The Decadent Society

Douthat, a New York Times columnist, argues that Western societies have entered a period of decadence, which he defines specifically and unusually as economic stagnation, institutional sclerosis, cultural repetition and demographic decline occurring in a society that remains wealthy and technologically sophisticated.

His four pillars are stagnation, meaning slowing productivity growth and the absence of transformative technology outside computing; sterility, meaning falling birth rates across every developed country and the economic and political consequences that follow; sclerosis, meaning the inability of institutions to make decisions or execute large projects; and repetition, meaning cultural production that recycles existing material rather than producing new forms.

His distinctive claim is that decadence is stable rather than a prelude to collapse. Wealthy societies with declining dynamism can persist for a long time, because the technology sustaining comfort continues to work and because the frustrations are managed through consumption, entertainment and pharmaceuticals rather than producing political rupture.

He considers what might end it, including migration, religious revival, a technological breakthrough, or catastrophe, and treats none as clearly more likely.

The book was published in early 2020, immediately before the pandemic, which tested several of its claims about institutional capacity in both directions. The productivity stagnation claim is empirically supported. The cultural repetition argument is the weakest, since it rests on the author's aesthetic judgement. Douthat writes from an explicitly religious and conservative position which he states openly.