My brothers a history nut, this is his brief thoughts on what has happened and what could happen, he sums it up a lot better than i ever could!
CK
Tonight I am tracing the steps of Edward Gibbon, author of "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". We have the volumes at Mum and Dad's; thanks Gramps.
Gibbon's work was a magnificent achievement in the 1700's, and was hailed as such. As a historian, I am much in preference to working with original texts, or texts NOT produced from 1940 to today, to eliminate the PC bias bullshit that has infested modern thought, which has been bought off.
I was interested in his take on just WHY the empire fell, and he suggests that citizens lost their civic virtue, were no longer willing to do tough work, rather delegating this to barbarians, who multiplied within the empire and eventually overthrew it... sound familiar?
I also came across other views on why, and found Ludwig Von Mises' view. It is economic and began with currency debasement. Here's the quote (Wiki, I am sorry, but a quote nonetheless):
"Michael Rostovtzeff, Ludwig von Mises, and Bruce Bartlett Historian Michael Rostovtzeff and economist Ludwig von Mises both argued that unsound economic policies played a key role in the impoverishment and decay of the Roman Empire. According to them, by the 2nd century A.D., the Roman Empire had developed a complex market economy in which trade was relatively free. Tariffs were low and laws controlling the prices of foodstuffs and other commodities had little impact because they did not fix the prices significantly below their market levels. After the 3rd century, however, debasement of the currency (i.e., the minting of coins with diminishing content of gold, silver, and bronze) led to inflation. The price control laws then resulted in prices that were significantly below their free-market equilibrium levels.
According to Rostovtzeff and Mises, artificially low prices led to the scarcity of foodstuffs, particularly in cities, whose inhabitants depended on trade in order to obtain them. Despite laws passed to prevent migration from the cities to the countryside, urban areas gradually became depopulated and many Roman citizens abandoned their specialized trades in order to practice subsistence agriculture. This, coupled with increasingly oppressive and arbitrary taxation, led to a severe net decrease in trade, technical innovation, and the overall wealth of the empire.[7]
Bruce Bartlett traces the beginning of debasement to the reign of Nero. By the third century the monetary economy had collapsed. Bartlett sees the end result as a form of state socialism. Monetary taxation was replaced with direct requisitioning, for example taking food and cattle from farmers. Individuals were forced to work at their given place of employment and remain in the same occupation. Farmers became tied to the land, as were their children, and similar demands were made on all other workers, producers, and artisans as well. Workers were organized into guilds and businesses into corporations called collegia. Both became de facto organs of the state, controlling and directing their members to work and produce for the state. In the countryside people attached themselves to the estates of the wealthy in order to gain some protection from state officials and tax collectors. These estates, the beginning of feudalism, operated as much as possible as closed systems, providing for all their own needs and not engaging in trade at all.[8]"
So, there you have it. It would seem that socialism followed debasement and collapse last time, and led to feudalism. The thing about history, is that it is often an excellent template to follow in the future. Events move more quickly today; is it not unfeasible to think that food stamps would ensue after currency collapse, and result in severe scarcity of food in urban areas, leading to repopulation of the country? Is it possible that levees could be directly placed on producers? Is it possible that people would band together in feudal arrangements to be protected from tax collection?
After that last article you sent through, I wondered what could be 100 times worse than WWII. In terms of civilization, the Dark Ages win hands down.
