Niall Ferguson The Great Degeneration.pdf Apr 2026

The Decay of the West: An Analysis of Niall Ferguson’s Institutional Diagnosis in The Great Degeneration

Perhaps the most original section, Ferguson argues that the West suffers from hyper-legalism . He points to the exponential growth in the number of laws and regulations (e.g., the U.S. tax code’s millions of words). This “legal inflation” produces two degenerations: first, it makes the law incomprehensible to ordinary citizens, undermining its legitimacy; second, it creates a “lawsuit culture” that paralyzes innovation and risk-taking. The rule of law, once the West’s greatest advantage over autocracies, has become a straightjacket. Niall Ferguson The Great Degeneration.pdf

Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community . Simon & Schuster. The Decay of the West: An Analysis of

Fukuyama, F. (2014). Political Order and Political Decay . Farrar, Straus and Giroux. (For counter-argument on institutional development) have historically underpinned Western ascendancy.

Ferguson organizes his diagnosis around four institutional complexes that, he contends, have historically underpinned Western ascendancy.