is blunt: "Once you have an ever-expanding system of entitlements that you can't afford, that's often the beginning of the decline and fall."

The numbers are now Roman-level insane.

U.S. unfunded liabilities (Social Security, Medicare, pensions): $150–200 trillion.

Interest on the federal debt is already the fastest-growing budget item — bigger than defence.

The average OECD country spends more on pensions than on education.

In France, the retirement age is still 62 while life expectancy is 83. That's 21 years of state-funded vacation per citizen.

Across the West, the ratio of workers to retirees is collapsing toward 2:1 or worse.

This is not "social safety net." This is bread and circuses on steroids, paid for by printing money and praying the bond market never calls the bluff.

And just like Rome, we are debasing the currency to keep the party going. The dollar has lost 25 % of its purchasing power since 2020 alone. The Romans did it by shaving silver off the denarius; we do it with quantitative easing and "modern monetary theory." Same scam, better PowerPoint.

Meanwhile, the political class does what every late-Roman emperor did when the treasury ran dry:

1.Blame greedy businessmen and "price gougers."

2.Impose price controls (rent caps, energy caps, "excess-profit" taxes).

3.Scapegoat immigrants one minute and then import millions more the next because the welfare state needs fresh taxpayers to delay the inevitable.

The Roman Playbook, Page by Page

Openness and meritocracy → conquest and wealth

Bread and circuses → popularity today, bankruptcy tomorrow

Currency debasement → hidden tax on savers

Price controls → shortages and black markets

Military overstretch + border chaos → collapse

We are not "like Rome." We are Rome with better plumbing and smartphones.

The One Thing Rome Never Figured Out (and We Still Can)

Rome never managed entitlement reform. Every emperor from Augustus to Honorius promised to fix it and punted the problem to the next guy. The system became politically untouchable.

We are not there — yet.

The difference is that we still have time, tools, and knowledge the Romans never had:

1.We know exactly what the actuarial tables say. No excuses.

2.We have automation and AI that can make a smaller workforce insanely productive.

3.We have global capital markets that will reward any country that gets its house in order (see: Milei's Argentina).

4.We have the internet, which makes it impossible to hide the bankruptcy math forever.

The Escape Hatch (If We Dare Use It)

There is still a narrow path out of the Roman doom loop:

Raise retirement ages dramatically and index them to life expectancy (sorry, it's non-negotiable).

Means-test every entitlement ruthlessly — billionaires do not need Social Security.

Shift from defined-benefit to defined-contribution systems (401k-style everywhere).

Replace half the welfare state with a negative income tax or universal basic income funded by a land-value tax—simpler, less distorting, less bureaucratic capture.

Open the borders to young, skilled workers but slam them shut to net welfare consumers (yes, you can do both).

Return to sound money — at minimum an inflation target of 0 % instead of 2 %.

Do those things and the West gets another 500-year run. Refuse, and we get the full Roman treatment: hyperinflation, currency collapse, secession of the productive regions, and a new Dark Age where your grandkids will think indoor plumbing is a legend.

The Clock is Ticking

Every year we delay, the required austerity gets harsher and the politics get uglier.

Rome's tragedy wasn't that it fell. Rome's tragedy was that it saw the cliff coming for centuries and kept accelerating anyway.

We don't have to repeat that mistake.

We are richer, smarter, and better informed than any society that ever existed. All we lack is the political courage to admit that the golden age was earned, not guaranteed — and that it can be lost the same way Rome lost hers.

Save the West. Reform the entitlements. And never, ever take the miracle for granted again.

The barbarians are not at the gates. They're already inside, wearing suits, promising free stuff, and running the printing press.

Whether we end up as the next Rome or the first civilisation to break the cycle is still up to us.

https://reason.com/2025/11/19/america-is-in-a-golden-age-are-we-headed-toward-a-roman-ending/