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Are we headed for a collapse? Even ignoring our unsustainable use of the environment, the whole world system seems on the edge. And yet our world shares hegemony of trade and law with few precedents in history. But all those precedents fell in time, either to outside forces or from within.
These backward glances focus on one example above all the rest; it served as a model for our own system and may yet serve as a model for its collapse: the Roman Empire.
The heart of the Roman Empire was in its land-owning free citizens [1]. They were the hard-working and efficient bureaucracy that held everything in place. They were the soldiers who kept the peace in their lands and added new ones. Though sometimes cruel and ruthless in search of Empire, they were stoic in peace, showing altruism for the common welfare of all free men. Their attitudes and morals were for something greater than themselves.
They were the health and vitality of the Empire, and as they were weakened the resilience of the whole was drained. The forms and appearance of greatness remained, but in time it was just an exhausted, empty shell. Whatever external acts brought about the Empire’s final collapse [2], it was inevitable without the former confidence and vitality.
So what brought down these land-owning free citizens?
A slave economy
An economy built on a large slave populace needed no innovation or fresh capital investment. Stagnation grew as their vitality was sapped by ease.
Taxes and conglomeration
Economically the empire was addicted. An appetite for luxuries from the East meant a net export of wealth. To compensate, the coins in circulation were debased with lesser metals, a form of inflation. The market economy deteriorated and the tax bill rose, sapping the strength of the landowners.
But the larger landowners wealthiest were able to use their influence to buy tax-exempt status, increasing the burden on the rest. The tax-exempt then loaned money to the poorest landowners who soon defaulted, accelerating the wealth and land transfer to the largest landowners [3].
Military barbarians and succession
As the lands were conglomerated, those eligible for the government and the army became fewer. Barbarian mercenaries were brought in to fight the Empire's wars. The former citizen soldiers had been able to vote, but the only influence of the mercenary army was that of coup d'état. This soon became the norm: from Caesar onward only a military-backed emperor could stay in power.
Bureaucracy
Meanwhile, the small, hardworking bureaucracy became concerned only with its own survival. As landowners were absorbed into the slave class through tax defaults, holding on to government positions became essential for survival. Cynicism led to increasing abuse of government posts for personal gain, and in time the ability of the government to organise effectively disappeared.
Personal corruption
These factors were not alone: a general corruption of life emerged. The stagnation of a slave-based economy has already been mentioned, and this stagnation infected their culture, already weakened by cynicism. The epic poets gave way to editors and scholars, a sure sign of cultural decay. The writers had neither the mind nor the heart for soaring flights of fancy - they could not sustain the necessary reverence [4].
Additionally, the ruling classes began to manipulate religion, culture and the economy (previously the Empire was content to control only law and tax) in an effort to maintain control, corrupting all three in the process.
Some, disillusioned by a future amidst ever-richer conglomerates and higher tax burdens, turned to selfishness and hedonism. Eastern mysticism was an alternative taken by others - turning their attention from the world entirely.
In the face of all of these factors, cynicism grew into the dominant mindset.
Collapse
The family-orientated landowning class of citizens was disappearing on all sides, as was the attitude at its heart: their hope in something transcending themselves. As the people lost this hope they lost their confidence, the bedrock of their vitality.
R.R. Palmer summarised the events of the collapse thusly [5]:
"[T]he activity of the Roman cities began to falter, commerce began to decay, local governments became paralyzed, taxes became more ruinous, and free farmers were bound to the soil. The army seated and unseated emperors. Rival generals fought with each other. Gradually the West fell into decrepitude and an internal barbarization so that the old lines between the Roman provinces and the barbarian world made less and less difference."
And thus the Roman world collapsed in Europe (it survived in a lesser form in the Hellenic East). The Roman’s form of control was shallow: usually the Roman presence was as a layer above the existing society. As that layer dissolved, the world shrugged off the Roman civilisation and returned (in an altered form) to former ways. It was a chaotic transition [6], and in its turbulence the largest landowners turned their territories into small kingdoms safeguarded by their own troops. Safety was guaranteed for those who agreed to work the land in perpetuity. The medieval period was beginning to take shape.
To close
The vitality of the Roman body was in the unremarked citizen masses who gave their energy to build something greater than themselves. They didn't give without gain - as citizens they shared in the Empire's success - but it was not their personal gain that drove them. Thus they overlooked nearer opportunities for personal enrichment in order to serve the greater good.
Yet their vision eroded and their hope faltered, their confidence failed, and their eyes turned closer to home, to their selves. The body lumbered on for a few centuries while it destroyed the values that were its bedrock, but this required drawing in more and more resources from its wide borders to maintain the status quo, while expanding its manipulations to every sphere as it sought to maintain control, until finally there was nothing more to give and everything collapsed.
To me this is not just a tale of the past. I feel this story has endless parallels in our modern world. Not just in the fall of the Anglo-American empire, but in all places were vitality and confidence have built a body to a certain strength. If the little things are not maintained, the function of the body continues while the vitality is sapped, but at some point the loss becomes apparent as the body fails entirely.
Notes
[1] This is my claim, though professional historians have made careers of arguing such things. The framework of factors in this essay derives from Norman F Cantor’s work, who reached similar conclusions to mine (or rather: vice versa).
[2] Barbarian forces is a common cry – though there was little significant advancement in either the ability or number of these barbarians during the period after initially being conquered to their later reclamation of Roman lands.
[3] A similar spiral brought on the French Revolution.
[4] “The epic poets … necessary reverence” is a paraphrase from Anthony Esolen’s The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization.
[5] Palmer is on the sidelines as to the root cause of these events.
[6] Thanks to newly-founded monasteries in the never-conquered Ireland, refugees fleeing the collapse were able to safeguard large swathes of Roman literature during the century or so of upheaval following the Empire's collapse. The Irish copied all texts and shared them among a network of monasteries that expanded back into continental Europe. Thus a great number of ancient works - secular and religious - survived in Europe. From Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization.
These backward glances focus on one example above all the rest; it served as a model for our own system and may yet serve as a model for its collapse: the Roman Empire.
The heart of the Roman Empire was in its land-owning free citizens [1]. They were the hard-working and efficient bureaucracy that held everything in place. They were the soldiers who kept the peace in their lands and added new ones. Though sometimes cruel and ruthless in search of Empire, they were stoic in peace, showing altruism for the common welfare of all free men. Their attitudes and morals were for something greater than themselves.
They were the health and vitality of the Empire, and as they were weakened the resilience of the whole was drained. The forms and appearance of greatness remained, but in time it was just an exhausted, empty shell. Whatever external acts brought about the Empire’s final collapse [2], it was inevitable without the former confidence and vitality.
So what brought down these land-owning free citizens?
A slave economy
An economy built on a large slave populace needed no innovation or fresh capital investment. Stagnation grew as their vitality was sapped by ease.
Taxes and conglomeration
Economically the empire was addicted. An appetite for luxuries from the East meant a net export of wealth. To compensate, the coins in circulation were debased with lesser metals, a form of inflation. The market economy deteriorated and the tax bill rose, sapping the strength of the landowners.
But the larger landowners wealthiest were able to use their influence to buy tax-exempt status, increasing the burden on the rest. The tax-exempt then loaned money to the poorest landowners who soon defaulted, accelerating the wealth and land transfer to the largest landowners [3].
Military barbarians and succession
As the lands were conglomerated, those eligible for the government and the army became fewer. Barbarian mercenaries were brought in to fight the Empire's wars. The former citizen soldiers had been able to vote, but the only influence of the mercenary army was that of coup d'état. This soon became the norm: from Caesar onward only a military-backed emperor could stay in power.
Bureaucracy
Meanwhile, the small, hardworking bureaucracy became concerned only with its own survival. As landowners were absorbed into the slave class through tax defaults, holding on to government positions became essential for survival. Cynicism led to increasing abuse of government posts for personal gain, and in time the ability of the government to organise effectively disappeared.
Personal corruption
These factors were not alone: a general corruption of life emerged. The stagnation of a slave-based economy has already been mentioned, and this stagnation infected their culture, already weakened by cynicism. The epic poets gave way to editors and scholars, a sure sign of cultural decay. The writers had neither the mind nor the heart for soaring flights of fancy - they could not sustain the necessary reverence [4].
Additionally, the ruling classes began to manipulate religion, culture and the economy (previously the Empire was content to control only law and tax) in an effort to maintain control, corrupting all three in the process.
Some, disillusioned by a future amidst ever-richer conglomerates and higher tax burdens, turned to selfishness and hedonism. Eastern mysticism was an alternative taken by others - turning their attention from the world entirely.
In the face of all of these factors, cynicism grew into the dominant mindset.
Collapse
The family-orientated landowning class of citizens was disappearing on all sides, as was the attitude at its heart: their hope in something transcending themselves. As the people lost this hope they lost their confidence, the bedrock of their vitality.
R.R. Palmer summarised the events of the collapse thusly [5]:
"[T]he activity of the Roman cities began to falter, commerce began to decay, local governments became paralyzed, taxes became more ruinous, and free farmers were bound to the soil. The army seated and unseated emperors. Rival generals fought with each other. Gradually the West fell into decrepitude and an internal barbarization so that the old lines between the Roman provinces and the barbarian world made less and less difference."
And thus the Roman world collapsed in Europe (it survived in a lesser form in the Hellenic East). The Roman’s form of control was shallow: usually the Roman presence was as a layer above the existing society. As that layer dissolved, the world shrugged off the Roman civilisation and returned (in an altered form) to former ways. It was a chaotic transition [6], and in its turbulence the largest landowners turned their territories into small kingdoms safeguarded by their own troops. Safety was guaranteed for those who agreed to work the land in perpetuity. The medieval period was beginning to take shape.
To close
The vitality of the Roman body was in the unremarked citizen masses who gave their energy to build something greater than themselves. They didn't give without gain - as citizens they shared in the Empire's success - but it was not their personal gain that drove them. Thus they overlooked nearer opportunities for personal enrichment in order to serve the greater good.
Yet their vision eroded and their hope faltered, their confidence failed, and their eyes turned closer to home, to their selves. The body lumbered on for a few centuries while it destroyed the values that were its bedrock, but this required drawing in more and more resources from its wide borders to maintain the status quo, while expanding its manipulations to every sphere as it sought to maintain control, until finally there was nothing more to give and everything collapsed.
To me this is not just a tale of the past. I feel this story has endless parallels in our modern world. Not just in the fall of the Anglo-American empire, but in all places were vitality and confidence have built a body to a certain strength. If the little things are not maintained, the function of the body continues while the vitality is sapped, but at some point the loss becomes apparent as the body fails entirely.
Notes
[1] This is my claim, though professional historians have made careers of arguing such things. The framework of factors in this essay derives from Norman F Cantor’s work, who reached similar conclusions to mine (or rather: vice versa).
[2] Barbarian forces is a common cry – though there was little significant advancement in either the ability or number of these barbarians during the period after initially being conquered to their later reclamation of Roman lands.
[3] A similar spiral brought on the French Revolution.
[4] “The epic poets … necessary reverence” is a paraphrase from Anthony Esolen’s The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization.
[5] Palmer is on the sidelines as to the root cause of these events.
[6] Thanks to newly-founded monasteries in the never-conquered Ireland, refugees fleeing the collapse were able to safeguard large swathes of Roman literature during the century or so of upheaval following the Empire's collapse. The Irish copied all texts and shared them among a network of monasteries that expanded back into continental Europe. Thus a great number of ancient works - secular and religious - survived in Europe. From Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization.
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