Some weeks ago, leaving the cinema having been to see ‘Odyssey’, directed by Christopher Nola, one word flashed into my mind: “superficial”. The film was full of epic battle scenes and high drama. But it conveyed little or nothing of the depth of Homer in the poems, the Iliad, the outward journey to Troy by Odysseus, and then in the decade-long return in the ‘Odyssey’, which the film claims to be based on. The saving grace of the film lies perhaps in the fact that, since it was released, sales of Homer have rocketed.
Owen Jones’s latest tome of 371 pages, ‘The Fall of the West – How They Really Lost It’, leaves the same impression. This work covers a vast historical period and many crucial events and developments, all of which cannot be commented on in a short review.
The superficiality of Jones’s attempt to analyse the crucial changes in world relations should not denigrate the horrors, misery and suffering of millions around the world consequential of the wars and economic policies pursued by Western imperialism and capitalism, which are well recounted. Horror stories through conversations and interviews with those who have suffered the traumatising effects of them are recorded throughout. Jones’s travels to crucial flashpoints around the world—Iraq, Kenya, Palestine, Greece, Russia, Britain and the US—include conversations portraying the devastation to the lives of millions suffered in numerous wars, economic and social crises. At times, though, it reads like a tourist guide in human suffering.
Yet, the interviews and conversations in the book are moving; personal horror stories from Iraq following US and Western imperialist intervention, the genocide being carried out against the Palestinian people, the sufferings of the Greek people following the brutal austerity imposed on them by the EU and Troika, the consequences of Thatcherism in the UK and the misery of the ‘rust belts’ flowing from ‘Reaganomics’ in the US and elsewhere are all laid out before the reader.
Facts, figures and personal recordings of misery and destitution rain down with justifiable anger. These are interspersed with devastating quotes from assorted capitalist world leaders, advisers and commentators, graphically depicting their ruthlessness and the contempt and arrogance they have towards those who suffer the consequences of their actions. The book is full of ammunition to condemn imperialism, capitalism and its rulers.
However, the boldness of the book’s title, ‘The Fall of the West – How They Really Lost It’, is not reflected in the analysis put forward in its content. The historical facts and figures he uses are all useful but are readily available on Wikipedia, other platforms or in published material. The accumulation of historical facts, figures and quotations in and of themselves has a limited role. As the former Labour leader, Harold Wilson, put it, “statistics never lie but liars use statistics”. What conclusions are drawn from them, what analysis is made from the material at hand and what is concluded to be done are the critical questions. As Marx put it, “Philosophers have interpreted the world – the point is to change it”. The question is – how?
What this work makes up for in exposing this system, it lacks in analysis, explanation and the conclusions drawn from the material it contains. The final chapter, ‘Conclusion’ – outlining Jones’s alternative – is perhaps one of its weakest points. In this respect, to say that ‘the mountain has laboured and produced a mouse’ is somewhat of an insult to mice.
Jones gives a graphic portrayal of the decline of what he terms the “West” – what he means by the “West” is somewhat ambiguous – we can take it as meaning Western imperialism. Yet the decline of the ‘West’ – which is accelerating – still needs qualification, especially in relation to US imperialism. It is a relative decline but a qualitative one nevertheless. Incredibly, he manages to feature the decline of the ‘West’ without any reference to the rise of China until the Conclusion. Then he only features its development, referring to its unique position as a state-directed economy – done with no characterisation of it – but rightly recognising its development and the repressive, authoritarian, bureaucratic nature of the Chinese regime. Moreover, the role of Japanese imperialism and its role in Asia – the fourth-largest economy by GDP measurement – is not mentioned at all.
Understandably, he opens the book’s Introduction by recounting the revealing and far-sighted speech of a representative of the bourgeoisie, former banker and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, at Davos at the beginning of 2026. Carney spoke of the “rupture” in the world order; “the end of a pleasant fiction (for some TS) and the beginning of a harsh reality”. The significance of this speech has already been commented on by the CWI in our analysis of the international situation.
He states, “In this book, I argue that the seeds of Western decline lay in the very moment it thought it had won out. The end of the Cold War did not mark the beginning of an unchallenged new Western century. It marked the beginning of a long, uneven decline – one driven not by external enemies but by the consequences of the West’s own choices.”
He continues: “The West’s decline, this book argues, is no mystery. As the Ancient Greeks put it, hubris – defined universally as excessive pride, and a dangerous sense of superiority and overconfidence in your own abilities, mixed with a general decoupling from reality – leads to nemesis: downfall”.
The collapse of the former USSR and the counter-revolution that led to capitalist restoration, which the CWI on the revolutionary left was the first to recognise, ushered in a new world situation. (Others, like the SWP and some Maoists, argued wrongly that it was already state capitalist.) This had a profound historical impact on both capitalism and the workers’ movement. (One of which was the bourgeoisification of social democracy and, in Britain, the Labour Party, i.e. they became fully bourgeois parties – the consequences of which Jones failed to recognise until well into the 21st century.) Following this world-changing event, the decline of ‘the West’ has accelerated. The policies adopted by the ruling classes, the wars they have fought and other economic developments have undoubtedly compounded and complicated the catastrophic world situation and suffering of the masses.
Yet the processes of the decline of the ‘West’ had begun prior to the collapse of the USSR. It was partly masked by the existence of the former Stalinist states and the conflict between two different social systems which flowed from it. However, it was beginning and developing, with many contradictions and conflicts, prior to the collapse of the former USSR. Jones’s recurring argument that the decline of the “West” all began with the collapse of the USSR and its recourse to neoliberalism is partly refuted by his reference to the growing group of neoconservatives in the 1970s who bemoaned the “terminal decline” of the “West” – some arguing, like Daniel Bell, whom he quotes, that it “foundered on the shoals of Vietnam”, along with Midge Decter, who, referring to the US, stated that it appeared “to be in a state of retreat from its own power”.
Neoliberal ideas and policies had been around long before the collapse of the former USSR but for decades were marginalised. Why did they become the dominant programme for global capitalism by the late 1970s and into the 1980s? Why did these ideas, which were on the margins of bourgeois politicians and commentators for decades, become mainstream?
For Jones, it was simply a matter of “choice” by them. It was no accident that the surge in support for neoliberalism amongst the bourgeois right and ruling classes followed a decisive change in the objective conditions in which capitalism found itself by the mid-1970s.
This path has been trodden because the “30 glorious years” (for some TS) which capitalism boasted of following the Second World War, one of incredible capitalist boom and upturn in the imperialist powers, in part driven by the exploitation of Asia, Africa and Latin America, hit the buffers and came to an end. This historic turning point in capitalism drove the capitalist classes to change policy in all respects for objective reasons. Western capitalism could no longer afford the social welfare state and what went with it during the “30 glorious years”. Has the adoption of neoliberalism and neoconservatism compounded the contradictions within the system and been catastrophic for the masses? Yes, without a doubt. Yet the systemic crisis the ruling classes confronted drove them towards the course of restoring profitability and limiting government expenditure, policies also riven by the massive growth in finance capital.
Nobody can challenge the characteristics of most of the leaders of capitalism in this era, illustrated by supreme examples such as Trump, Netanyahu, Modi and others, and the hubris they have displayed. Indeed, these features have compounded the contradictions and crisis that are flowing from the declining power of Western imperialism. The decline of the ‘West’ is reduced to “hubris”. Later, the lurch to neoliberal policies and the disaster they have unleashed on the mass of the world’s population are, for Jones, reduced to the question of “choice”. So, had different policies or programmes been adopted by the ruling classes, would it all have been fundamentally different? Really?
The crux of the matter is that it is not a simplistic question of “choice” or “hubris” by the ruling classes. The neoliberalism and policies they have pursued (which have been catastrophic) correspond to an entirely new era of capitalist crisis and flow from the contradictions within the capitalist system itself.
It is not a question of “reason”. Capitalism as a system drives and compels sections and representatives of the ruling class to take the roads they have trodden. It is not a question of logic or reason. While mass movements, protests and crises can force ruling classes to retreat, such moves are temporary until the capitalists can resume taking the measures they deem necessary for their system’s survival.
He describes the catastrophic consequences of the ‘shock’ therapy applied in the former USSR and the development of gangster capitalism. He also exposes the hypocrisy of Western capitalist leaders in dealing with the bourgeois state that emerged in Russia and the former USSR. Correctly, he exposes the false pledges made at the time of the disintegration of the former Stalinist states that NATO would not expand eastwards. This has been one contributing factor shaping how the Russian gangster regime assesses the world situation and has reacted to it, including in Ukraine.
In the opening chapters of the book, Jones takes us through the horrors of colonial rule. In Kenya, during the 1950s, the British authorities slaughtered an estimated 300,000 of the Kikuyu population in an attempt to retain control of their then colony; in Indonesia, hundreds of thousands of communists (the PKI had over 3 million members) were butchered following a US-backed military coup against the left-nationalist regime of Sukarno. We are reminded of the impact of the coup in Chile in 1973 internationally. Slavery and the racism of the imperial powers are all rightly exposed and denounced.
These and other chapters all vividly paint a grotesque picture of the horrors of imperialism. Yet they are left hanging in mid-air. What conclusions are drawn from these events? Why the coup in Chile was successful, we are not told. The revolution in Iran in 1979 is simply described as “transforming the country into an Islamic Republic, whose slogan was ‘Death to America’”. Nothing is mentioned of how the revolution and then the clerical counter-revolution unfolded. The crushing mistake of the Tudeh Party (Communist Party), blocking with Islamic forces against others on the left, and the subsequent slaughter of Tudeh members and supporters, and the consolidation of the counter-revolution which unfolded under the banner of Islam and the coming to power of Ayatollah Khomeini, are ignored.
Western imperialism is suffering “blowback” from the crimes it has committed historically and continues to commit. Yet the reason for its decline cannot be reduced to this one factor. It is embedded in the contradictions of the social system of capitalism and imperialism. It is right to highlight the horrific crimes of Western imperialism, yet precious little is mentioned of the crimes of the rulers of other non-Western countries, for example, the oppression of the Kashmiri people by India and Pakistan.
Jones takes us back to the social revolt, the youth movement and general strikes in Greece against the austerity packages imposed by the EU and the ruthless way it dealt with SYRIZA when it came to power, along with the rise of PODEMOS in Spain. He rightly repudiates the betrayal of Tsipras in Greece.
He rightly marks the Occupy movement and the ascent of Sanders in the US and Corbyn in Britain – all pointers to the unfolding challenge to the ruling elites. However, what conclusions does he draw? What was necessary for these movements to go forward in terms of programme and organisation? Nothing about the need for Sanders to break from the Democrats. Nothing regarding Corbyn’s failure to confront and expel the pro-capitalist wing of the Labour establishment, which was eventually to expel him from the Party. To report and comment on events past and present, to denounce the crimes of capitalism and imperialism, but to offer no alternative programme and strategy to challenge and overthrow it is like having a watch without a spring.
The book is an empirical attack on the crimes and horrors of capitalism, past and present. Yet it has no real alternative or perspective for building a serious socialist challenge to it. The superficiality of his understanding of what has unfolded is revealed in his own political trajectory. Recognising the importance of the impact of the collapse of the former USSR, he failed to draw any conclusions about what this meant for the Labour Party and social democracy. He clung to the Labour Party, arguing to change it, when it had become a fully bourgeois party, denouncing as “sectarian” those, like the Socialist Party, who argued for a new workers’ party.
Initially backing Corbyn, he then argued that he should resign in 2017, arguing that a younger alternative should be found. When Corbyn departed from the leadership, he backed Long-Bailey against Keir Starmer. Upon Starmer’s election as leader (despite, on paper, defending Corbyn’s programme, but clearly the “establishment’s candidate”), what did Jones conclude?
Writing in the Guardian (4 April 2020) in an article headlined “Starmer can succeed, and he deserves our support”, he argued: “Labour’s radicalism remains undimmed: the party recognises that revolutionary times require revolutionary answers … Starmer has committed to policies long advocated by the left … Now is the time for critical friendship, to wish a genuinely decent and progressive politician well…”
Really? Events did not exactly bear out this Panglossian view of what unfolded in Labour subsequently. In an inverted worship of the accomplished fact, in 2024, reality finally hit him in the face; he debunked from Labour, supporting other candidates, briefly joining Corbyn’s short-lived ‘Your Party’ (which was correct, but then it failed because of the policies and methods of the leadership) and then finally landing in the Greens.
Referring to the movements and organisations that erupted, like PODEMOS and SYRIZA, which failed, he ponders: “All suffered different forms of defeat. Perhaps this was inevitable: they were attempting simultaneously to construct organisations from scratch, to develop a coherent political alternative for the twenty-first century, and to overcome relentless opposition from media and corporate elites – alongside, in several cases, sabotage from within their own parties.”
What else can be expected from the ruling class and supporters of capitalism but determined, relentless opposition? But was defeat inevitable? Not if the lessons of the international workers’ movement had been fully grasped and the corresponding programme and methods had been applied to the conditions and challenges of the 21st century.
He rightly deals with the breeding ground of poverty, the corruption of the ruling elite and other issues which have allowed racist, far-right and populist parties to step in and win support in many countries. Yet it was the failure of the “left” to offer an alternative which has allowed this to happen.
What conclusion does Jones draw from all this in terms of programme? Unbelievably, he resurrects the failed Meidner Plan from Sweden in the 1970s, put forward by the LO trade union federation. This required profitable large firms to issue shares to union-controlled funds, “gradually transferring ownership to workers”. He argues that an updated version of this could “begin to challenge the central defects of private ownership … Public and worker-controlled investment funds … Economic democracy would cease to be an ideal and become a means by which society consciously determined its own future”. Democratisation of the economy is apparently the objective – encroaching on capitalism share by share, investment fund by investment fund.
A combination of workers getting control of companies through share ownership and some public and worker-controlled investment funds are hardly revolutionary new ideas. They amount to repackaged reformist ideas. While this gradual transfer of power takes place, what would the ruling class and employers be doing? Does he seriously think they would allow their wealth, power and economic ownership of vast financial and industrial corporations, and control of the economy and society, to be taken away from them – share by share? In Sweden, the LO plan met determined opposition from the ruling class. More recently, a version of this was attempted in Venezuela under Chavez, which failed to overthrow capitalism and ended in disaster. They would resist it, sabotage it and fight any such utopian plan.
It seems that Owen Jones has reverted to a form of utopian socialism defended by Robert Owen in the 18th/19th century. The difference being that Robert Owen’s utopian socialist ideas at that time represented a historic leap forward in developing socialist ideas which Marx and Engels developed on a scientific basis. Owen Jones, however, leaps backwards in such thinking.
In the ‘Conclusion’, he states that “Too much of the twentieth-century left was fatally entangled with the Soviet experiment. When the system collapsed, it left a vacuum increasingly filled by ethnonationalism and religious fundamentalism. We are told again that destiny is ethnic. It hardly needs spelling out where the grim consequences lead.”
Yet surely, given that the USSR existed as an alternative social system to capitalism, based on a centrally planned nationalised economy, ruled by an authoritarian, bureaucratic elite in the name of socialism, its collapse means that it is crucial to understand why this happened and what lessons need to be drawn from it. Prior to the collapse of the USSR and capitalist restoration, it was essential to address what that regime was doing in the name of “socialism” domestically and internationally. His brief comments on Afghanistan and the USSR invasion, which the CWI opposed, are somewhat one-sided and crude.
As a reference book for facts, quotations and examples of the crimes of imperialism and capitalism, it serves some purpose. Yet, as a serious analysis of the decline of Western imperialism, the new era of capitalism and the protracted crisis it is now in, and, crucially, what programme and tasks those opposed to it need to develop, it serves none.