Europe’s Irreversible Decline - Richard Wolff

The Insider’s Verdict: Biography and the Inconvenient Truth

Economist. Marxist system analyst. One of the most prominent critics of capitalism in the United States.

Professor Richard D. Wolff, born in 1942 in Youngstown, Ohio, is an American economist and Marxist theorist. He studied economics at Harvard University, Stanford University, and Yale University, and spent several decades as Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Wolff approaches economic crises not as policy failures or political mismanagement, but as structural outcomes of the capitalist system itself. He gained international prominence after the 2008 financial crisis, through media appearances, lectures, and publications linking deindustrialization, debt expansion, social inequality, and militarization into a single systemic diagnosis.

He is the founder of Democracy at Work, an organization dedicated to alternative economic models, including worker cooperatives and democratic control of enterprises.

Focus Areas:

• Marxian economics and class analysis
• Financial and structural crises of Western economies
• Economic democracy and corporate power

Professor Richard Wolff dissects the economic and political collapse of Europe: why the European model has broken down, how the United States is systematically extracting wealth from its allies, and why military Keynesianism will only accelerate the continent’s fall – a conversation between two of the sharpest observers of Western power politics.

The End of a Model – How Europe Went from Blueprint to Warning

Twenty years ago Europe was studied at universities worldwide as a success story. Today it is a cautionary tale of how quickly a continent can become economically and politically irrelevant.

Glenn Diesen opens with a sobering historical audit. Not two decades ago, the European model was held up in lecture halls across the world as proof that pooling sovereignty works – that states unifying to increase trade with each other could use collective bargaining power to gain a position of strength with the rest of the world. The assumption was that economic interests would fuel political loyalties, that integration would deepen because it was in everyone’s self-interest. Today, the three largest European economies – France, Germany, and the United Kingdom – are all in fairly deep trouble simultaneously, threatening to pull the rest of the continent down with them.

Richard Wolff’s response begins on a personal note. His father was born in France, his mother in Germany. He has spoken French and German all his life, even though he was born and has lived in the United States. Europe was always for him the center of the world – the place of great literature, great science, Napoleon, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the French Revolution, the revolutions of 1848, the rise of Marxism and socialism. “It all seems now over,” he says, with a mixture of sadness and unsentimental clarity. “I say it with a lot of sadness and a sense of something valuable that I hope will be preserved, even as the rest of it falls apart.”

The symptoms of decline have become impossible to ignore:

• France, Germany, and the United Kingdom simultaneously mired in economic and political crisis
• The EU can no longer deliver the tangible economic benefits that justified pooling sovereignty
• Europe has shifted from exporter of order and prosperity to importer of insecurity
• The political class is systematically losing the trust of its citizens – and has no credible answers
• The EU now defines itself as a “geopolitical Europe” confronting Russia – an insufficient foundation for a continent

From New York City, Wolff watches Europe become increasingly irrelevant to almost everything that grabs the attention of his fellow citizens. He detects in America a complicated schadenfreude toward Europe – some jealousy, but also relief that Europe’s problems soften the need to confront America’s own. Because the American decline follows the same pattern, only with a shorter history: “Our empire came after yours, but it’s declining now. Yours has a longer history of decline, but we’re repeating that history in more ways than we like to admit as a society. And we’re frightened.”

Wolff recalls his time as a PhD student, when economists from the Soviet Union would visit. “It felt as if we were all together. But they came from an underdeveloped country.” That world is gone. Russia is now the fourth-largest economy on earth by purchasing power parity. China, with its eighteen or nineteen trillion dollars in GDP, is the most serious economic competitor the United States has faced in a century. China plus the BRICS now constitutes a larger and richer economic unit than the United States and the G7 combined. None of this penetrates the public discourse – in America or in Europe.

The Birth Defect of European Integration – A Union Built for Employers

Europe’s fundamental weakness lies not in individual policy decisions but in a structural miscalculation: a union was built for employers, not for workers – and the bill is now coming due.

Diesen poses the essential question about European cohesion: what do Ireland and Bulgaria, Greece and Latvia actually have in common economically? What is the foundation for political loyalty between them? In the 1990s and 2000s one could argue that the EU was an economic project – everyone had an interest in pooling sovereignty because the union delivered measurable benefits. Today the EU itself says it is a “geopolitical Europe,” which in practice means confronting Russia. That is not enough to hold together a continent of radically divergent interests over the long run.

Wolff diagnoses the birth defect: European integration was organized by the employer class, for the employer class, with a deep historical disdain for the working class as a partner. The working class experienced integration not as opportunity but as a tactical maneuver to erode the social welfare gains it had won in the interwar period. Since it never had the power to shape the project on its own terms, it never wanted what the employer class wanted. It endured the project but was never happy with it.

The consequences of this structural flaw are now visible everywhere:

• Opposition to European integration takes national rather than class form – people versus Brussels, not workers versus capital
• Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia: the list of member states in open or latent rebellion grows
• Both radical left (Mélenchon) and radical right (Le Pen) unite around Euroskepticism
• Europe has closed itself off from any of the long-shot solutions that might have succeeded
• The quality of leadership – Macron, Merz, Starmer – reflects this systemic failure at the top

The result is a spiral with no easy exit. Within every country, resistance to the project takes national form – the fight between nation and Brussels, not between classes. That is a recipe for endless conflict: first Hungary, then the Czech Republic, now perhaps Slovakia. Wolff observes that while Europe has the population and the economic base to challenge the great powers, it seems genuinely unable to make the decisions required.

Particularly revealing is the European leadership class’s obsession with Russia. Wolff names it directly: these politicians grew up in the Cold War, subservient to the United States, with Soviet Russia as the permanent enemy. The Cold War ended in 1989. “This really is a different situation.” Perhaps the Russia hysteria is useful precisely because it provides something to run on. Because if they had to campaign on the actual condition of their societies – on the relentless dismantling of social democracy, even by the Labour Party that created it – it would be, in Wolff’s word, unspeakable.

Military Keynesianism – Why Tanks Cannot Replace Cars

Germany can no longer build competitive cars – so now it will build tanks. Wolff considers this one of the worst strategic decisions Europe is making, and he makes the case with unsettling precision.

The Germans have turned to military Keynesianism: if the civilian industrial base can no longer compete, the defense sector will fill the gap. Wolff cannot imagine a worse choice. Competing in an arms race with the United States, Russia, and China? That is a long shot for anyone, anywhere. The United States spends annually what Europe plans to spend over ten years – roughly eight hundred billion dollars per year. China and Russia spend comparable sums. All the relevant new military technology is being developed by those two giants. Europe cannot catch up.

Wolff paints a vivid picture of the meeting that must have taken place: NATO generals sitting down with politicians and explaining that if you rely on a European military, you will have a third-class army in a first-class war. The only way to be a serious player is to buy equipment from the United States, or from Russia and China. “You’re not an independent player here. It’s just not available to you.” Even after ten years of building the infrastructure, Europe would at best be a marginal actor.

Military Keynesianism fails on multiple structural grounds simultaneously:

• The United States spends annually what Europe’s entire ten-year plan amounts to – the gap is unbridgeable
• All significant new military technology is developed in Washington, Moscow, and Beijing – not in Europe
• European militaries are assessed in Washington as useless: too few personnel, too little competence, too little experience
• Defense spending channeled to American producers generates no domestic multiplier effect for European economies
• Reindustrialization via defense requires independent production capacity – which Europe does not have

The United States now watches Europe as a loser. Yes, there are some benefits to the relationship, but on balance America is being held back. The Ukraine question is, for Washington, over; they want to move on. The engagement exhausts resources, creates financial problems, and serves no compelling strategic purpose. The Europeans want it – and labor under the illusion that their military support still has strategic value to their patron.

Wolff’s verdict on the American assessment of European military utility is blunt: useless. Very few people in uniform, very little competence among them, very little experience, very thin support, and a dubious attitude relative to the general population. The overwhelming American military opinion, he says, is that Europe brings nothing of great military importance to the table. What America sees instead is accumulated wealth – and that is what it intends to collect.

The End of the Special Relationship – and How America Is Presenting the Bill

Trump says openly what many in Washington have long believed: Europe is no longer a partner but a revenue source – and the bill being presented is so large that European politicians can barely explain it to their own citizens.

Diesen identifies a fundamental misperception at the heart of European strategy. The European leadership does not grasp how much the world has changed – including the relationship between Europe and the United States. European officials make statements like “Europe will not permit the US to do this” or “You cannot do this without Europe.” Claims of parity that are met in Washington with something close to contempt. When Trump said the Europeans had cheated, abused, and exploited America, Wolff expected fierce pushback. Almost none came. That absence, he says, is itself telling.

Wolff confirms the structural pattern: both sides call Ukraine a European problem – but for entirely different reasons. The Europeans say it to assert their own centrality. The Americans say it because they want nothing to do with it. They have demoted the issue to the point where “let the Europeans handle it” means: it is beneath our interest. What Washington actually wants is a settlement that frees up military resources to counter China. Everything else is noise.

The new transatlantic deal being presented to Europe amounts to this:

• Tariffs reduced from 20–30 percent to roughly 15 percent – in exchange for sweeping concessions
• Ten-year commitment to purchase American liquefied natural gas – at prices well above market rates
• Six hundred to eight hundred billion dollars in investment commitments to the United States
• Weapons purchases primarily from American producers – neutralizing any European defense spending multiplier
• Political subordination to American strategy on both China and Russia

The investment commitment strikes Wolff as particularly remarkable: “You are demanding that European politicians defend to their voters the fact that hundreds of billions of dollars raised inside their own countries are going to be invested in the richer United States.” The American message to any country that refuses the deal is unambiguous: if you don’t accept, we will hollow out your economy from the inside. European capital will come here one way or another. You will become a place where people retire.

The long-term vision articulated by senior American figures Wolff has spoken with personally is starker still: London, Berlin, and Paris as elegant destinations for retirees and tourists. Europe’s role in the twenty-first century global economy: consumer and backdrop, no longer a producer. “I have heard senior people I know personally talk like that,” he says. It is not a prospect they appear to regret.

The Reverse Marshall Plan – When Europe Subsidizes America

What is dressed up as partnership is in reality tribute. Europeans are paying in silence while their economies collapse. The Marshall Plan is being run in reverse – this time without even the rhetoric of generosity.

Wolff draws the historical comparison with precise irony. The original Marshall Plan was sold to the world as American generosity. The reality was different: it was an economic stimulus program for the United States. Loans were extended on the condition that recipients buy American goods. Washington feared a postwar return to depression and needed an artificial demand boost. Today the logic is identical, only more naked: Europe is being asked to finance American jobs in exchange for slightly lower tariffs from a country that presents itself as a partner.

The structural trap is perfectly constructed. Whatever money remains after meeting elevated American energy prices must be reinvested in the United States. Weapons must also be purchased there, neutralizing any multiplier effect from European defense budgets. A reindustrialization of Europe is structurally excluded under these conditions. The capital that could be creating jobs in Germany, France, or Poland is instead creating jobs in Ohio and Texas.

The triple economic trap from which there is no straightforward exit:

• Energy costs: Europe buys American liquefied natural gas at prices far above what Russian supply would cost
• Capital outflow: hundreds of billions committed as investments in the United States
• Defense spending: weapons purchased in America rather than produced domestically – no domestic multiplier
• Political cost: European governments cannot credibly explain these transfers to their own citizens
• Growth destruction: every euro invested in America is a euro not rebuilding European industrial capacity

Wolff’s question is withering: “How do you go to your people with something like that and win an election?” European politicians must tell their citizens that vast sums raised domestically will not be spent creating jobs in Europe, but in the United States – so that trade with a country they call a partner will be somewhat less brutal.

The deindustrialization of Europe is not a side effect – it is a structural consequence. The list of problems is staggering: failure to digitize industry, no technological sovereignty, workforce shortages, energy prices that systematically disadvantage European production against Asian and American competitors. Many of these problems flow directly from the decision to live under the American shield rather than build economic autonomy. Now that the shield has become a weapon, the base to push back against it is simply not there.

The Crisis of Political Legitimacy – Nobody Wins Elections Anymore

When governments can no longer explain to their citizens why their policies are good for them, the foundation of democracy begins to crack. Europe is precisely at that point – and the explosion is a matter of when, not whether.

Diesen draws the logical conclusion: he does not believe you can win elections with this policy. That is precisely the source of the legitimacy crisis sweeping across Europe. From Britain to France to Germany: governments that are largely unpopular. The people do not like them. The economies are deindustrializing, the GDP figures are going in the wrong direction, and those held responsible for the decline keep losing. There is a certain brutal democratic logic to this that the governing class seems incapable of processing.

Wolff warns of a dangerous spiral. When politicians can no longer convince voters that their decisions are correct, citizens reach for radical alternatives. This is already visible in the United States. In New York City, voters elected a socialist Muslim mayor – Zohran Mamdani. Wolff voted for him himself. He is clear that this was not a declaration of love for socialism. It was a vote against a system that is visibly not working. This dynamic will repeat itself – and not only in America.

The political legitimacy crisis manifests in several simultaneous developments:

• All major European governments are simultaneously unpopular and without credible answers
• Radical alternatives on both left and right are gaining ground – from protest, not conviction
• Generation Z is statistically unemployed, depressed, and susceptible to extreme political offers
• In the United States, New York elects a socialist Muslim mayor – the signal is systemic, not ideological
• Marjorie Taylor Greene fears publicly for her family’s lives; Trump threatens military officers with execution for treason
• The language of politics across the West is becoming simultaneously more extreme – this is not coincidence

Generation Z – those born in the late 1990s through approximately 2012 – provides the sharpest diagnosis. Very unemployed, very depressed, very dependent on substances. Not an individual failing but a social development. And this generation is highly receptive to promises of restoring what was lost – because what was promised never arrived. They were told they would have middle-class lives. Instead they received precarity, unaffordable housing, and the conscious awareness that they are worse off than their parents.

Inequality is the central problem Wolff returns to throughout the conversation. America understood itself for decades as a middle-class society. That reality has been destroyed. People were promised a middle-class existence as the reward for playing by the rules. They are now acutely aware of what they are not getting. The realization has become social – no longer individual bad luck, but collective systemic failure. Trump grasps this intuitively. European elites have not yet caught up.

America Recalculates – Trump as Symptom, Not Cause

What Trump is doing is not limited to Trump. He is articulating what many think and what has already been structurally decided. Even if there is a backlash, Europe makes a serious mistake if it simply waits him out.

Wolff is explicit: Trump is not a polished politician. He speaks too fast. He has the limited worldview of a typical businessman – taxes are bad because money goes out the door; the idea that taxes hold a society together is information he simply does not want. But he speaks the unspeakable. He mocks the conventional politician. And he has permanently shifted the public discourse in America – that shift will remain even after he is personally gone.

Senator Tuberville of Alabama provides the emblematic anecdote. When he celebrated his election victory, he dedicated his tenure to fighting communists, just as his father had in World War II. Not one of the thirty reporters covering him was able to point out that in World War II, the United States was allied with the Soviet Union. “You moron,” Wolff says, not unkindly, summarizing what should have been said. For much of the American political class, Russia remains the Soviet Union. That will not change with the occupant of the White House.

The structural American recalculation has several dimensions that Trump merely articulates:

• The United States no longer needs Europe as an ally against communism – that strategic rationale has dissolved
• China is the only serious economic competitor: 18–19 trillion dollars in GDP, growing at two to three times the American rate
• BRICS plus China now exceeds the United States plus the G7 – the arithmetic of the world order has reversed
• Wars lost: Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine – against the world’s poorest countries, while China and Russia grew richer
• The dollar’s dominance has been eroding for thirty to forty years – gradually, without a dramatic break, but relentlessly
• The Venezuela killings – summary executions without trial on presidential order – are a symptom of desperation, not strength

Wolff’s verdict on American power projection is merciless: losing, losing, losing. As the richest country in the world, with a far larger lead over its adversaries than it has today, America could not win wars against the poorest countries on earth. In the meantime Russia and China became enormously richer and far more developed militarily. And yet the political class operates as if none of this has happened.

Wolff sees a counter-movement forming on the horizon. In the years ahead, a new political direction will emerge in America that proposes sitting down with China and dividing the world. It will be presented as cheaper, less likely to lead to war, and more effective than the current confrontation strategy – freeing up resources to address the dangerous internal divisions of American society. “That argument will be put forward and it will become effective in this country.” For Europe this is another piece of bad news: if it happens, America needs its European allies even less than it does today.

Europe’s Strategic Blindness – Eighty Years in Uncle Sam’s Basement

The European leadership has a strategy: wait out Trump and hope the next president will be an idealist who ties America’s future to Europe’s. That is not a strategy. It is hope substituted for analysis – and it will not work.

Diesen identifies the European strategy in all its poverty. Everything rests on keeping the Americans engaged in Europe. Since the United States has other priorities in a multipolar world and is withdrawing, the Europeans want to maintain Trump’s interest, wait him out, and hope that the next president will be an ideologue who binds America’s future more tightly to Europe’s. When von der Leyen appeared on Trump’s golf course, the Europeans knew it was a bad economic deal. They justified it with security arguments: we have a war, we need the Americans.

The conclusion that is not being drawn is obvious: if security dependence is the central problem, the logical response is to end this war. As long as it continues, an enormous dependence exists that can be converted at any moment into economic and political loyalty demands. The United States can use this lever whenever it chooses. Instead of drawing that conclusion, European leaders are deepening the dependence – standing in front of Trump’s desk like schoolchildren and calling him “Daddy” while he publicly explains how terrible the EU is.

Why the European strategy of waiting it out is doomed to fail:

• What exactly are they waiting for? An America that becomes great again – that has not happened in thirty years
• The shift is structural, not personal: Democrats and Republicans alike increasingly see Europe as a cost center
• Every year of war deepens dependence and raises the price Europe pays for American security cover
• The domestic legitimacy of European governments is eroding – waiting is a luxury they cannot afford
• China and Russia are adapting to multipolar reality; Europe pretends it does not exist

Wolff’s question cuts to the bone: “What are they waiting for?” For the United States to become great again? That has not happened in thirty years. War after war lost – Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine – against the world’s poorest countries. In the meantime Russia and China became enormously richer and militarily far more developed. One needs a degree of blindness, he says, that is becoming too much even for Americans.

Diesen supplies the psychological dimension of this paralysis: it is eighty years in Uncle Sam’s basement. The chains become comfortable. The United States was the ticket to greatness – the dream of standing side by side with the superpower, being part of the liberal hegemony, that was the unipolar dream. When the United States withdraws, the comfort disappears. What follows may be panic without solutions: Europe was never able to cooperate durably except under American imperial leadership. Whether the imagination and courage exist for a different path remains deeply uncertain.

The Trap of Mutual Fear – Who Will Become America’s Favorite?

Why can’t Europe pull itself together? The answer is simple and disturbing: because every leader fears that one of the others will become Washington’s favorite – and that the rest will then be played off against that favorite.

Wolff asks the question that hangs over the entire conversation: why don’t the Europeans push back against American economic coercion? The answer, he suspects, is fear – not of America, but of each other. Every major European leader – Britain, France, Germany, Italy – fears becoming the country that loses Washington’s favor while a rival secures it and uses that position to undermine the others. This fear paralyzes any collective response.

The scenario is not abstract. Europe has already been shifted from the category of “equal” to the category of “colony” – with one possible exception: Germany might receive the place of honor, with the rest of Europe subordinated to it. Wolff leaves the historical resonance of that construction deliberately in the room, without elaborating. The image paints itself.

The structure of European paralysis is explained by several overlapping fears:

• Fear of each other: which country becomes Washington’s favorite – and which are then played against it?
• Fear of voters: whoever publicly accepts American terms risks everything domestically
• Fear of Russia: genuine or manufactured security concerns block every move toward autonomy
• Fear of China: economic dependence on China makes a clean break with the West structurally impossible
• Fear of themselves: Europe has never successfully cooperated without American leadership to organize it

Diesen supplies the psychological depth: the chains become comfortable after eighty years. The United States was the ticket to greatness. The unipolar dream was to stand alongside the superpower, to be part of the liberal hegemony. When the United States withdraws, the pacifier is gone. The real danger then is that the Europeans will start fighting each other – not for resources or territory, but for position and favor in a new hierarchy none of them designed.

Wolff sees no simple solution, but identifies clearly the precondition for any possible solution. Europe would have to recognize that it has become an object being moved by others – no longer a subject moving the pieces. That recognition is humiliating. After centuries at the head of world history, Europe has become a playing piece. And as long as that recognition is suppressed, no real strategy can emerge.

The Chinese Lesson – Navigating the Contradiction Rather Than Denying It

China rose to world power by using the American system without submitting to it. Europe does the opposite: it submits to a system that no longer offers it advantages – while denying the contradiction.

Wolff cites the Chinese development as a contrasting lesson that makes him uncomfortable to raise in American seminars – because everyone in the room knows it is true, and that is the uncomfortable part. China developed from one of the world’s poorest countries to the world’s second-largest economy within the framework of American and Western hegemony. The Chinese understood precisely how much that system carried them before they began to challenge it. They navigated the contradiction rather than denying it. The result: GDP growth at two to three times the American rate, for twenty-five consecutive years.

A Chinese economist makes the point directly: we must understand very carefully how much the old system has carried us before we cut it off. It is a dialectical process. You must understand and navigate the contradictions, not pretend they do not exist. Chinese deference toward Trump is not fear. It is about preserving what has carried them – for as long as it still carries them.

The fundamental lesson from China’s rise for a Europe facing its own crossroads:

• China used the American system without fully submitting to it – and became strong in the process
• Whoever clings to the old while the old is passing receives only the costs, no longer the benefits
• The rebellion of the child is the product of the parent – you must understand how you were formed
• When you recognize that dependence is being used as a weapon, you must prioritize autonomy
• Navigating the contradiction means preserving what is useful and dismantling what is harmful – not all at once

Wolff uses the metaphor of the parent-child relationship: the parent’s complaint about the rebellious child is always the same – look what we did for you. And it is true: they did a great deal. But the rebellion of the child is the product of the parent. The ability to see a better way was enabled by the parents. That is part of life. One must adapt. The costs of holding on eventually exceed the costs of letting go.

Europe is clinging to the old. The question is whether it will miss the moment when holding on becomes more expensive than the transition. That moment, Wolff believes, has already arrived or is immediately approaching. The costs are already visible: elevated energy prices, forced investments in the United States, arms purchases that generate no domestic multiplier, economic deindustrialization without an exit, and a political class that can no longer explain its own policies to the citizens who elected it.

From Subjects to Objects – Europe’s Humiliating Transformation

After centuries at the head of world history, Europeans have become pieces moved by others. The recognition is there. The capacity to act is missing. And time is running out.

The historical contrast is sharp and painful. For centuries Europe sat at the table and moved the pieces. It was the subject of world history, not the object. Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment, imperialism, two world wars, the Marshall Plan – Europe was always the actor, never merely the one who reacted. The humiliating recognition of the present moment is that Europeans have themselves become pieces being moved back and forth by others – first from the Atlantic, now increasingly from the Pacific as well.

Wolff observes all of this from New York – from a country he describes as “a massive case of denial.” From the president downward, Americans behave as if the United States still occupies the position it held in the 1960s. The US GDP is roughly thirty-eight trillion dollars; Russia’s is four or five trillion – an elephant and a mouse, as Wolff puts it. But China at eighteen or nineteen trillion is a genuine competitor, and China plus the BRICS now exceeds the United States plus the G7. This arithmetic is systematically suppressed in Washington and Brussels alike.

The transformation from subject to object is visible in concrete humiliations:

• Von der Leyen on Trump’s golf course – European leaders presenting themselves as supplicants
• European officials calling Trump “Daddy” publicly while he explains how terrible the EU is
• Washington speaking internally of Europe as a “loser” – a burden generating costs rather than value
• Senior American figures describing London, Berlin, and Paris as future retirement destinations – no European protest
• European militaries rated useless in Washington – and Europe has no credible response to this assessment

In Europe there is more pessimism-slash-realism than in America – a longer history of decline sharpens perception. But even there the dominant feeling is exhaustion: caught between the United States on one side and China, India, and the rest on the other, Europe is becoming a tourist mecca and not much else. A magnificent destination for visitors from across the world, but no longer a place where world history is made.

Diesen offers the final diagnosis: Europe has not yet processed, after centuries as subject of world history, that it has become an object. There is a certain panic without solutions. The imagination and courage for a different strategy are missing. And Europe was never capable of durable cooperation except under American imperial leadership. Whether that leaves any viable path forward is the question that neither man can answer with confidence.

The Final Choice – Managed Decline or Free Fall

Europe faces a decision that no longer contains good options – but that can still make the difference between a difficult decade and a historical catastrophe. The question is whether the recognition arrives in time.

The reckoning is stark. Europe has not understood that it has permanently lost its position as the center of the world. Instead of developing its own high-technology base, it chose to live under the American shield – militarily and technologically. Wolff returns to the missed opportunity: “You need to develop a high-tech center. The United States did it with enormous subsidies. Where was that in Europe? You had the money. You could have done it.” Instead, a deal was struck: to live under the cover of American military power and American technology. Now that deal is being canceled unilaterally.

The demands embedded in that deal could never be sustainably met: increase military spending while simultaneously maintaining welfare programs. “That can’t be done – not even in the United States with seventy-five years of propaganda for that model.” Trump is already in difficulty over cuts to social welfare. The mass of Americans – including millions of Trump voters – will not accept it. Europe has far less ideological buffer against such cuts. And then wonders why its societies are exploding.

Europe’s fundamental errors – and what any exit would require:

• Europe has not understood that its role as center of the world has been permanently lost
• Instead of building technological sovereignty, it lived for eighty years under the American shield
• Sanctions policy without strategy: Russia now sells its energy to China and India – entirely foreseeable
• Navigate the contradiction rather than deny it: understand what the old system actually provided
• End the Ukraine war to break the structural security dependence that drives all other dependencies
• Prioritize autonomy: energy, technology, defense – in that order, and in that direction

Wolff sees a way out – but it demands courage that is nowhere visible. Recognizing that dependence is being weaponized and prioritizing autonomy. Ending the Ukraine war, which structurally locks in dependence on America. Building a domestic technological base rather than hoping for American protection. And stopping the wait for an American president who will again treat Europe as it wishes to be treated. That is not optimism. That is sobriety.

While Europe acts as if it were still 1960, the Chinese, Russians, Vietnamese, and many others are adapting to the new multipolar reality. They navigate the contradiction rather than denying it. The chains may have grown comfortable after eighty years. But chains remain chains. And while Europe refuses to acknowledge this reality, while it clings to a system that offers it costs rather than benefits, others are collecting the advantages of the emerging order.

The only remaining question is whether Europe grasps this reality in time to salvage something of its economic substance. The answer to that question will determine whether Europe’s decline becomes a managed descent – or a free fall. Wolff and Diesen are in agreement: the window for that choice is open. It will not stay open indefinitely. And the European elites, so far, do not appear to understand that.

Thank You, Richard Wolff.

Sources & Geopolitical References

Substack – US-Edition

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    Europe’s Irreversible Decline - Richard Wolff

Original conversation (video)

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    Europe's Irreversible Economic & Political Decline - Richard Wolff

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