What a Collapsing Empire Looks Like

[Vympel]

Glenn Greenwald

reports are emerging of the Deficit Commission hard at work planning how to cut Social Security, Medicare, and now even to freeze military pay ...

... Plenty of businesses and governments furloughed workers this year, but Hawaii went further -- it furloughed its schoolchildren. Public schools across the state closed on 17 Fridays during the past school year to save money, giving students the shortest academic year in the nation.

...shut down its entire public bus system ...

...the city switched off a third of its 24,512 streetlights to save money on electricity, while trimming its police force and auctioning off its police helicopters....

... Meanwhile, the tiniest sliver of the wealthiest -- the ones who caused these problems in the first place -- continues to thrive ...

...Squeezing the oligarchs, though, is seldom the strategy of choice among emerging-market governments ...needing to squeeze someone, most emerging-market governments look first to ordinary working folk -- at least until the riots grow too large ...

... "Back to Stone Age" -- which describes how "paved roads, historical emblems of American achievement, are being torn up across rural America and replaced with gravel or other rough surfaces as counties struggle with tight budgets and dwindling state and federal revenue."

Utah is seriously considering eliminating the 12th grade, or making it optional ...

Does anyone doubt that once a society ceases to be able to afford schools, public transit, paved roads, libraries and street lights -- or once it chooses not to be able to afford those things in pursuit of imperial priorities and the maintenance of a vast Surveillance and National Security State -- that a very serious problem has arisen, that things have gone seriously awry, that imperial collapse, by definition, is an imminent inevitability?

I for one, do not. It's just an obscene series of anecdotes about what should be the richest country on Earth in a state of absolutely embarrassing decay.

[JME2]

Yeah, it's unsettling and disquieting. I certainly didn't think 10 years ago that we'd be at this stage.

[Commander 598]

Say what you will, but dirt roads have a lot of charm.

[Thanas]

It seems as if the US is running a war economy. This all reads like tales of a society not paying upkeep because the money is going elsewhere.

That said, things have not gone as worse as the 1920-30s. Sure, it is a massive hit, but we do not have shantytowns, the rule of law has not broken down and the country is still functioning.

[Admiral Valdemar]

You can gauge the health of an economy by the public works carried out. For instance, various councils around here are only filling in potholes from the harsh winter if they get claims about damage to axles etc. It's bare bones.

A country can happily collapse to become less than a husk of its former self, but not end with anarchy, so long as the masses are pliable or given false hope (Tea Baggers? Pfft). Additionally, many collapses in history happened over decades or centuries even. Rome, for instance, ended with an empire stretched out over too many fronts, with too many politicians and bigwigs living it large and via corruption no less, and neglecting the common man's plight. No one thought such an empire could go down like it did, but down it went.

I think it's safe to say the US has entered its twilight empire years, ironically, not through any external threat, but by its own success. One could say the same of most of the First World really, hence the rise of Chindia and Brazil.

[Thanas]

You can gauge the health of an economy by the public works carried out. For instance, various councils around here are only filling in potholes from the harsh winter if they get claims about damage to axles etc. It's bare bones.

A country can happily collapse to become less than a husk of its former self, but not end with anarchy. Additionally, many collapses in history happened over decades or centuries even. Rome, for instance, ended with an empire stretched out over too many fronts, with too many politicians and bigwigs living it large and via corruption no less, and neglecting the common man's plight. No one thought such an empire could go down like it did, but down it went.

This only counts if you think Rome neglected the common man's plight from the beginning. Also, I really object to your characterization of the Late Roman Empire.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Regardless, the point is that empires come and go. America has often been seen as the be all, end all of such ventures. That such nations can eventually lose their status is good enough reason to not rest on your laurels, or squander a good thing. Which, sadly, most of humanity has done. China and India won't be any different in that respect. It's not even like Rome or the Mayans encountered real hard limits to growth in all areas, they simply had no real plasticity in their mindsets and carried on with a plan that did not work. We're seeing the exact same thing today with our economic model and military ventures.

It's also not like America neglected man's plight. It's only recently that the country has really started going off the rails favouring warmongering and corporatism over more fundamental values.

[tim31]

Grand Teton National Park for sale

It's a bluff, but it's another anecdote to add to the topic at hand.

[Thanas]

It's not even like Rome or the Mayans encountered real hard limits to growth in all areas, they simply had no real plasticity in their mindsets and carried on with a plan that did not work. We're seeing the exact same thing today with our economic model and military ventures.

You are once again completely ignorant about Rome. They sure as heck encountered hard limits to growth, several times in fact. Some of these they overcame, others they did not. They sure as heck did not loose due to their mindset.

[Admiral Valdemar]

You are once again completely ignorant about Rome. They sure as heck encountered hard limits to growth, several times in fact. Some of these they overcame, others they did not. They sure as heck did not loose due to their mindset.

These are limits they could have handled better were they more in control of their expansion at the time. Yes, there were resource constraints, but they were not the sole factors, just as today they are not. The reason we are hitting limits now is because of mismanagement, and that sure as hell did happen in the past. Look at the Mayans too. There was no massive die-off in population to show for real limits being hit that caused the party to end as with the Mayans, say. Tainter, for one, I don't think said anything about this impact affecting Rome like other civilisations. You can hit either an actual, physical limit e.g. water for irrigation, or you can hit the "soft" limit of being unable to comprehend the complexity of a system growing beyond your means. We don't have any dearth in food today, and yet there are plenty of humans in the West starving. It's still a real problem, just it's with humanity, not the Earth.

If you're telling me that overpopulating your empire and bringing its downfall because you can't handle the complexity or resource management at that scale isn't mindset, well, what is? They fucked themselves over, just as any rapidly expanding entity will do. Just as we are doing, yet do not consider changing direction when it's perfectly within our reach.

[Thanas]

You are once again completely ignorant about Rome. They sure as heck encountered hard limits to growth, several times in fact. Some of these they overcame, others they did not. They sure as heck did not loose due to their mindset.

These are limits they could have handled better were they more in control of their expansion at the time. Yes, there were resource constraints, but they were not the sole factors, just as today they are not.

Are you kidding me? You really mean what you say? Tell me, o great oracle that knows what hundreds of historians do not, why did the empire fall and how did their mindset contribute to that fall? Heck, what are your sources for the mindset of the emperors?

If you're telling me that overpopulating your empire and bringing its downfall because you can't handle the complexity or resource management at that scale isn't mindset, well, what is? They fucked themselves over, just as any rapidly expanding entity will do. Just as we are doing, yet do not consider changing direction when it's perfectly within our reach.

You will now provide evidence for:
a) the roman empire being overpopulated
b) the downfall of the empire was due to resource scarcity and mismanagement of it, you will list the resources in question and outline how the romans mismanaged them and thus brought down their empire
c) that the romans recognized such a problem and did not take meausures to prevent it happening
d) how a particular mindset caused the fall of the empire (instead of a perfect storm of bad circumstances and just plain bad luck)

Really, I just love how you declare the empire fell because they had a bad mindset. Where do you get off thinking you can summarize complex systems and their fall with the words "their mindset" without even specifying what mindset it is.

[Highlord Laan]

I always thought that the Roman Empire fell from a combination of horrendous internal politics/backstabbing, massive corruption at the core on the Empire, and that tiny problem of hordes of Germanic barbarians burning, raping and pillaging their way to Rome.

[Thanas]

I always thought that the Roman Empire fell from a combination of horrendous internal politics/backstabbing, massive corruption at the core on the Empire, and that tiny problem of hordes of Germanic barbarians burning, raping and pillaging their way to Rome.

All of these are debatable if they were present and the impact on the empire of them is much debated. It really depends what arguments you find more convincing. The corruption issue is really overblown and not that much of an issue per se, or so the newest consensus seems to be.

[Samuel]

Thanas is much better at this, but some things stand out.

The reason we are hitting limits now is because of mismanagement, and that sure as hell did happen in the past.

The limits of Roman expansion were the Sahara, the Empty Quarter, the Parthians/Sassidians and Northern Europe. I'm not exactly sure how they were expected to expand past that with better management.

There was no massive die-off in population to show for real limits being hit that caused the party to end as with the Mayans, say.

The Mayans real limits was the climate changing and agricultural land becoming less productive as the nutrients leached away. I'm not sure how that is a hard limit or for that matter how we know it was accompanied by a large die off.

You can hit either an actual, physical limit e.g. water for irrigation, or you can hit the "soft" limit of being unable to comprehend the complexity of a system growing beyond your means.

Has the second ever been a problem in human history? Ever?

We don't have any dearth in food today, and yet there are plenty of humans in the West starving. It's still a real problem, just it's with humanity, not the Earth.

I'm not aware of people in the West (the first world) starving. Can you give a source that shows the instances of starvation in the west.

If you're telling me that overpopulating your empire and bringing its downfall because you can't handle the complexity or resource management at that scale isn't mindset, well, what is? They fucked themselves over, just as any rapidly expanding entity will do. Just as we are doing, yet do not consider changing direction when it's perfectly within our reach.

How would overpopulation in an empire that covers the entire mediterranean bring it down? You do realize famines are locale issues- they can't on their own bring down empires.

[Big Orange]

but we do not have shantytowns,

Sorry, I beg to differ (and that news clip was already from over two years ago and it must've gotten worse since then).

Rome's dominance seemed to be eroded mainly by an endless series of high-intensity civil wars that got hard to contain in the 3rd to 4th centuries, the central state gravitated away from Rome when rulers spent most of their time with their very mobile armies (with some rulers based in Milan, later Ravenna, and finally Constantinople), while the Roman military machine got worn down fighting against itself and the leaders got routinely assassinated by their military aides, with the increasingly bold foreign incursions and acts of regional seperatism just compounding matters. A very simplified explanation, and you had rulers like Diocletian and Constantine the 1st who were successful to a certain extent at restoring stability, but the Roman Empire seemed to its own worst enemy. I don't think the Romans came a cropper mainly through their agriculture failing from within except possibly in arid places when aqueducts ran dry, but it must've gotten hard to sustain large populations in certain places when Mediterranean shipping was reduced and the multi-layered roads broke down.

[Thanas]

There is a definite argument to be made about climate change hitting the Roman Empire hard - analysis of Greenland ice has shown that around 350-650 AD the Roman Empire would have experienced a great shortage in crops and declining yields (quoting from memory here, numbers might be off without having access to the study).

There is also some evidence in ancient sources speaking of famines in large cities, however the only real example we have in detail was the result of merchants hoarding grain and the problem was as easily fixed as the the Emperor ordering grain to be sent from 35 miles away.

The problem is that it is really hard to recognize the impact of such a thing. A.H.M. Jones, for example, called the agri deserti the largest problem of the empire. Yet nowadays we think he was overestimating their impact as new research shows that the Romans cultivated vast swathes of land that previously had not been used in that matter. For example, Gaza became one of the best wine-producing regions of the empire. The Empire by itself was able to provide the citizen of the megacities with a much larger diet of meat and grain than before and regions one would expect to be hit very hard by climate change (North Africa) became the most grain-producing, richest and most densely populated ones of the Empire. We also have the romans employing more centralization and more efficient methods of organizing the farms.

So the impact, if there was one, is really hard to gauge. It certainly was not empire-wide scarcity of resources. Heck, we cannot even be sure that the economy suffered a lot due to the crisis of the third century anymore, as it turns out that the indicator people relied on a lot (inflation) was not as strong as predicted - because the purchasing value of the individual coins stayed the same until the 270s, despite their being a lot more in circulation.


No doubt Valdemar will all explain that with Mindset.

[Thanas]

Rome's dominance seemed to be eroded mainly by an endless series of high-intensity civil wars that got hard to contain in the 3rd to 4th centuries

We do not know the intensity of most of these, nor do we know of the damage they caused. In most cases, the damage seemed to have been very small because most insurgents either succeeded within a few months or were dead by then. It is also very doubtful whether they did much to damage the state itself, since that would be anathema to a good Roman ruler.

Also - keep in mind that until the arabs, the dominance of the Roman Empire over the other nations was not really eroded nor seriously questioned (with the exception of the Sassanids).

the central state gravitated away from Rome when rulers spent most of their time with their very mobile armies (with some rulers based in Milan, later Ravenna, and finally Constantinople),

This is not a problem. Also, you are missing a lot of Imperial cities here.

while the Roman military machine got worn down fighting against itself and the leaders got routinely assassinated by their military aides,

Define routinely. The third century - sure. The fourth - less so.

with the increasingly bold foreign incursions and acts of regional seperatism just compounding matters. A very simplified explanation, and you had rulers like Diocletian and Constantine the 1st who were successful to a certain extent at restoring stability, but the Roman Empire seemed to its own worst enemy.

Yes, on that we agree.

I don't think the Romans came a cropper mainly through their agriculture failing from within except possibly in arid places when aqueducts ran dry, but it must've gotten hard to sustain large populations in certain places when Mediterranean shipping was reduced and the multi-layered roads broke down.

Which only really happened with the Arab incursions.

[Surlethe]

It's just an obscene series of anecdotes about what should be the richest country on Earth in a state of absolutely embarrassing decay.

You ought to know better than this. As the pithy saying goes, "'data' is not the plural of 'anecdote'." On principle, anyway, establishing major, embarrassing decay in the richest country on earth should involve statistical comparisons between the US now and during previous business cycles that weigh a variety of objective measures to paint a full picture of the country --- extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. After all, you can find anecdotes to support any position you want.

[Admiral Valdemar]

No doubt Valdemar will all explain that with Mindset.

You should know by now that when I use that term, I'm referring to human expansion beyond all measure. I don't need to qualify it any further than that, especially with something that epitomises the very concept of empire and man's reach exceeding his grasp. Nitpick away, I wasn't going to start some super critical analysis to get some historical circle jerk going when the basic premise is "greed + growth". The same thing is happening today, and we've not hit absolute hard resource limits just yet even.

[Big Phil]

but we do not have shantytowns,

Sorry, I beg to differ (and that news clip was already from over two years ago and it must've gotten worse since then).

Actually, no, it hasn't. And if it has, some proof would be nice...something other than: "it was bad two years ago, so today it must be worse"

[Broomstick]

It seems as if the US is running a war economy. This all reads like tales of a society not paying upkeep because the money is going elsewhere.

Or rather, taxes are not being collected. For 30 years the mantra in the US has been "cut taxes", with emphasis on cutting taxes for the rich. This reduces the funding for programs, yet the programs were seldom cut and in some cases expanded.

And, of course, a certain amount of corruption resulting in money going into various pockets it doesn't belong in.

That said, things have not gone as worse as the 1920-30s. Sure, it is a massive hit, but we do not have shantytowns, the rule of law has not broken down and the country is still functioning.

That is due, at least in part, to programs that started during the Great Depression (I"m talking about the US here, of course - how other countries are doing I'm not touching on here). For example, "food stamps" - now known as "supplemental nutritional assistance program" - didn't exist back then. Without them, we would have true hunger and starving people in the US. We have homeless shelters and soup kitchens. Those are factors in why don't have more destitute people roaming the streets. (We've also dumped a fuckton of people into jail, but I'm not sure how that affects that particular problem or not).

The rule of law...well, it's not breaking down massively in the form of riots, but the city of Chicago has an appalling rate of shooting and murder this summer. Theft and attempted theft is increasing in some locations.

On the other hand, we ARE getting our roads repaired - largely due to stimulus money from the Obama administration. Teachers are being cut but the length of the school year has not been. Fire and police are still able to do their jobs.

So it's a mixed bag. I can pull random anecdotes out of the air, too. I'd say things could tip either way. If the economy improves and more work becomes available the US will rebuild. If things get worse, there are no jobs, a group of destitute, desperate people forms.... yes, we could have riots. We could have shantytowns. These things have happened before in the US. They certainly could happen again. If people have forgotten maybe it's because those things happened before WWII and American rise to world superpower. Even if the US goes to shit for a time that doesn't mean it will cease to exist as a country, or that it won't rise to prominence again in the future. Or maybe it won't.

The only thing I know for sure is that we live in interesting times.

[Samuel]

No doubt Valdemar will all explain that with Mindset.

You should know by now that when I use that term, I'm referring to human expansion beyond all measure. I don't need to qualify it any further than that, especially with something that epitomises the very concept of empire and man's reach exceeding his grasp. Nitpick away, I wasn't going to start some super critical analysis to get some historical circle jerk going when the basic premise is "greed + growth". The same thing is happening today, and we've not hit absolute hard resource limits just yet even.

Please explain how military expansion is remotely equivalent. As for expanding beyond their means, that would require them to be using non-renewable resources to fuel population growth. I was under the impression the Romans were dependent upon muscle power and simple machines, entirely renewable resources.

[Big Orange]

We do not know the intensity of most of these, nor do we know of the damage they caused. In most cases, the damage seemed to have been very small because most insurgents either succeeded within a few months or were dead by then. It is also very doubtful whether they did much to damage the state itself, since that would be anathema to a good Roman ruler.

Many coups and wars for the throne were comparatively shortlived (like the Year of the Four Emperors), but the very violent squabbling was undeniably chronic in the 3rd Century Crisis, chipping away at the legion and auxiliary units over many decades, though the military rebounded enough in the long-run to go on big campaigns under Julian's direction in the 350s & 60s. And while the state and military infrastructure likely remained where it was for most part, baring direct attack, it must've still been pretty ugly for the families, followers and dependents trapped on the losing side of a civil war.

Also - keep in mind that until the arabs, the dominance of the Roman Empire over the other nations was not really eroded nor seriously questioned (with the exception of the Sassanids).

The Empire ultimately tore itself apart over time. The Parthians and Sassanids were organized and wealthy enough to deploy standing armies that included armoured cavalrymen, the Parthians early on stopped major Roman expansion dead while the Sassanids had a good grasp on siege craft, however they never really advanced much further than Syria and the buffer region inhabited by the Armenians. Then there were the Hun invaders under Attila who steamed into Europe with skilled mounted horsemen that were so tactically effective two thousand of them could feasibly loose 12, 000 accurate arrows per minute, but even they did not really topple the Empire, and Attila (who ultimately proved to be a flash in the pan) was concentrating mostly on Eastern Europe and went the furthest in the Middle East.

This is not a problem. Also, you are missing a lot of Imperial cities here.

I agree that emperors could not be everywhere at once, Hadrian and Aurelius were jetting about the Empire for much of their rule, while the lean central bureaucracy only grew under Diocletian's reforms some considerable time after Aurelius, but the Principate must've been uprooted on some level when a later emperor (I don't know his name off the top of my head) spent his entire life away from Rome and was surprised by the mere sight of it, its sheer size, when trying to lay siege to it. Although Alexandria was also an economically important and heavily populated city as well that was largely well out of direct harm (with the exception of the rebel Queen Zenobia's uprising).

And here's two PDF files on African climate change during Roman times (I haven't read them yet, it's late):

Article One

Article Two

[Big Orange]

Actually, no, it hasn't. And if it has, some proof would be nice...something other than: "it was bad two years ago, so today it must be worse"

Ok, the homeless problem was pretty bad back in '08 but I'll refute that it supposedly got worse since then (it's decreased by 11%) and Obama has recently launched a campaign to contain it:

Obama Sets Deadline to End Homelessness

President Obama is set to embark on an ambitious social initiative: ending the blight of homelessness by the start of the next decade. Instead of cutting social programs, the administration is determined to make them work more efficiently. The plan, known formally as Opening Doors: Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness, takes best practices established when President George W. Bush made homelessness a priority in 2003. “Investing in the status quo is no longer acceptable,” explains Obama in the plan’s introduction. “Given the fiscal realities … our response has to be guided by what works. Investments can only be made in the most promising strategies.” Obama made it clear that ending the “national disgrace” of homelessness was a priority when he first took office. The HEARTH Act of 2009 spurred a mandated investigation into the lives of the 640,000 men, women and children who find themselves homeless any day in the U.S., along with the 37% lacking shelter of any kind.

The result, a multi-level and multi-agency effort, is a first for the federal government, which traditionally left the issue to the states. Thankfully, some of those states successfully remedied the problem, developing best practices the plan will adopt as national standards. Among these best practices is a collaboration between state and local governments and the private sector. The plan identifies partnerships with local businesses, nonprofits, faith groups and volunteers, using every possible resource at the community level to emphasize local governments’ roles in bringing housing providers together. Medical and psychological caregivers also help coordinate efforts. The strategy addresses four goals. While the Obama’s administration praised Bush for reducing chronic homelessness (persons who have been homeless for more than a year, a group that saw an 11% decrease in 2009)—it will prioritize ending chronic homelessness by 2015. Chicago, which reduced chronic homelessness by 12% from 2005-2007, is an example of the Housing First model of supported housing, which minimizes barriers to accessing housing (instead of requiring a certain period of sobriety to be eligible, for example), along with improved medical attention. Obama’s health care reform bill, which expands Medicaid programs, will give many more who lost their homes access to better medical care, a crucial factor in maintaining stable housing.

The plan also targets homeless veterans, which the report says tops 100,000. While veterans have always had access to services, the new approach will integrate monitoring and assistance from Veterans Affairs bureaus across the country along with health care and psychological treatment to address post-traumatic stress disorder among recently returned veterans. Lawmakers hope affordable housing will help eliminate the issue by 2020. Education to identify homeless families with children, the administration included provisions for more Section 8 housing vouchers in its 2011 budget, which will be allocated to areas with the highest concentrations of homeless families. Finally, the plan seeks to help homeless youth, or those who fell through the cracks of social services. The plan says “every year, 30,000 youth age out of foster care, and 20,000–25,000 age out of the juvenile justice system.” Collaboration with youth groups at the community level will direct more resources to people in these transitional stages. While the plan includes myriad goals, focusing on four clear objectives creates a framework that will bring together 19 different government agencies to address the same social issue.

Link

[MKSheppard]

Or rather, taxes are not being collected. For 30 years the mantra in the US has been "cut taxes", with emphasis on cutting taxes for the rich. This reduces the funding for programs, yet the programs were seldom cut and in some cases expanded.

You of course will source this?

Oh wait, I can.

Link to CBO website for PDF



The other charts except for the federal excise tax chart show the same pattern -- the share of taxes for the first through fourth quintiles goes down, while the highest quintile sees their tax shares go up.

The only chart in which this pattern does not repeat is the "Share of Federal Excise Tax Liabilities"; which is stuff that's indirect taxtation -- e.g. you cannot get around paying it as its built into the cost of stuff you buy, like gasoline taxes; and that table remains largely static from 1979 to 2006; albeit with temporary yearly ticks up and down.