What has brought on the current decline?

Women.

While I have nothing against women in the workplace, the birth rate in my country at least is falling because women are pushing back the age they have children at because they want to work their way up the ladder.

Men can't have babies so that just leaves women who think their jobs are more important than the continuation of the human race.

Perhaps its not so much women as it is the expressive individualist culture we are now immersed in. I would say this expressive individualist culture and the consumer society it produces is the logical end of capitalism. Early capitalism begins with the glorification of austerity, self-denial, and the work ethic. Eventually, however, this irrational mentality produces a fanatically overproductive economy. In order for capitalists to sell off their surplus overproduction, they must turn a productive society into a consumer society. The primary means to this end is massive aesthetic advertising, associating their products with 'beauty' and customized 'lifestyles'. The old values like thrift, self-denial, austerity, savings and so on are eventually repudiated. The obvious result is an explosion of consumer credit card debt which undermines the system itself. Furthermore, the population becomes so decadent (as it is pursuing all these frivilous goods) it gets to the point where it can no longer even reproduce itself. Children come to be seen as too much of a financial burden to invest in. In other words, late capitalism is socially unsustainable. It results in aging and declining populations which will eventually trigger, in the next several decades or so, a massive economic downswing.

For a more detailed discussion of the argument I outlined above, see:

1.) Murray Jardine, The Making and Unmaking of Technological Society: How Christianity Can Save Modernity From Itself (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004)
2.) Peter G. Peterson, Gray Dawn: How the Coming Age Wage Will Transform America -- and the World (New York, Random House, 1999)
3.) Patrick J. Buchanan, The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization (New York: St. Martin's, 2002)

Perhaps its not so much women as it is the expressive individualist culture we are now immersed in. I would say this expressive individualist culture and the consumer society it produces is the logical end of capitalism.

Yeah, well, if only men fell for it it wouldn't present so much of a problem.

It might be MayI'd say individualism. Now, I think that freedom is all well and good, because things like freedom of speech help keep a society healthy (being told when you're wrong isbetter than being told you're right even when you're not).

But telling everyone they can do what they want is not the best idea. Especially when you tolerate massive immigration that doesn't adapt to the country, but demands that the country adapt to it.

Egalitarian ideal of the French Revolution aimed at secular and religious authorities and traditional values.

I believe that Gaius (who, I would like to note, hated to be called 'Caligula', which means 'little boots') sufficiently answered his own question. :)

What has brought on the current decline?

I would trace the decline to the advent of progressivist, social democratic policies and attitudes. World War I seems a good benchmark to me, but I'd defer to the historians.

Mass commodity culture. The time of the departure towards this kind of mass culture and the development of capitalism in this direction seems to be post-World War II with the return of soldiers with money and a desire to 'own' all the products associated with the 'tranquilized fifties'.

Mass commodity culture.

..., which itself comes about from atheism and inflationary monetary policies.

Why atheism, what relation has atheism to a mass commodity culture? Indeed the general consensus in modern society seems to be belief. Atheism tends to be a view held by those with little or no interest in economics.

Why atheism, what relation has atheism to a mass commodity culture? Indeed the general consensus in modern society seems to be belief. Atheism tends to be a view held by those with little or no interest in economics.

I think you are under two key misperceptions here. First, the shallow, ersatz "beliefs" that celebrities and the hoi polloi babble about have little to do with faith in God. Second, you seem to equate "interest in economics" with mass commodity culture, probably because the only economics to which you have been exposed are Keynesianism and Marxism. Economics, properly understood, is simply the science of human action. It makes as much sense to say, "Atheism tends to be a view held by those with little or no interest in geology."

Atheism in culture presents the the physical world as the be-all and end-all. The attainment of materialist ends is an end in itself, rather than a means to the higher end of spiritual values.

The Reformation.

A summation of yellow and SST thoughts on the matter... plus the institution of social democracy itself.

The Reformation.
Explain...

Protestant Work Ethic -- Early Capitalism -- Late Capitalism -- Consumer Economy -- Low Birthrates -- Crash??

Protestant Work Ethic -- Early Capitalism -- Late Capitalism -- Consumer Economy -- Low Birthrates -- Crash??
Did the Protestant work ethic and capitalism inevitably have to lead to social democracy...?

Exactly.

Otto, is social democracy a key point in the decline/crash of the West?