What Next for the West?

What are Western values and why should we understand them? If Western societies are different from other societies, what are those differences and where do they come from? Are the differences between Western societies and other societies good or bad?

Western culture is linked to the birth of capitalism but continues to have traces of feudalism and other even earlier political systems. These systems, like capitalism, promoted status and greed.

In the wider world, political ideas have not been about capitalism. Outside much of the West, the ideas of the rest of the world are often more traditional. For example, they could be driven by authority, submission, control, coercion, and compulsion. These characteristics are responsible for influencing the consciousness of the people living in areas like Saudi Arabia, China or Iran, as well as some countries in Africa.

In this booklet I will argue that whilst the Western worker has absorbed the best of capitalism's eighteenth-century bourgeois values, we need to see our Western workers and Western governments double down on tackling inequality, unfairness, and elitism. The continued acceptance of inequality, unfairness, and elitism as normal is putting Western values at risk and exposing Western freedom to the threat of autocratic ideas. The challenge of all societies is to move beyond these absurd principles. But how can the West help?