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David Weigel reads Are We Rome? and is surprised to learn that privatization will bring down the American empire.
Fluffy|7.9.07 @ 4:29PM|#
I've always thought that America bears very little resemblance
to the imperial Rome of the 5th century, but A LOT of resemblance
to Republican Rome before Sulla and Marius starting duking it out.
More and more every day.
We have two dominant elite groups that have realized that control
of the courts is the key to control of the polity, and whose
decades-long schemes to get control of the courts undermines the
whole system; we have a vast system of allied states the citizenry
of which has a huge stake in the outcome of our elections but no
voice in those elections - and those allies are expected to bear a
significant part of the costs of policies they can't politically
impact; we have a portion of our political class devoting its time
to finding ways to control policy in order to feather its own nest
overseas, out in "the provinces", we have the beginnings of the
creation of centers of armed force that are outside the traditional
system and which are loyal to persons [or incorporated persons] and
not to institutions; we have widespread cynicism about the
traditional political culture; etc. etc. etc.
|7.9.07 @ 4:34PM|#
I see a lot of chicken little-ism about the Empire in Decline
and all that. We should be perfectly happy that the empire declines
along the axes it is likely to decline - military might and perhaps
monopolar economic dominance.
I don't see any serious threat to our set of institutions that
would precipiate a 'fall', though. I just can't generate more than
a shrug.
|7.9.07 @ 4:35PM|#
It's what I call The Roman Empire Game: take whatever you don't
like about modern society (porn, Wal-Mart, football players
break-dancing in the end zone after a touchdown), find some vague
parallel in Gibbon's book, and conclude, "We're going the way of
the Roman Empire."
Speaking of the "perils" of privatization, I recently came across
an article alleging serious abuses in the private prison system.
Could the folks at Reason address this particular issue?
|7.9.07 @ 4:36PM|#
While I haven't read the book, I feel safe in assuming that the point about FEMA is that it is an organization that did in fact privitize many of its functions and then when put to the test generally they did not perform well.
thoreau|7.9.07 @ 4:37PM|#
I don't see any serious threat to our set of institutions
that would precipiate a 'fall', though.
Well, the tradition of habeas corpus is close to ending. Admittedly
that's not necessarily an "institution", but it has been something
that our institutions have taken for granted for centuries, and
that the institutions that they're based on took for granted for
centuries before that.
|7.9.07 @ 4:49PM|#
Murphy went on the Colbert Report to be interviewed. At the end,
Colbert asked him, "If America and Rome went to war, who would
win?" and was absolutely flabbergasted when Murphy replied, without
missing a beat,
"Rome. They'd do whatever it took."
I've never seen Stephen Colbert as (genuinely, not hamming it up in
character) so taken aback. He didn't have a comeback, he didn't
have an in-character shtick, nothing. He just said, "Wha-wha-huh?"
for a moment, then got the cue from his director and did his
roll-out to the commercials.
So I gotta respect Murphy.
When in America, do...|7.9.07 @ 4:57PM|#
Rome would not have had trouble in Iraq that they couldn't have
handled.
Rome didn't do away with slavery.
Caligula would now be living in San Francisco.
It seems to be a good read.
Seer|7.9.07 @ 5:17PM|#
I read the book and I rather enjoyed it. I think that while I
was a bit put off by the privatization spiel, it was made up for by
his pointing out some of the other ugly similarities between Rome
and America.
It also forced me to remember that while privatization is
preferable to government beureaucracy, that privatization is still
a major form of market interference and that eliminating a
government program is preferable to privatizing it.
Whether privatization reduces civic virtue is another thing, but
I'm inclined to think that the corporatism that privatization
begets is rather un-American.
|7.9.07 @ 5:23PM|#
People tend to forget that Rome as a great power existed in at least four distinct phases prior to the fall of the west. I would agree with fluffy that if there is a comparison to be made, it is with the later Republic and its transition to the principate, and not with the late Empire (ie, we face a dangerous internal transformation - albeit one pushed by external factors - rather than an outright 'decline and fall'.)
|7.9.07 @ 5:44PM|#
Rome fell because it wrecked its economy with excessive
regulation.
First, they designed their tax code to go after the middle class,
particularly the upper middle class while exempting the senatorial
class. These taxes fell heaviest on the provinces.
Secondly, they devalued the currency through currency debasement:
the quantity of silver in a denarius went down massively over the
course of the empire.
Thirdly, as these policies caused unwanted economic shifts, they
attempted via price controls and draconian laws to "freeze" the
economy. By the end of the imperial period, families found
themselves locked into hereditary professions or or plots of land.
Yes, feudalism was put in place by the Romans in a desperate and
ill-though response to an empire-wide Depression.
If you look at the U.S. government, you can see many of the same
mistakes being made. We had FDR who tried to "Freeze" the U.S.
economy, which prolonged the Great Depression by a decade. Every
generation the U.S. government seems to impose price controls on
one thing or another. Our tax code is designed to preserve the
wealth of the upper classes while looting the middle class, and the
Federal Reserve does an absolute bang up job of currency debasement
(admittedly our empire is funded indirectly rather than directly by
currency debasement).
The U.S. government does not make the mistakes to the same extent
though. For one thing, economics is better understood now. The
Romans had no Milton Friedman or Ludwig von Mises to provide sound
economic advice. There was no tradition of free market economics
that acted to limit the depredations of government officials.
In the end though, we are marching down the same road. People focus
too much on drunken orgies and hedonistic practices. That had
little to do with the collapse of Rome. Rather it was a tradition
of building an empire and looting the productive classes in favor
of the political elite that did them in. It will also, thank God,
some day do in the monster known as the United States government.
The only question is how much we peons are going to be screwed
before that blessed day arrives.
David Weigel|7.9.07 @ 6:02PM|#
If I didn't make it clear in the article, the book actually is worth a read. Murphy's solutions might be off, but he's a giddy, enjoyable historian.
|7.9.07 @ 6:03PM|#
tarran:
You couldn't be more wrong. Rome fell because of the lack of
quality leaders and because they let the situation in the middle
east get out of control.
ktc2|7.9.07 @ 6:39PM|#
Rome wouldn't have a problem in Iraq. They would make damn sure
the Iraqis feared Rome more than anything else.
You know kill one Roman, 20 Iraqis executed each and every
time.
That kind of thing. We wont do that. Without that type of horrid
brutality hostile empire/occupation is unsustainable.
|7.9.07 @ 7:06PM|#
It also forced me to remember that while privatization is
preferable to government beureaucracy
Really? Why?
Grotius|7.9.07 @ 7:28PM|#
The Romans, despite some rather significant efforts, never subjugated the Germans nor the Parthians.
|7.9.07 @ 7:30PM|#
My favorite comment on Roman tactics for occupation came from
the Cartoon History of the Universe (which is great, BTW).
Decimate: "How many languages even HAVE a word for 'kill every
tenth person'!"
|7.9.07 @ 7:37PM|#
Tarran,
You seem to be talking about this
wrong-minded piece of legislation. It's exactly the kind of
thing that the Late Roman Empire version of Reason would
have railed about had it been around (or maybe there was
one?)
|7.9.07 @ 7:40PM|#
Decimate: "How many languages even HAVE a word for 'kill
every tenth person'!"
Lets see...
English, French, Italian, German, Spanish Portuguese...probably
more
Grotius|7.9.07 @ 7:42PM|#
Ramon Rozas III,
That sort of rather random violence and killing was pretty common
throughout the ancient world. Consider what the Athenians did to
the people of Melos (for example).
Grotius|7.9.07 @ 7:44PM|#
joshua corning,
Personally I've always loved the Carthagenian penchant for bumping
off unsuccessful commanders. The Klingons resemble them in that
way.
|7.9.07 @ 7:51PM|#
Lets see...
English, French, Italian, German, Spanish Portuguese...probably
more
Wow.
You really got him there.
Seer|7.9.07 @ 9:01PM|#
It also forced me to remember that while privatization is
preferable to government beureaucracy
Really? Why?
Efficiency, that's about it.
|7.9.07 @ 10:28PM|#
Maybe I'm just shortsighted. Or maybe I'm blinded by sheer
patriotism (or nationalism or tribalism or something-ism). But I
don't see the United States going the way of Rome.
There are major qualitative differences between the US republic and
the early Roman republic. Ditto for the way the international
system was in Roman times versus today.
Consider how dramatically the US has changed in its brief (compared
to Rome) history. And yet, the structure and institutions of
government largely remained intact. That indicates to me that the
system in the US is flexible enough to respond to demands for
change, without having to have a general sack Washington.
Also there a great deal of international, trade, and institutions
such as the UN. This increased interaction between countries spans
the globe. So we're not likely to have any external military force
try to annex parts of the territorial US. And no nomadic tribes are
going to travel from parts unknown, set up camp just outside our
borders, and start stirring up trouble. I see it as more likely
that the US, as well as other countries, will gradually cede more
authority to the UN or some such IGO.
I'm sure its more complicated than that and history is not my
thing. Thats just my interpretation though.
|7.9.07 @ 10:37PM|#
Lets see...
English, French, Italian, German, Spanish Portuguese...probably more
which all got it from Latin
Although those tactics would result in increased
insurgency and probably did in Roman times. More effective in those
days was taking hostages. They were taken to Rome and apparently
treated so well that they became more Roman than the Romans. Maybe
they should have done that with all those "enemy combatants" they
sent to Gitmo.
|7.9.07 @ 10:58PM|#
@Joe Corning - yeah, what he said!
Grotius - your right that the Roman strategy was not new (even
better than what happened at Melos is the Athenian justification of
it, as recorded by Thucydides). I think, though, that the Romans
mastered it in many ways. Treat those who surrender well, but
annihilate those that continue to fight.
Contrast and compare with the Mongols!
|7.9.07 @ 11:12PM|#
By George, Fluffy's got it; and Cullen Murphy doesn't really
have a clue. We're pretty much
in the Jugurthine War now; read your Sullust. However no one's
volunteered for Marius; Mattis or Patreus maybe likely candidates.
After that the Romans faced the Cimbri; Mithridates,(it was the
latter conflict that triggered the Social War between Marius &
Sulla, the Pathans,the pirates referenced by Harris, among others
well you get the idea. Now the whole argument about tribes is
weakened by the likes of Al Queda; barbarians inside the gates.
Akira MacKenzie|7.10.07 @ 12:42AM|#
Yeah... yeah... economic ruin, immigrants who don't speakie
English, moral decay, no respect for authority, dogs and cats
living together...
YAWN.... I've heard this "America is going the way of Rome" shit
dozens of times before. Maybe back in my
conservative-Republican-living-during-the- Clinton-administration
phase (age 17-24) I lived in dread that these were the last days of
USA. These days, I'm not loosing sleep over it.
Seer|7.10.07 @ 9:02AM|#
People should try reading the actual book. Murphy never draws a total parallel between Rome and America. As he writes in his epilogue, America and Rome are different in thousands of specific ways, but we share some of their worse and more dangerous traits. He never tries to say that we are in the exact same position as Rome at whatever point in time.
robc|7.10.07 @ 11:11AM|#
I've heard this "America is going the way of Rome" shit
dozens of times before.
It took the Roman Empire over 500 years to collapse. Im guessing
you will get to hear it a few 100 more times, if you live long
enough to see it happen.
Even if its true, I figure we got a good 300 years left.
|7.10.07 @ 1:22PM|#
Okay, I'll be the pedant here. ALL of the Capitol is named for a
Roman antecedant: the Capitol is named for the Temple of Jupiter
Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill in Rome, also known as the
Temple of Capitoline Jupiter. (Yeah, I know there's little
difference. That's a big thing with Romans, though.) The Senate is
one of the branches of the legislature. /pedantic rant.
That said, anything that increases interest in Roman history is a
good thing, and many props to everyone who mentioned Marius, Sulla,
the Jugurthine War, etc.
LarryA|7.10.07 @ 2:49PM|#
You couldn't be more wrong. Rome fell because of the lack of
quality leaders and because they let the situation in the middle
east get out of control.
I doubt Rome ever lacked quality leaders. What it did lack during
the late Imperial period, and we're seeing the beginnings of it in
the U.S., were institutionalized methods for putting quality
leaders in positions of power. As for the situation in the middle
east, I believe that was a symptom, not a cause.
"Yes, it takes some imagination to see how corrosive privatized
government will prove to be many decades down the road," Murphy
argues.
It's a good argument. Taking "privatization" as the process whereby
a government service is farmed out to a private company, you end up
with the worst of both worlds. You still have government authority
to force the school solution, all of the bureaucracy and regulation
continue, and you have the additional cost of a private company
trying to make a profit in a monopoly atmosphere.
Of course if you mean "privatization" as the government getting out
of a business and letting the market take over, that's a different
ballgame.
That sort of rather random violence and killing was pretty
common throughout the ancient world. Consider what the Athenians
did to the people of Melos (for example).
Historically people who practice decimation (as in killing one out
of ten) usually justify it as the "merciful" or "reasonable"
alternative to genocide. See Troy. Or Hitler.
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