Rome and the US

I just finished reading a commentary by Doug Casey in which he parallels the similarities between the fall of the Roman Empire and the US. It is hard to deny that history repeats itself.

Rome gave the people bread and circuses once a year (government handouts), so they’d decide you weren’t such bad guys and weren’t worth rebelling against. It was a very profitable enterprise.

The problem came from the fact that as they pushed their borders out, after they looted and pillaged (cheap third world labor), they had to defend those borders (China's new economic prowess).

The Persians were a military power to contend with (Our failing military escapades). This became increasingly, impossibly costly. So the wars were what made Rome great, but were also a big part of its undoing. Both because they helped destroy the essential social fabric of Rome by wiping out its agrarian roots (our manufacturing base) and by corrupting everyone with a constant influx of cheap slave labor and free food (our dependence on cheap oil and labor) – and by actually drawing in potential invaders.

Never doubt that the invaders are here! They are called Republicans and Democrats.

Casey continues:

Lists have been compiled of at least 180 reasons why Rome fell. They range from lead in the pipes and cookware, Christianity, climate change, population decline, to barbarian invasions. And many, many others – many of them closely related, generally centering on political and military devolution. It seems to me that one of the major reasons was basic economics.

The bureaucracy became stifling, the taxes became unbearable, the money was completely debased. Diocletian put on wage and price controls – the first time recorded in the West. People became tied to their land, which became the start of feudalism. Trade came grinding to a halt.

In those days there was very little surplus; the Industrial Revolution wasn’t there to magically make food and material appear. There’s some evidence that many residents of the empire were glad to see the overthrow of a system that made production and saving impossible. The Empire in 400 AD was sociologically, politically, and militarily very different from the one of, say, Marcus Aurelius in around 180, when the decline began in earnest – even though it still had the same borders.

Rome brought some fantastic benefits to the world, and by the time things really came unglued around the year 400, the roads, cities, baths, and aqueducts were everywhere. BUT THE POLITICAL SYSTEM HAD HOLLOWED OUT THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM, and a lot of people were living in buildings they could no longer afford to maintain. Some similarities to modern times come to mind…