Guest Post by Chris MacIntosh
Ancient Rome was the world’s most powerful empire for 500 years.
At its height, Rome boasted of roads, public baths, and much else that was close to miraculous for the rest of the planet. Then came the Great Fall, and what happened has lessons for the world TODAY.
In his book The City In History (1961), Lewis Mumford explains how Rome went from “Megalopolis to Necropolis.”
This great city set up its own demise in two ways: Panem et circenses (or “bread and circuses”). Mumford says, “Success underwrote a sickening parasitic failure.”
As ancient Rome became prosperous, it became an unsustainable welfare state. Mumford writes that “indiscriminate public largesse” became common. A large portion of the population “took on the parasitic role for a whole lifetime.” More than 200,000 citizens of Rome regularly received handouts of bread from “public storehouses.”
Lewis Mumford also wrote the desire to lead an industrious productive life had severely “weakened.”
So what did people spend their time on? Distractions, which meant circuses.
The Roman people, not working for their livelihood but living off of the prosperity of their city, became numb.
Mumford writes, “To recover the bare sensation of being alive, the Roman populace, high and low, governors, and governed, flocked to the great arenas” for games and distractions.
The entertainment in Rome included “chariot races, spectacular naval battles set in an artificial lake, theatrical pantomimes in which lewder sexual acts were performed.” Today it is social media and porn.
Out of 365 days, more than 200 were public holidays and 93 were “devoted to games at the public expense.”
Consuming entertainment became the primary priority of Roman citizens in Rome’s decadent phase. As Lewis Mumford writes, “Not to be present at the show was to be deprived of life, liberty, and happiness.”
Concrete concerns of life became “subordinate, accessory, almost meaningless.”
Ancient Rome could put half of its total population “in its circuses and theatres” at the same time. A new public holiday was declared to celebrate every military victory. But the number of holidays kept rising even when Rome’s military prowess began to fail…
Mumford writes that no empire had such an “abundance of idle time to fill with idiotic occupations.”
Even the Roman emperors who privately despised the games had to pretend they enjoyed them for “fear of hostile public response.”
Bottom line: The very power and prosperity of ancient Rome set the stage for its collapse.
As welfare states expand around the world today and entertainment options get ever more immersive, we are forced to ask a question: Is this Post-Industrial Civilization Rome, Part II?
Edward Gibbon, the author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, says: “The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the causes of destruction multiplied with conquest; and, as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the fabric yielded.”
All advanced civilizations become “complex systems,” and then rot sets in.
Editor’s Note: The Western system is undergoing substantial changes, and the signs of moral decay, corruption, and increasing debt are impossible to ignore. With the Great Reset in motion, the United Nations, World Economic Forum, IMF, WHO, World Bank, and Davos man are all promoting a unified agenda that will affect us all.
To get ahead of the chaos, download our free PDF report “Clash of the Systems: Thoughts on Investing at a Unique Point in Time” by clicking here.
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“No comparison to the collapse of Rome, they had better roads.”
“Hard Times make strong men , strong men make good times , good times make weak men , and weak men make hard times “. Any questions ? Oh yeah , rinse and repeat .
Sorry, that is missing the big picture. It was the continual impoverishment of more and higher classes of citizens by the wealthy in a rapacious spiral that caused the downfall. If the eastern practice of jubilee and debt forgiveness has ben practiced Rome could have lasted longer.
I would highly recommend Michael Hudson and Radhika Desai. These are long, in depth analysis and they are at episode 16. This will change your understanding of history and the world.
Rome may have fallen but Caesar never did…that Imperial position just morphed into the Pope and his control, misdirection and usurpation of Christs true message.