In a no-holds-barred interview with the YouTube channel Robinson Erhardt, Harvard and Yale professor and prominent economist Richard Wolff delivers a brutal assessment: Europe is in decline and fast becoming irrelevant on the world stage. He argues that many in the Global South now view Europe the same way Europe once viewed its colonies—a decaying relic of former glory, trapped in nostalgia and bloated with self-importance. What was once the cradle of global power is now, in their eyes, a museum of lost ambition and fading relevance.

Europe’s industrial backbone is crumbling, and the decline is unmistakable. As for the United Kingdom, Professor Wolff didn’t mince words—calling it “a cold, wet offshore island off the continent of Europe,” suggesting it’s drifted into geopolitical and economic obscurity.

According to Wolff, the engine of global growth has left the West behind. The future lies in Asia, with China rapidly cementing its role as the world’s dominant trading hub. The era of Western economic supremacy, he argues, is over—and Europe is sleepwalking into irrelevance.