Topic: Learning from Imperial Rome (Read 21758 times)

@STT - thanks for this:
https://mises.org/library/inflation-and-fall-roman-empire

Anyone who can crack jokes about Diocletian's Monetary
Polices deserves the applause and laughter from the audience.

I'd perhaps highlight the impact of inflation on the plebs and the legions,
and suggest that only a fraction of the relevant information can be found
by the use of gold as a monetary benchmark. Most of the action,
as the Professor did reveal happened in the silver and bronze or brass coinage.

Choices must be made when following history, the lives
of the Elite are not the lives of the common people, and cannot
be revealed together. Most historians are comfortable flipping
from one to the other, but only the best can fully convey what
they see.

Seems Rome was in a situation like UK right now,
A services sector thriving in Rome, while Industry (Farms) in Italy was taking a hit, as Empire expanded and acquired cheaper resources elsewhere. Debt mounted, Real estate crashed for the plebs and the situation reached a critical point. Early warning of that situation could be the Spartacus rebellion, (the weakest chain to feel the economic crisis first). No fiat at the time to easily expand the money supply and resolve liquidity crisis, any attempt to reduce the coin weight results to more hoarding and less liquidity, as vicious circle.  So bankers were taking the economy hostage "enslaving" Free romans.
I think julius eventually resolved the crisis by expansion of the army (employment of plebs) and money supply (Gaul & Germany gold?)

Imperial Rome just is, or was. What matters, is who decides? and the
choices they make. Sometimes there is an unavoidable outcome.

You choose to use a fiat system and that brings rape and pillage as
a lifestyle choice, and forces the expansion of a small village into
an Empire in a winner takes all game of Monopoly. That, in turn,
expands language, law, and lending, all systems with Complexity,
as a net benefit to the community. I'd argue that it was Rome's
ability to engineer better weapons of war, civil, and industrial
systems that gave them the edge. Their habit of slaughtering
everything within cities opposed to their rule was consistent with
their need for growth at any cost. Debt can be a hard master.

Margaret Thatcher famously said that "The problem with socialism is that
eventually you run out of other people's money." Arguably, the same thing
happened to Imperial Rome, and they weren't socialists, were they? 
So, problems everywhere, why? 

Regarding Catiline, I would bracket him between Sulla and Julius Caesar.
Both Sulla and Julius Caesar staged successful coups, suggesting that there
was an underlying cause that promoted charismatic leaders to seize
power. Whether Catiline's rise to challenge the State and his summary
execution were inevitable remains in doubt. I'd also be cautious about
Catiline's character weaknesses because summary execution prevents any
examination of the case for the defence, and character assassination is
often a precursor to political murder. Cicero's actions suggest there was
more to the story than history has recorded. His actions re-wrote Roman Law
to simply read "Might is Right". But all this is for now, mere speculation
and suspicion, an intriguing possibility. All this was prior to Imperial
Rome, begging the question, what changed?   

The Romans were engineers without equal in their time. They built six
storey tenements among other civilian enterprises, an unsurpassed feat
until Otis introduced the safety elevator in 1853. Otis lifts enabled the
building of today's skyscrapers. What sets the old tenements aside from,
say, the Partheon, is the need for that kind of expertise within the
population. That skill, and language, and law, and lending, all require
an informed population.

My recent post suggested that the era of Bread and Circuses, brought
a time when hunger for knowledge was discouraged among the mass of the
Roman population. The Roman elite imported Greek tutors for their
education or spent time in Greece. I'd guess that Roman engineering
education was provided by the Army to their recruits only. Once
Rome's Army became deskilled the breadth of engineering knowledge fell also.

I'll quote Henry Ford in support of this:
"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our
banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would
be a revolution before tomorrow morning."

Did Catiline attempt revolution?

Wow thanks for posting this OP and for the bump.  I'd missed it. 

Surely anyone who has attempted to trace back the mistakes made which have led us to the road which champions stupidity over wisdom, who has attempted to find the origin of the orcs, has found themselves looking at the rise of the Roman empire as the start of the reign of Sauron.  A more obvious disastrous unmitigated disaster for us all is hard to find, though surely the history continues backward still. 

If fiat currency is a symptom of a disease, a mental illness going back generations, follow others - do not think - kill if you can - &c, it appears that the time of the Romans was the start of the misery which has grown massively to where we find ourselves today: destruction of ourselves and embracing of all destruction in lieu of being able to see. 

For these reasons it behooves us to study carefully the paths taken by those morons, lest we stray onto their miserable path. 

Cicero was a Sith lord

Now you have me thinking more about the Catiline fiasco. Cicero has been my favorite politician of the ancient world. But I think he mishandled the Catiline conspiracy. After the conspirators were arrested, he had them executed without trials. That caused a huge controversy and the debate continued for decades.

Cicero was a lawyer and he made a fancy legal argument that, as consul, he had authority to execute without trials during an emergency. When the conspirators were arrested, people were afraid that there could be more conspirators, or that the arrested conspirators would be rescued by a mob that would succeed with the coup. But Romans regarded each citizen's right to a trial as fundamental, and the executions caused a lot of blowback.

I think Cicero weakened the Roman constitution with those executions. That added to the slippery slope of the Roman republic.

If we think about it, suspending a constitutional right during an emergency set a dangerous precedent. Now we have prisoners in Guantanamo held indefinitely without trial. Now the US government executes its citizens without trial by blowing them up with drones. Do you see what Cicero started?

Cicero really screwed up another situation years later. Caesar and Pompey invited him to join them in a triumvirate to govern Rome. Cicero declined. If he had accepted, he was the perfect guy to mediate the conflicts between Caesar and Pompey. That's why they wanted him. If he had joined the triumvirate, Cicero could have prevented the civil war, and maybe helped to reform the republic, at least for another while.

So I'm mad at Cicero. But he spent his life trying to preserve the republic.

Whoever wrote that opinion about ancient Rome had a lot of anti-Roman biases. Bread and circuses weren't the trivial things he suggests. Those things began with the Roman republic, not Imperial Rome.

Bread refers to wheat. It's important to understand that food was expensive for the masses. The Roman government sold discount wheat to the poor, and provided a free ration of corn to a lot of people too. They could make cereals and bread out of wheat, and use corn for different meals and even to feed livestock. Think of all of that as the first food stamps program.

Circuses refers to different forms of entertainment that some Roman politicians provided for the public. There was no internet or video games. Races, sports, gladiator fights, public executions of criminals by lions all provided entertainment. But those were also civic events to stimulate pride and harmony.

Whoever wrote that quote seems to think erroneously that during Imperial Rome society was dumbed down. That's unbelievable rubbish. The wealth allowed the arts and poetry to flourish. "Education fell to zero"? Really? Then how did they develop a civil service to run a growing empire?

Caligula was a psycho emperor. Catiline was a politician who organized a failed coup while Cicero was consul. Cicero spent the rest of his life bragging to everyone who would listen that he suppressed the Catiline conspiracy. Good times.

"Boredom"
Humans need to keep on moving, if they can't move ahead they will move backwards, they can't stand still.
Romans needed a breakthrough, which never came. Remember they used to say that they discovered anything that was to discover. Couple that with the fact that they conquered what was to be conquer, they pretty much reached a plateu in science/wealth/arts which no peak on the horizon. It was then that they turned to the mystical/unseen and started to introduce foreign religions and ideas (Caligula god-king), the breakthrough eventually came in the form of Christianity.

The cycle between science and mystical.
Jung would refer to it as the spirits of the times and depths, so its a deeply rooted personal conflict that manifests into larger scale, ie Helinistic/Roman -> Christianity -> Enlightment -> Internet

Money should erode imho as everything in nature and most importantly "trust". So a reset mechanism in a crypto to simulate inflation is consistent with reality. The only things that always gain momentum, end up in a bang.
People always confuse money with assets see (red above) money is asset, asset is not money.

How is it anything that diverges from bitcoin perspective is auto-tagged authoritarian, never-mind don't answer.

I would say that a cryptocurrency that resets itself is probably rather counter-productive, and in my opinion a terrible idea if you want it to go on for more than a generation. The crypto could never have any considerable value because it would all get wiped in the future, and thus investing large amounts or placing the value at greater than $1/coin would be completely useless and just be looking for a lot of lost wealth.

It is a good concept for an authoritarian government that should never expect for their currency to have any value in the international stage, but it sucks as a free market idea.

Great job buddy! For me personally, the main conclusion from the history of all empires is that none of them is eternal.

 

There is a topic related to Imperial Rome that I still puzzle
over. Now, within the US Presidential campaigns, I may have found
a new perspective on the outcomes. The two quotes below are
enlightening:

Trump "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters,"
Clinton "Like with a cloth or something?"

Short on policy, long on Entertainment. Imperial Rome was famous
for its "Bread and Circuses" - just the sort of nebulous concept
that defies the ability to attach numbers. This made the true
importance and impact of this policy difficult to grasp, and
allowed it to escape its proper inspection.

Bread and Circuses flows from context: With the defeat of Antony
and Cleopatra, Rome's wealth and survival were assured. Uncertainty
was reduced to storms and floods and to political infighting. One
form of instability leads, I suggest, to a form of stability.

Thus Rome moved from a Republic to an Empire. But with Wars, and
Rumours of Wars gone as a topic of conversation, and little new
in the way of weather, and even political and religious structures
set in stone, what were the plebs, the Roman Mob, to do for
Entertainment?

The last thing an Emperor wanted was his policies on taxation and
welfare debated on the streets of Rome by a knowledgeable population.
Thus was born a social contract - "Bread and Circuses" - the plebs 
were provided with sufficient bread and entertainment and would
leave the running of the Empire to the Elite. For the bulk of the
population, the marginal economic utility of education fell to zero.

With these thoughts in mind, I can again ask myself these questions:
What was the real story behind Caligula?
Who was Catiline?

Cool story, bro!

t may be a while before I put another post up here.
I have done all I can to set out the lessons available
from Imperial Roman history. The data just is not there
to allow me to do more without diluting the certainty
that I prefer. You either understand the things written
here and can see in our world the limited options to
have anything close a best choice or you don't. Read!
and try to understand that then, as now, choices for
everyone are becoming more restricted as time passes.

I'd suppose there are some who will read this, and say
they're just here to know whether buy or to sell,
(reprising the role of Cypher in this real world.) To
you I can say there are no good choices, just close
this web-page now and forget you've been here.

For you persistent readers, I'd suggest following up
Martin Armstrong's predictions of a stronger US$ and
the deflation that implies. In other areas I would
suggest caution when considering his views. I think
we both agree that the next year or two will be quite
difficult to navigate.

Bitcoin? It's best hope is Russian acceptance, but
do not hold your breath on that. So maybe next year?

My view of the world may differ from that of Martin's.
I view the world more as a Game of Thrones. The Dothraki
are in the middle east, but I leave it to you to put
names to the Lannisters and to the Baratheons, and to
the other components some refer to as the Deep State.
The balance of power swings this way and that, but for
the present, governments and companies are directed by
these others. In turn they set policies and taxation
and choose war and peace.

I'll agree with Martin that all of the above are subject
to the ebbs and flows of the natural world, and thus have
less power than might be supposed. These rhythms differ
from those of Imperial Rome. Oil has joined grain as
binding resources on the economy, and financial markets
make ponzi financing possible, but there now seems to
be a human cycle that acts every seven years or so.

And if "they" have less power, then "we" are limited
only by our inability to see how to act in our best
interests. "They" will do their best to keep that
knowledge from us, and that is both their strength
and their weakness. Choose wisely.

   As in the debasing of antiquity, I get the feeling at some point the game of monetary musical chairs is going to be over, and someone is going to lose big. Probably the people who are not aware of what's going on, aka, the working people.

Greece drawing the line on debt, the oil shock and the drums of war getting louder.

Debt forgiveness appears to be coming.  By force through default or with peace through negotiation.

A brief history on the politics of debt, banking and religion: http://armstrongeconomics.com/2015/02/06/debt-forgiveness-the-seventh-year/

What you describe is a feature not a bug, I agree with your hypothesis, but will add there is more at play, I think Gavin is correct to caution investors, if you're correct and miners are dumping it's cheep coin, but if Gavin is warning investors to stay out it's a cautious Bitcoin is a highly risky idea.

Still to stay on topic I think history has a lot to teach us, it's just understanding it that limits us.

Just the connotations the word barbarians invokes clouds our judgment enough to obscure the facts.  

A brief comment on today's bitcoin pricing: The price is descending at a rate
that suggests that the big miners are selling bitcoin to pay for the electricity
they consume, and hoarding the rest. At that rate, expect a price below $200
by April. As I said at the beginning of this thread, we should think about
an improved form of cryptocurrency.

Throughout history religion and wealth are intertwined. This is not something
that banks or places of worship are anxious for you to know, but this is
definitely something worth thinking about.

The bronze age Temples of ancient mesopotamia gave credibility to silver tokens,
turning these into money. Later the Greeks seemed to prefer their banks to be
separate from their Gods.

The Temple of Saturn held the Treasury of Rome, and from there in 49 BC Julius
Caesar seized 15,000 gold bars, 30,000 bars of silver, and 30 million sesterces.
The Senators had fled Rome after Caesar crossed the Rubicon, and with them
went the debts that were owed.

From that time until around 300 AD, the Roman Temples were safe, except from
barbarian raids, though over centuries gold accumulated there. Consider this
when reading about Constantinople - www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/second-rome

"It seemed impossible to many that the capital could be moved. Nevertheless,
Constantine identified the site of Byzantium as the correct place: a city where
an emperor could sit, readily defended, with easy access to the Danube or the
Euphrates frontiers, his court supplied from the rich gardens and sophisticated
workshops of Roman Asia, his treasuries filled by the wealthiest provinces of the empire."

So Constantinople rose as it was destined to fall, with the wealth of pagan
Gods transferred from their Temple banks to the Emperor's treasury, a scene
likely repeated as the boundaries of empire ebbed and flowed.

Note also that Constantinople did not attempt to circulate a silver coinage,
and that silver was scarce in the western empire until maritime trade brought
silver from South America a thousand years later. Where did the silver go, if
not to China to pay for silks and spices?

At first glance, the Byzantine Empire had a stable currency for close to a
thousand years. Closer examination suggests it began by extinguishing debts
and seizing treasure, and was in a state of constant turmoil in which
Constantinople and its trade were the only fixed features, until centuries later
the Fourth Crusade ended its primacy.

Excess wealth, like excess debt, seems to invite destruction.