GBS
- Thread starter VibeBox
- Start date
Chipotle.
They're just hidden from view somewhere.
These clowns took 2 million dollars in bribes to send minors to detention facilities. Some of the kids committed no crime at all.
Capitalism is a plague and I hope this country makes like a Rome and dies of it.
Capitalism is a plague and I hope this country makes like a Rome and dies of it.
As usual, the right answer is "a number of factors contributed to X", but one of the bigger factors was the consolidation of wealth, power, and land in the hands of elites who hoarded it, thus preventing the people (or the government) from making effective use of the vast resources that once flowed more freely.
I thought it had to do with the state driving up citizenship numbers to increase taxes combined with more reliance upon barbarians for the defense of the empire, which of course lead to greater neighboring exposure to technology and technique, while simultaneously decreasing your average roman's investment in the health of the state and grooming betrayers. I thought Rome's main problem was like having not made it's way out of it's current bout of stagnation when it was hit with several crisies (It was like barbarian generalship, marauding hordes and drought if lucas remembers correctly).
Weren't the ottomans the real example of an empire that shat itself because of mishandling it's markets and private holdings?
Weren't the ottomans the real example of an empire that shat itself because of mishandling it's markets and private holdings?
I would like to lurk a debate about this. Keep going!
Blaming it on the barbarians is a classic argument, and it's not entirely out of favor yet. The barbarians were given citizenship, technically, in the 212 Edict of Caracalla. It's uncertain but unlikely that this actually resulted in any changes to the way people of Germanic were treated, but it did make those people eligible for taxation and draft. If I were to blame Germanic citizens of the empire for anything, I would first sympathize with them for being, like black folks in the early 1900s U.S.A., technically free and equal but really "separate but equal".
Not sure what paragraph to stick this bit in, but some "barbarians" weren't even Germanic, they were simply unpopular Romans or descendants of exiled Romans who wanted "their" family holdings back.
The part that's a little clearer IMO is that the historian from which most "it was the barbarians!" arguments are descended, Edward Gibbons, had a huge bias when writing Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He was more impartial than other historians of the time, which is great, however his disdain for the commoner comes through strongly throughout the text of his work. This makes him a normal person for the 1700s in which he lived - even our over-worshiped Founding Fathers were generally tolerant of slavery, and their desire to extend rights and citizenship to "all mankind" only fully encompassed white males who owned land. He believed in Empire and he specifically believed in the British Empire, so in describing the slow collapse of Western Rome he was quick to blame it on externalities and devoted no ink to addressing whether problems endemic to imperialism and to primitive accumulation of capital by the elites could have been factors. His narrative was written in, and for, the British Empire and has to be analyzed as such in its context of pro-imperialist, late-Enlightenment times.
It's a fossil at this point and with very few exceptions not taken very seriously at this point except as a pioneer of the modern practice of focusing on primary sources. He did a great job tracking those down and using them to support his worldview.
Anyhoo, there are at least 210 reasons people have come up with for the fall of the Roman Empire. Some are easily dismissed, like ascetism or homosexuality, but more than one of these causes were probably factors. Targets and factors shift depending on whether you're focusing on 476 as the last whimper, or going back to 291 to trace the origins of the decline (and while I'm a fan of that, it overvalues hindsight and discounts the possibility that at any point between those years, a reform or restructuring could have turned things around).
So if Edward Gibbons is a relic, who's got their finger on the truth? Beats me. Ian Morris is a funny figure with Why the West Rules -- for Now. I look forward to the day when people stop writing as if the West is "us" and the East is "them" and the day when we're not locked in some stupid schoolyard competition while our planet falls apart around us. I mention him because his approach is relevant to the question you and I are sorta playing around with: "What factors in Rome's collapse might apply to the US and more generally to Capitalism / 'the West'." More seriously, The Fall of Rome: And the end of Civilization is great because it is willing to explore multiple possible factors of collapse:
Per those folks, drought and famine, like you say, were a big factor - hello California! - but as we see with Bill Gates or to a lesser extent Richard Charles Branson, the application of even a fraction of an elite's wealth to the problems of the poor can save and improve the lives of millions. So I'm still partial to blaming it on Roman generals, who were fond of calling themselves Emperor, sometimes multiple Emperors at the same time. If their wealth was in the hands of the people - or, at worst, in the hands of a centralized not-entirely-shitty government - I believe that it would have been easier to defend against encroaching neighbors and use the surplus wealth to careful wait out the drought. But, in my opinion, because most of the wealth was concentrated in the hands of generals/warlords, who hoarded it when they weren't at war and spent the majority of it on troops and armaments used against fellow Romans, which allowed multiple other factors which could have otherwise been dealt with to erode the foundation of the empire while the schoolyard competitions raged on.
Not sure what paragraph to stick this bit in, but some "barbarians" weren't even Germanic, they were simply unpopular Romans or descendants of exiled Romans who wanted "their" family holdings back.
The part that's a little clearer IMO is that the historian from which most "it was the barbarians!" arguments are descended, Edward Gibbons, had a huge bias when writing Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He was more impartial than other historians of the time, which is great, however his disdain for the commoner comes through strongly throughout the text of his work. This makes him a normal person for the 1700s in which he lived - even our over-worshiped Founding Fathers were generally tolerant of slavery, and their desire to extend rights and citizenship to "all mankind" only fully encompassed white males who owned land. He believed in Empire and he specifically believed in the British Empire, so in describing the slow collapse of Western Rome he was quick to blame it on externalities and devoted no ink to addressing whether problems endemic to imperialism and to primitive accumulation of capital by the elites could have been factors. His narrative was written in, and for, the British Empire and has to be analyzed as such in its context of pro-imperialist, late-Enlightenment times.
It's a fossil at this point and with very few exceptions not taken very seriously at this point except as a pioneer of the modern practice of focusing on primary sources. He did a great job tracking those down and using them to support his worldview.
Anyhoo, there are at least 210 reasons people have come up with for the fall of the Roman Empire. Some are easily dismissed, like ascetism or homosexuality, but more than one of these causes were probably factors. Targets and factors shift depending on whether you're focusing on 476 as the last whimper, or going back to 291 to trace the origins of the decline (and while I'm a fan of that, it overvalues hindsight and discounts the possibility that at any point between those years, a reform or restructuring could have turned things around).
So if Edward Gibbons is a relic, who's got their finger on the truth? Beats me. Ian Morris is a funny figure with Why the West Rules -- for Now. I look forward to the day when people stop writing as if the West is "us" and the East is "them" and the day when we're not locked in some stupid schoolyard competition while our planet falls apart around us. I mention him because his approach is relevant to the question you and I are sorta playing around with: "What factors in Rome's collapse might apply to the US and more generally to Capitalism / 'the West'." More seriously, The Fall of Rome: And the end of Civilization is great because it is willing to explore multiple possible factors of collapse:
Per those folks, drought and famine, like you say, were a big factor - hello California! - but as we see with Bill Gates or to a lesser extent Richard Charles Branson, the application of even a fraction of an elite's wealth to the problems of the poor can save and improve the lives of millions. So I'm still partial to blaming it on Roman generals, who were fond of calling themselves Emperor, sometimes multiple Emperors at the same time. If their wealth was in the hands of the people - or, at worst, in the hands of a centralized not-entirely-shitty government - I believe that it would have been easier to defend against encroaching neighbors and use the surplus wealth to careful wait out the drought. But, in my opinion, because most of the wealth was concentrated in the hands of generals/warlords, who hoarded it when they weren't at war and spent the majority of it on troops and armaments used against fellow Romans, which allowed multiple other factors which could have otherwise been dealt with to erode the foundation of the empire while the schoolyard competitions raged on.
Stop callin people glib! That can only work like... twice!
Um no? Google has reaffirmed that it's voluble insincere and shallow. I think I made it clear my understanding wasn't "duh it was the barbarians" but you certainly rendered it down to that point in a hurry. Anyhow I have no interest in continuing this argument, I think I was totes clear on here that they were in the midst of one of their many eras of stagnation, where they had successfully ceded responsibility to vassals, and through their arms-length model of assimilation had created a number of educated and connected powers but with disparate ideals, goals and identity. This was further complicated by a series of crisis. Rome died because of their early model of globalization and all the momentum of the empire moved away from its heart enriching and empowering those on the fringes while those inside kept relying on the institutions of the state to do as they always had and became more and more introspective.
You know what, it's too late for this shit. If anyone wants a visceral understanding of how civilization is doomed to decline they can familiarize themselves with Robert E Howard's Conan series or the scholarship that accompanies it. I don't really feel like it's necessary to take a highlighter to whatever weakass economic model an empire in decline might resemble, you're gonna see the same stupid cronyism, infighting, assimilation and malign disinterest either way.
Can't we all complain about the ottomans together and their dumb fiscal ideas and weird early models of internal free market? Do we really need to chew lucas out because he doesn't have a synonym for the word glib and tell him about how it wasn't just the barbarians (you poor simple grot you).
Yes late model capitalist democratic republics suck ass. Most late civilizations suck ass. Most success stories left out to dry are gonna respond predictably to pressures and it usually only drives them into something unideal and mutilated. God bless dynastic china for it's incredible range of influences. Man maybe they'll give me another new insulting nickname because of this thread, that'll be droll. Makes me wonder.
You know what, it's too late for this shit. If anyone wants a visceral understanding of how civilization is doomed to decline they can familiarize themselves with Robert E Howard's Conan series or the scholarship that accompanies it. I don't really feel like it's necessary to take a highlighter to whatever weakass economic model an empire in decline might resemble, you're gonna see the same stupid cronyism, infighting, assimilation and malign disinterest either way.
Can't we all complain about the ottomans together and their dumb fiscal ideas and weird early models of internal free market? Do we really need to chew lucas out because he doesn't have a synonym for the word glib and tell him about how it wasn't just the barbarians (you poor simple grot you).
Yes late model capitalist democratic republics suck ass. Most late civilizations suck ass. Most success stories left out to dry are gonna respond predictably to pressures and it usually only drives them into something unideal and mutilated. God bless dynastic china for it's incredible range of influences. Man maybe they'll give me another new insulting nickname because of this thread, that'll be droll. Makes me wonder.
Jesus, lucas, calm down. I don't think this is the flame war you think it is, I for one have just read an enlightening post about the fall of Rome (two, actually, your last post was good too).
I like lucas! (I may have misinterpreted his first post on this, I just get so excited to talk about imperialism. Sorry!)
Next time let's do the Al-Shifa pharmaceuticals plant!
Next time let's do the Al-Shifa pharmaceuticals plant!
Attacking capitalism by associating it with the fall of Rome seems like a stretch to me. In the same breath you can attribute Rome's massive and longstanding success to the same economic ideals.
On the topic of Rome, it was explained to me that the "fall" of Rome was rather a long, slow melting away due to the dilution of their central culture via the osmosis of so many other conquered cultures. For example, the barbarians had a much larger impact culturally in the long term than their military victories. In the Romans' well-reasoned attempt to subjugate barbarian tribes by diplomatically bringing their leaders' sons to Rome to become indoctrinated as Romans and then returned to their homelands, they were actually giving access to those cultures (in many cases resulting in the reverse effect) and watering down what it meant to be "Roman". Through this they slowly lost their identity.
On the topic of Rome, it was explained to me that the "fall" of Rome was rather a long, slow melting away due to the dilution of their central culture via the osmosis of so many other conquered cultures. For example, the barbarians had a much larger impact culturally in the long term than their military victories. In the Romans' well-reasoned attempt to subjugate barbarian tribes by diplomatically bringing their leaders' sons to Rome to become indoctrinated as Romans and then returned to their homelands, they were actually giving access to those cultures (in many cases resulting in the reverse effect) and watering down what it meant to be "Roman". Through this they slowly lost their identity.
I think that's part of what Lucre was getting at when I tunnel vision'd on the one part of it. >.>
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
My internet was dead for 5 days. My god, the backlog is intimidating... >_>
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Filthy Casual
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Bumbeh's cooperative cube-building thread has brought a lot of new blood as well, all posting relevant and irrelevant content. He clearly didn't think things through when he decided to host that thing over here
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Bumbeh's cooperative cube-building thread has brought a lot of new blood as well, all posting relevant and irrelevant content. He clearly didn't think things through when he decided to host that thing over here
Wait, the add 4 hipster cube is attracting new blood?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I think two or three people stuck around
i love that the grumpy old curmudgeon, bumbeh, is also hipster
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Wait, you're calling bumbeh grumpy? When we have real, authentic grumpsters (stop autocorrecting me stupid iPad!) like CML and Lucre on here?