By the last century of the republic,corruption had become so ingrained that censors saw the need of instituting stringent laws to be appointed senator and for sitting senators.It was not unusual for some wealthy individual to complain they had over payed to have someone appointed.Corruption in one form or another was always present even after the republican era ended however it reached its epic in the last two centuries of the empire.Greed,disease,an opulent life style,reliance on a mercenary military and a diluted sense of patriotism were some of the factors in bringing the greatest empire to it's end.Our founding fathers,in emulating the roman model where well aware of the above shortcomings and compensated with a precise set of laws.What they did not foresee was the development of an R15 military assault weapon that could be so readily purchased,nuclear energy,an internet that could spread false or truth so rapidly and what I see the biggest treat of them all:Climate change. We are are a crossroad.The result of morbid nationalism is usually war.Yesterdays wars were brutal.Tomorrows wars could be fatal
Clinton and Obama were presented as candidates for president with the approval of the elites. Wealth dominates our electoral system. The only way to prevent it is to outlaw political contributions and have a government funded system that gives each candidate equal money and TV time. Then they will have to discuss their ideas. Our present system was made worse by Citizen United. It is actually Corporations United.
7
Excellent commentary! You might find Thomas Madden's Empires of Trust an interesting read that addresses just this question of Pax Romana v. Pax Americana.
Another apt analogy from history might be to compare the US to Athens during the Golden Age of Greece. Our present alliances may be likened to the Delian League, which the Athenians organized, sometimes with threats and compulsion, to protect against the Persians, and later, Sparta. During the Peloponnesian War, following the death of Pericles, Athenian democracy degenerated into factional disputes leading to the rise of demagogues such as Cleon the Tanner and Alcibiades. They led Athens into a series of disasters and a humiliating defeat at the hands of Sparta, from which it never fully recovered.
Personally, every time I hear Trump open his mouth, I am reminded of Cleon the Tanner. I hope our fate is different from that of Athens!
4
The Pax Romana survived bad emperors. Does Paul assume the American can’t? If not why not?
1
Read "Why Nations Fail." US is in danger of failing for the same reasons so many other wealthy, relatively open countries - including Rome - have in the past. Oligarchs get power and want ever more, killing the goose that would otherwise keep laying golden eggs.
10
Another aspect of Roman soft power was its inexorability. Whether your revolt was in North Africa or Armenia, once the legions got you in their sights, whether it took two years or three years, they were going to turn up on your doorstep. And not in a very good mood either.
3
what destroyed Roman Empire also brought down the Moghul Empire in India!
1
Good column, right up until the end, when in my view Professor Krugman seriously oversimplifies the situation.
Yes, the barbarians are in the Oval Office; yes, there was an assist from Russia. But as a lifelong liberal Democrat, I'm going to place a good deal of the blame for Trump squarely on the leadership of the Democratic Party for the last 26 years, and especially on its last two presidents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
It was under Bill Clinton that my Democrats deliberately decided to turn their collective backs on regular, high-school-educated working people and union labor to become the party of Silicon Valley, Hollywood, Academia, and Wall Street. In the words of Thomas Frank, who thoroughly documented this awful move in "Listen Liberal - What Ever Happened to the Party of the People", the Democrats decided to become "the party of the 10%".
Barack Obama continued the trend, rescuing Wall Street at the expense of Main Street, and letting the criminals on that street who tanked the economy completely off the hook.
The result - a completely corrupt state of affairs that tens of millions of voters understandably rejected. Hillary Clinton clearly didn't care about America's regular, between-the-coasts working people any more than her husband or Obama did.
So yes, for the moment, we've thrown away something wonderful. The important question is whether or not we'll fight to get it back.
13
Not so fast. Yes, there President Obama should have done more to hold Wall Street people to account but his accomplishments overall lifted up all Americans.
6
Here are some of the citations worth review.
http://pleasecutthecrap.com/obama-accomplishments/comment-page-21/
5
Hello, Ann -
It's nice that President Obama provided money to 9/11 first-responders; it's also nice that he saved the auto industry. Yes, he did a lot.
But your link doesn't negate what I stated. He repeatedly tried to bargain away Social Security; he didn't even enforce anti-trust laws that were on the books; he never supported organized labor; he never supported public schools with union teachers.
"Listen Liberal" by Thomas Frank opened my eyes to what my Democrats have been up to since 1990. I am furious at them.
And your argument that Obama lifted up all Americans doesn't hold water, or all those Americans who had been lifted up wouldn't have voted for Trump. They would have been delighted with Hillary, who was going to be Obama's third term.
3
Yes I believe that Trump and his supporters are the modern barbarians. Extreme but that is how I feel.
4
As far back as I can remember there was always a concept that the world not only "owed" us money, but should be on their hands and knees in eternal gratitude for our bailing out the world from Nazi Facism and Japanese Imperialism. This was of course during the 1950's and through the next several decades. In fact there are still pockets of hard line attitudes that the world should be beholden to our way of life that continues to be the planet's protector and policeman.
Why go over the egocentric and ethnocentrism that looked at the world with a singular eye? Much of it has to do with the reality of our political makeup. Back then the path of the least amount of analysis was the way. But a huge divide was coming.
The convergence of racial equality, women's rights, and a failing military mission in Vietnam was soon to explode in our faces. Not since the Civil War was there going to be philisophical-political divide that would so undermine the pretensiveness of PAX Americana. Rage began to drive the wedges between us.
There was always a stubborn limited view of everything that seethed underneath the streets, in Corporations, in White America, in neighborhoods, in Black and minority America.
But jobs, economic health, and access to quality medical care came at too high a price. And Civil Rights continued to prove an unresolved gaping wound.
Now comes donald j. trump who dug of the lost skeletons in our closet, epousing that old line hate of everything not US.
8
"America has done some terrible and shameful things, but nothing like what the Romans did when they got angry". seriously? ever heard about what America has done to other countries? Recently I read about the after effects of agent orange in Vietnam that continue to affect people today! That is beyond terrible and shameful- it is evil.
9
So now Trump is the barbarian inside the gate in a Roman Empire analogy. I suppose that’s an improvement on the never-ending Nazi Germany/Adolph Hitler analogies that started about five minutes after Trump won. Who or what is next in the evil historical comparison sweepstakes? Genghis Khan? The Black Death? Get a grip, people.
Trump as Hitler is only valid for the way they both handled the truth. The better comparison is with Kaiser Wilhelm II: vain, egotistical, childish, throwing tantrums, etc)
12
Rome had the Praetorian Guard which protected the Emperor while he kept providing Bread and Circuses , until he went nuts when they, well, assasinated him, as they did with Caligula.
2
Slavery, Native American Genocide, Nagasaki, Mass Incarceration. That's an empire about which to be proud!
5
When Americans do something irrational and destructive, racial animus is a hypothesis that must be considered.
5
Actually it was massive illegal migration by Huns, Visigoths and Vandals that finally brought down the Western Empire. The Eastern Roman Empire lasted for nearly another thousand years however until Constantinople fell to Islam in 1453. Are there any lessons for modern here? Quot homines, tot sententiae.
6
So many men so many minds...So many heads so many wits...
So? Too much illegal immigration (from where?) will bring down this empire?
4
@Trevor Hughes Immigration was not illegal. If you want to use historical analogies, try to get the history right.
2
@Trevor Hughes
Finally! The one response that makes a clear historical analogy. Thank you, but is anyone listening? Everyone is so intent on making excuses for their Parties that they are not listening to reason. The liberals for some reason want to let the Barbarians in in droves, and the Barbarian (Caligula) in the Oval Office is trying to stop them from letting them in and doing it all wrong. As an immigrant I sympathize and empathize with those poor people, but where and when does it stop? STOP ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION! Try any means until we find what works. Fence, drones, troops, whatever, all at once because the sooner the better.
Paul Krugman is one of the few writers on the NYTimes' for whom I still have a grudging respect.
And then he goes and channels David Brooks.
It just gets worse and worse.
3
Not to mention the fact that we have replaced Marcus Aurelius with Caligula.
18
Ha. Rome equal to Assyria? Didn't have massive technological breakthroughs? What ancient planet are you on? Please read a bit more.
Here's but one important distinction between the two. Plumbing.
13
Congratulations on the reference to Monty Python's "Life of Brian", which seems more relevant than ever these days in so many ways.
But I do have to take issue with dismissing our cruelty as nowhere near as bad as the Romans could be.
What we did in Southeast Asia - especially to non-combatant countries Cambodia and Laos - surely surpasses the Romans in indiscriminate cruelty. Without even an attempt to minimize civilian casualties, in nations that weren't even part of our misguided war in Vietnam, we dumped more explosives than were used in the entirety of World War II, nuclear weapons included.
We drenched whole forests in imperishable dioxins that are still causing incredible numbers of cancers and birth defects fifty years on -- all so that our bombers could see more clearly to render a living hell.
Eisenhower (after building it up to such a great degree) warned of the power the military-industrial complex would have on our society. But that was only the first and most obvious oligarchy to pull us astray. The oil, gas, and auto industries had their turn to poison us and drive us to war. Then the great banks swept away what few walls there were between wealth and power.
Now, we are a fragile ruin of a Republic, teetering on the brink of an irretrievable turn toward autocracy and collapse.
16
Every empire eventually succumbs to human stupidity. Humans have been able to alter our world in more ways than the Romans ever could have imagined, but at the center of our modern world is us. We haven't changed. We are still sex obsessed, greedy, lazy, jealous, irrational hairless apes that arrogantly think that we have the whole thing figured out. We don't and eventually it will be our end.
12
Rome didn’t have a tech takeoff because it had slavery. It was too easy to conscript labor compared to inventing labor-saving technologies. They had salt mines and we have mass incarceration. Eventually this mindset led to Diocletian who tied peasants to the land, effectively making them slaves. This ushered in the Middle Ages and lasted 1000 years. Good luck to us all.
3
@DenisPombriant The Roman Empire was one of the most technologically advanced civilizations of antiquity, with some of the more advanced concepts and inventions forgotten during the turbulent eras of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Gradually, some of the technological feats of the Romans were rediscovered and/or improved upon during the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Modern Era; with some in areas such as civil engineering, construction materials, transport technology, and certain inventions such as the mechanical reaper, not improved upon until the 19th century. The Romans achieved high levels of technology in large part because they borrowed technologies from the Greeks, Etruscans, Celts, and others.
3
@DenisPombriant The Roman Empire was one of the most technologically advanced civilizations of antiquity, with some of the more advanced concepts and inventions forgotten during the turbulent eras of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Gradually, some of the technological feats of the Romans were rediscovered and/or improved upon during the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Modern Era; with some in areas such as civil engineering, construction materials, transport technology, and certain inventions such as the mechanical reaper, not improved upon until the 19th century. The Romans achieved high levels of technology in large part because they borrowed technologies from the Greeks, Etruscans, Celts, and others.
here's a small example: https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/why-ancient-concrete-is-stronger-1.4193226?fbclid=IwAR2fq6cJkKBohIaj70v2t85Nqfln1F0jvHmi7t01AlDoX7wV7804dYC2feY
What Did the Romans Ever Do for Us? - restate this question using another Alphabet than the Roman and you are close to finding an answer.
8
Rome, and ancient Greece, were models at the creation of the USA, thanks to our Founding Fathers, many of whom (Jefferson, Hamilton ...) were capable of reading Cato in Latin. Their very intention was to protect the Republic from the barbarians within. I would like to think we can still win that battle, like in the November elections.
11
I fully agree with your comparison-conclusions.
But concernig the viciousness of Roman power, just remember that : Christians to the Lions!
and cruelty of the persecution of christians, even up to the times of emperor Marco Aurelio
This is one of your best.
'A Distant Mirror' by Barbara Tuckman also rings clear to where we're going....
1
Unless I'm mistaken, I believe many of Dr. Krugman's points were made, if in a breezier fashion, in Monty Python's "Life of Brian."
2
Unrestrained consumerism is not benign. It was bound to burst its seams. I think that’s what’s happening now. It’s too simplistic to see it as bad guys destroying stuff. Anyway, once robotics take their logical place as uncomplaining slaves in the machine we call capitalism, economies as we know them will collapse. Talk about destruction from within.
Frighteningly, the barbarians aren't at the gates or just in the White House, but occupying many of the rural parts of this country, especially in the South and Midwest.
8
Personally I think the events during the fall of the Roman republic propelled by greedy senators and the rise of populists as Clodius, Marc Anthony and Caesar serve as a better comparison. Not service to the republic but just own glory and self interest led Rome into the chaos of civil war and the dominance of crazy emperors like Nero, Caligula, just to name a few.
4
Economic sustainability always seems to get left out of economic discourse.
More a question then a comment - I wonder how much the availability of new lands, peoples and wealth to conquer fueled the rise and sustainability of the Roman model of conquest?
Like a ponzi scheme that runs out of new suckers, or Bernie Madeoff running out of new victims to feed the earlier existing clients, maybe Rome just ran out of gas, because it ran out of the fuel of war spoils needed to keep the Roman war machine and spoils distribution system, well oiled.
Can we agree it is self-evident that any economic activity that is dependent on a non-renewable resource, cannot outlast the resource itself. When the resource collapses, any activity dependent on the resource must also collapse.
1
Hey Paul, what day is today? Go take a look at the CALENDER.
Yep, it's Monday June 18th.
You can thank Rome for that.
4
Krugman deludes himself, just the teensiest bit. In the decades after WW II, "soft power" was what the U.S. exercised with respect to Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and a few others. What we exercised with respect to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, much of Latin America, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. was something else entirely. I'd call it a "world order" where the capitalist/developed nations were no longer at sword's point, and where they agreed to predate on the others.
7
"It’s a terrible story. We built something wonderful, and we’re throwing it all away for no good reason."
I actually agree with the ending, Paul. It's just your premise that's faulty. The only conclusion you ever reach is that Republicans are solely responsible for the failing American state at home and abroad. Now it's the "barbarian" Donald Trump tearing things apart from the inside.
Rome fell apart for a variety of reasons, all of which led to its eventual downfall at the hands of foreign invaders. But Rome crumbled from the inside. It was corrupt, politically, personally and economically. It took centuries to accomplish.
We are going through the same process. The election of Donald Trump isn't the reason we're failing. This has been over a hundred years in the making, involving Democrats and Republicans alike. Citizens, corporations and an endless list of special interests all with their hands out, expecting largesse from the government, not unlike the "bread and circuses" approach of the Roman Empire. Rome was unable to control its borders and allowed some of those barbarians to secure it. Rome inflated its currency through debasement, ruining its economy. And we have this nasty habit of trying to impose our values, government and way of life in parts of the world that are not ready to accept it.
I agree that America is on a downhill slide. I disagree that only Republicans are responsible.
3
Well said. Excellent observations. My respect for ancient Rome keeps growing, as my respect for Trump hits rock bottom.
In terms of well run ancient empires, I've recently learned that the Incan empire compared favorably with the Roman, until the Spaniards did all they could to destroy it. And predecessors of the Incans built pyramids well before the Egyptians, along with being ahead of the Egyptians with inventing weaving; a written language (with knots); and possibly monotheism.
6
Excuse me, Mr Krugman, but I must disagree.
Vietnam eclipsed all the actions of the entire Roman empire in terms of the unnecessary murder of innocent people - by a factor of probably 100. Roman legions might have killed a lot of people, but they never killed millions - there just weren't that many people back then.
Similarly, the criminal and criminally stupid invasion of Iraq caused more death and destruction in 10 years than ever occurred in any ten year period of the Roman domination of Europe - and the Romans never started wars just to ensure the Emperor got re-elected (Maybe if Dubya didn't have to be re-elected he wouldn't have invaded Iraq - that's my theory).
No, whatever America does now, it is against a backdrop of the worse barbarism and disgusting cruelty that human civilisation has seen - with the one obvious exception. What might put that reality into perspective is that when Americans murder thousands, or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands or millions - they do it while claiming they are doing it for peaceful reasons. That just makes it worse.
But you are right that the Pax Americana is drawing to a close. Having abandoned responsibility as a policy and principle in the world, the Pax Americana is now going to be replaced by the Era of China - and whatever that means. In a few years China will be calling the shots economically, and that will get a boost when they retake Taiwan when Trump starts his re-election war against Iran. Just watch.
6
Pax Americana was not pretty. Books were written in the late Sixties criticizing American imperialism in foreign policy. Of course this was because of Vietnam. With hindsight we can better see that Pax Americana was the bulwark against the Soviets and to a lesser extent, China, in the Cold War. With the fall of the Soviet Union, American hegemony was complete. There is only one nation and leader who finds this unacceptable, and who seeks to restore his nation to the power of the Soviet Union and begin the reconquest of Eastern Europe. That is Russia and Putin. To do what he wants to do, the US-led Western alliance has to be destroyed before his tanks can roll. Who better than Trump to destroy it?
7
Apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?
9
I love Krugman, but I read this Op mainly for the intelligent use of the title.
I hardly think the Roman exploitation of the Mediterranean world was an example of "soft power." An empire that had ended a slave rebellion with 6,000 crucifixions - all along the 100 miles or so of road from Rome almost to Naples - was still pretty brutal during the post-Republic Pax Romana. Crucifixion, a very effective form of domestic terrorism designed to keep people in line, was practiced till 337 CE when new Christian convert Constantine abolished it. Yes, there were incentives for people and especially local elites to keep in line - but I would argue that more important was the brutality that would follow if you didn't!
6
Did you know that one of the benefits of being a Roman Citizen was that you could not be crucified? I think your understanding of how brutality was used is mistaken.
2
No historian will ever be able to say with certainty how much of Rome's success came from the stick (or business end of a gladius) and how much came from the carrot (fresh water, safe roads, prosperity, etc.). I think about the most recent "empires" that tried to reproduce Rome's power -- Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. As soon as they fell, the Allies (and many of their own citizens) made a concerted effort to wipe out all traces of their abhorrent existence.
Fifteen-and-a-half centuries since the Western empire collapsed, and all parts of her former domain (not just Italy) still preserve her physical ruins and other signs of their connection to Rome. Augustus and his successors must have done something right.
6
Rome's policies for assimilating conquered peoples were in place long before the Pax Romana's beginning in 31 BCE. During the third and the first third of the second centuries BCE, Rome used the same combination of cruelty and patient political reasonableness to secure the Italian peninsula. After defeating an enemy city state the Romans would offer it a kind of half citizenship, where local matters were left in the hands of the city’s elite. Only matters of defense would be decided by the Roman senate. That, in effect, turned the defeated tribes of Italy into Rome’s allies, with sets of obligations that flowed from the defeated Italian tribes to Rome and back from Rome to those tribes.
This system was put to a severe test during the Second Carthaginian War. Hannibal inflected three crushing defeats on the Roman armies at the River Trebia, Lake Trasimene and Cannae that cost Rome over 122,000 dead soldiers. No other state up to that time had ever survived such a devastating series of body blows, and none would going forward until operation Barbarossa nearly 2000 years later.
And yet Rome survived. It was able to do so because of the alliance system it had set up with various other Italian tribes during the previous century and a half. Rome's allies, for the most part, stuck with Rome because Rome had shown that it would honor its agreements requiring it to protect its allies. So even for a super state, allies matter. Someone should let Trump know.
40
It is worth it to point out that what eventually defeated Hannibal was Romes refusal to engage him when he was at the City of Rome gates. They could not lose if they did not fight.
3
Actually, that's only partially correct. The Romans did refuse to engage Hannibal in Italy. But while executing that Fabian strategy, Publius Scipio conducted a brilliant campaign in Iberia, Carthage's most important colony, which resulted in the conquest of most of the peninsula for Rome. He then invaded the Carthaginian homeland in Tunisia in 203 BCE, forcing the recall of Hannibal and his army from Italy by the Carthaginian senate, and in 202 BCE Scipio defeated the great Hannibal at the battle of Zama.
But Scipio Africanus' successful attacks against Carthage would have been impossible without the support of Rome's Italian allies. And those allies would not have stuck with Rome if Rome had acted as a rapacious master instead of a partner. Rome's strategy for dealing with Hannibal in Italy was predicated on that residual good will.
6
And it paved the path for the ultimate unification/Romanization of Italy. The Social War of 91-88 BC was not so much about the allies breaking free from Rome as it was about them winning recognition as full "Romans."
3
The problem that flummoxed Rome, as it does most authoritarian regimes, is how to realize a peaceful and orderly succession of power. It is likely that the myriad of these internal conflicts would eventually weaken Rome in the conflicts with those beyond their borders and/or prevented those borders from being expanded and/or maintained.
3
Dear Paul,
I suspect that from an economist's perspective there's little wisdom the ancient world has to offer. In all other respects -- and those do all exist -- the ancient world provides lessons more valuable than gold.
14
What about China?
The country may have been more technologically advanced and prosperous across a large area at the time of Rome and beyond.
4
@phil sutin you might be off topic here, unlike Rome China was never a Republic
I don't think the Vietnamese would agree with this: "Not only are we vastly richer than Rome could have imagined, we’re also a lot nicer: America has done some terrible and shameful things, but nothing like what the Romans did when they got angry."
After all, with a death toll of more than 3 million, a country of around 30 million was literally decimated; the number of injured was even larger.
15
And yet the Vietnamese, in their wisdom, have largely moved on from the catastrophe that we inflicted upon them, while the US seems to still be fighting the Covil War that preceded the American war in Vietnam by 100 years. There is a lesson there.
3
Lets see....?
Our CALENDAR.
Our NUMERICAL SYSTEM.
Most of our LANGUAGE.
FOOTBALL STADIUMS (Sports Spectacle basically).
The list is endless.
15
" rejecting the values that made America truly great"
American is/was truly great? That's not what progressives have been telling me since the 1960s.
We are built on a foundation whose essence was Manifest Destiny. True much of the settlement of North American was bootstrapped off of the actions of the Spanish Conquistadors and the follow up colonialization by Spain. Some even say that Spain civilized much of the New World.
The language of these conquerors is still prevalent today in many parts of the US as a lasting tribute to their accomplishments.
Slavery and racial segregation played and still plays a part in the structure of the US. Just look at the public school system in the great city of New York. If you believe some of the posters on other NYT OP-ED boards, open admissions broke CCNY and they are fighting against applying the same admission policies to some of their stellar performing high schools.
Our military greatness rests on the ability to unleash the energy in the nucleus of an atom. It was demonstrated at the end of WW2 and anyone doubting its impact is invited to read Emperor Hirohito's speech: Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the War.
Our fossil fuel economy provides wealth to our citizens as well as to the many nations who sell products to us. Do you think any of these countries will be held accountable for exploiting global climate change?
These are the things that made the US great. I can admit that. Can Krugman?
7
"...the Spanish civilized much of the New World"... ??
The Spanish enslaved the Acoma people in the name of their corrupt religion, cutting off the right foot of the men so that they couldn't run away. How civilized.
The Acoma were, and are, more civilized than the Spanish. They did not stand in need of being civilized, the truth is that it was the other way around; the Spanish stood in need of being civilized. Slaughter and slavery are worse than useless as foundations for building a civilization.
1
one thing the romans did not have was a racist view of their slaves. since they had no compunction about owning slaves they did not have the need to sub-humanize them. there were many routes to slavery. a free person could become a slave almost as easily as person from a defeated enemy. likewise there were avenues for slaves to become free people. and most significantly once freed there was no stigma of being sub-human attached to the former slave.
25
They had Emperors of many different races too.
4
Kyle Harper's "The Fate of Rome" is on a shelf waiting its turn to be read, somewhere behind "Cat Wars."
Rome had some awful emperors and recurrent civil wars, though I can't think of anyone who wanted to voluntarily give the Empire over to barbarians. Split it for administrative convenience (Constantinople = Los Angeles?).
Thanks to busy cities and open travel and free trade, all the way to India and China, and no doubt well into Africa, the empire was terribly vulnerable to epidemics, which likely had a great deal to do with its decline and the transformation of the West into a more rural, more fragmented, and far poorer region.
5
Paul, you are a respected and erudite scholar. I'm a rank amateur at history. But I remember a passage from Thomas Cahill on the Roman conquest. A farmer in Gaul said, "The Romans don't want some of what I produce. They want it all." Hadrian wanted Great Briton. Julius Caesar was contemplating an invasion of India shortly before his death. They wanted it all. Even tiny Masada couldn't be left in peace. And there's that telling monologue in the movie "Patton" when he says he dreams its his due to have a glorious, triumphant procession as conqueror, with the spoils pulled in wagons and conquered chiefs in chains leading the line of March. Patton wanted that as his rightful due. The Roman generals were not to be cheated of that glorious honor. paul in bessemer
1
Some serious history BOOKS might alter our perceptions.
2
Oh it's a very good reason Professor.
It may not seem like one to those of us who don't see it or who see it but think it's trivial.
It's the same reason why (almost) no dominance in history is permanently sustainable without the reliable order that arises from absolute chaos.
That chaos translates itself into a lot of diversity, a lot of languages, a lot of irreverence, a lot of struggle, a lot of suffering (and love), and almost no individual who understands it well.
The only response to that chaos is to provide the basic ingredients of life and letting the chaos continue to evolve.
America has unresolved issues. We all have unresolved issues. The reason why kakistrocacy can even arise, is
1. by accident and
2. when people fail to act ( thus affirming the size of the kakistos ).
Clearly the first has happened. Let us see if the second will.
It is as you say, unless we see the defeat of these impulses by "legitimate means," we will slide back.
The fact that there even is a set of rules that Americans agree to win or lose by, in their intramural discourse, is a remarkable thing.
It hasn't come to that. Let us prepare. Watch, learn and wait.
And let us inoculate Russia when all this is over.
I happen to have been reading a lot of Roman history myself lately, the Roman republic and the Roman empire as well. And Krugman's warnings about the folly of seeing parallels too closely are exceptionally cogent. Everyone since the first Rome fell has seen themselves as the New Rome, and they've always been wrong. He comes close to falling into the trap here, but I flatter myself that I have seen the right way to do it, and he has as well: See what things are similar, and see what that means. In my case I've been thinking of how according to one source, Sulla (the late republican dictator) tried to restore the conservative oligarchy, but to do so, eliminated many opponents — the very people who could best have maintained what he did — and left only the venal to rule. Well, the parallel is obvious, but even if Rome was different in every way, and its culture too, people don't change that much, and neither does power politics. Let's hope the parallel is an illusion, because if it's not, well... Come on, asteroid!
5
The Romans invented a way of life that changed the western world. Roads and bridges and aqueducts so well made and enduring that some are still in use. Laws that set standards of behavior that provided order and consistency for all within the lands under it’s control. An economy that was over arching across the whole of it with coinage to enable trade in which all were a part. To a great extend our way of life today resembles much of the way of life then.
But politically Rome was never stable and liberty never really took hold as it has in the modern world. People had great ideas and philosophies of life but it was a civilization where the strong exploited the weak, and there was a lot of violence which we today would find intolerable. Power, wealth, pleasure and the avoidance of pain dominated the lives of everyone. It was relatively better than what people in all the lands outside experienced.
8
Romans built the first real Bridges. You drive over them everyday.
The Romans built the first "London Bridge" near and on the site that the more current ones have stood.
When they retreated from Britannia (a Roman Word) it fell into disrepair. The Saxons and other waring factions on the Isles stood and watched the wreck of it for hundreds of years (in a planet of the Apes "Statue of Liberty" like scene) because they couldn't figure out how it was built or how to fix it.
Whatever. Rome ruled.
5
A few comparisons with the Roman Empires --
The wealth of the Romans was based on peace and trade, facilitated by the system of public roads. Their military strength was enhanced by a well-developed system of alliances. Trump seeks to undermine both trade and alliances.
The Eastern Roman Empire suffered devasting outbreaks of plague (Plague of Justinian) in the 6th century. We're increasingly threatened by novel diseases like Ebola and Zika, a situation worsened by climate change. Rational responses would include increased assistance for containing diseases where they originate (including the famous s**thole countries) and more investment in public health at home. Instead, the administration proposed severe cuts to the Center for Disease Control and other public health programs. The Byzantines had an excuse for ineffectual responses to infectious disease. We don't.
The Roman Empire benefited from immigration, including skilled craftsmen and traders. We attract highly skilled immigrants and young people who seek security or economic gain, a good thing in view of our aging population. We can and should control our borders. But we need a rational, controlled system of immigration combining humanity with self-interest, not racism and religious bigotry. People who blame the fall of Rome on immigration need to differentiate between immigration and a barbarian invasion. Being brown or Muslim doesn't make one a barbarian invader.
17
To answer your main question - pizza.
4
Neapolitans invented Pizza.
3
That was the Neapolitans. NYC Neapolitan transplants to be precise.
1
@Ignatius J. Reilly you must be kidding , pizza is part of Neapolitan culture and cited in historic records well before the first Italian emigrants started to arrive to the US. The Margherita (Tomato-Mozzarella - basil) was created in Naples in Honor of visiting Queen Margherita , this was a new - exotic version (tomatoes were a central American novelty) at the end of the 1800's but this was based on existing pizza marinara ( oregano, oil and garlic) which was an ancient food for the poor eaten in Napoli for centuries. Americans should take pride in having introduce tomatoes, potatoes , peppers , corn , cocoa to the rest of the world. America can probably also claim to have spread the popularity of pizza across the planet, nothing else
1
I think you seriously under value the vast contributions and genius of the Romans. All that Rome produced, with hand tools, is today, almost totally incomprehensible. Regardless, your comparisons are great, and your continual warnings sorely needed. Our biggest obstacle right now is the blindness of the Trump base. We have a lot gifted, intelligent people like yourself, sounding the alarm - but it's falling on deaf ears.
We need a Galahad to pull the sword out of the stone.
8
Wasn't it Arthur who pulled the sword from the stone?
1
We have met the enemy, and he is us. (Walt Kelly)
8
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. And the conclusion to this is article is derived from a profound ignorance about ancient Rome.
Take for example: "But was it really different in any important way from, say, Assyria?" To be able to even pose such a question betrays an abysmal lack of knowledge and perspective. It's hard to take the article serious after reading that.
7
I guess you stopped after reading that. Mr. Krugman asked the question as a rhetorical device, an argument of sorts, that he proceeded to answer in the rest of the article with a definite "no," along with all the reasons why the Roman Empire was unique and interesting in how it governed.
15
Very dear.- respected Dr. K.
Just a litle remark, in regard to what romans did foryou.
Imagine the amount of mind cells saved. Just tell me what you must have written for the inconviniences that either CESAR, and acolities, that must have caused, the comparison vs. Donald is insignificant. So. So. So... no complain. regards.
“What experience and history teaches us is that people and governments have never learned anything from history.” Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
8
Sure that all the enemies of Western Civ are in the WH? Try starting a Centre for the study of Western Civilization on a campus now and see what the reaction from the professoriate is...
6
Writing from Seattle, are you aware of what is happening in Australia? The University of Sydney has contemplated just such a Centre, but has cautioned that it does not want to do so if it means accepting a competition between civilisations (as some proponents of the Centre certainly do). The Ethnocultural Officer of the student union has, in response, claimed that Western "civilisation" is the source of all evil.
Krugman draws a great analogy without even knowing what he's saying. The Pax Romana was seen as a disaster by the conquered (1), and was mocked by the wisest and most well written of the Roman pundits (2), Tacitus:
(1)"Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant." (They make a desert, and call it peace). - Tacitus quoting Calgacus a chieftain of the Caledonian Confederacy (Britain) re the Pax Romana).
(2)"Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset."
In their ignorance they call it,'civilization,' but it was really part of their enslavement." (Longer variant: Step by step they were led to things which dispose to vice, the lounge, the bath, the elegant banquet. All this in their ignorance they called civilization, when it was but a part of their servitude. - Tacitus
The American "Pax Roman" in like kind has abused most of the world since WW2.
Krugman should stick to economics!
14
Our White House Barbarian's motto is an Elephant, while it should be a Rat.
Even Hannibal, one of the greatest generals of that time, is rolling around in his grave.
6
The basis for the decline and fall of the Roman Republic is largely of a socio-economic nature, and is subject to varying interpretations by historians. The Roman Republic became unstable as a consequence of rising inequality, which had become extreme by the era of the Gracchi brothers, who tried to win land reform and debt forgiveness for the common people, but were murdered by supporters of the creditor class. Much later, by the time of Julius Caesar, Rome's once thriving economy was severely depressed (due in large part to high debts and weak demand). Caesar was a genuine man of the people, who tried to get the Senate to approve debt forgiveness and land reform (would've returned ill-gotten land from the rich back to the common people) for the common people. The senators, all land-owning ultra-wealthy creditors, murdered him because they correctly considered him to be a threat to their wealth and dominance. Following Caesar's assassination, the democratic Roman Republic was replaced by an emperor (essentially a dictator) whose name was Augustus. From then on, emperors ruled, with the Senate, and there was no longer any meaningful representation for the common people in government (e.g., no more "tribunes of the plebs", etc.).
10
@ workerbee:
There never existed a 'democratic' Roman Republic under Caesar. The Roman Empire at the time of Julius Caesar was ruled by a Triumvirate of equal power, including Octavian and Marc Anthony at the time of Caesar's death.
Caesar was assassinated after he declared himself Dictator for Life.
5
Yes, Sarah, that's the meme we're expected to believe. It lacks details of what was happening in Rome's economy when the senate enabled Caesar to be a dictator. If there were tribunes of the plebs (commoners) during Caesar's era, then it was still a democracy, at least in form. Octavian became the first emperor, following Caesar's assassination, which ended the Republic, although some claim that Caesar's dictatorship ended the Republic; however, that conflicts with the fact that Caesar was a populare, a democratic social reformer exactly like the Gracchi brothers although with much more power than they had. During the Republic, which was a democracy, Octavian's name was Octavian, but he changed his name to Augustus after he became Rome's first emperor. Octavian = Augustus. The Roman Republic changed from a democracy to a dictatorial plutocracy after Caesar's assassination. Rome's widely admired Pax Romana was the era when the rich ruled and the commoners no longer had any democratic representation in government. The Pax Romana has always been widely admired by members of the bourgeoisie, and members of this social group are almost always the writers and interpreters of Roman history.
2
I think people are overreacting when the good prof. uses the term restraint. Every war the US has fought since WWII was a limited war, in the sense that the US did not use all its available resources to achieve victory. That is restraint in one sense. Yet in terms of the harm to the people of Southeast Asia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Latin America, etc. US interventions hardly seem restrained.
10
Absolutely correct, A Joseph. It is also worth mentioning that sheer ignorance was the driving force in the way these wars were prosecuted. How enlightening to hear Defense Secretary Robert McNamara admit many years later that the US did not know what it was doing in Vietnam. The ignorance of George W. Bush and the neo-cons about Iraq was staggering. Trump is definitely a moron yet - and one has to stress 'yet' - he has not to this point commited the US to actions that approximate the levels of barbarism of some of his predecessors.
2
This inspired me to investigate Pax Romana and I stumbled across a quote: “All cruelty springs from weakness.” -Seneca
It’s clear to reasonable people that the chaos and cruelty currently infecting America has spread outward from a man who’s impulsively, relentlessly driven by profoundly narcissistic thoughts re his inadequacies, fear of being perceived as weak. He idolizes dictators, mobsters because they are the most psychopathic, twisted versions of strength known to mankind.
Our failure dealing with him is that we’ve been operating as if it’s still Pax Americana. We’ve tried to be reasonable with someone who’s unreasonable. We’ve tried to argue facts with someone who lies. We’ve tried compassion and empathy with someone who has no compassion, empathy. We’ve tried to be respectful to someone who is cruel. We’ve shown weakness to someone who has a visceral aversion to weakness.
We must stop feeding that beast. He wants us spinning in his chaos until we’re too exhausted to fight back in November and beyond. We must keep fighting, but on our terms. Right now we’re playing his game. Make the grifter and his grafters play OURS--that of a representative social democracy.
Imagine what two centuries of relative stability in America could accomplish if our FDR-era spirit were alive today, the public protections and services, if wealthy takers paid their fair share, and if America sustained its stabilizing middle class enough to continue to offer hope to the rest of the world.
20
What an excellent article. It's too bad the current occupier of the White House does not read and probably knows very little about history. Then we also have the GOP with a bunch of legislators who care more about holding onto their reign of power and act like they would gladly go along with allowing the country to lapse into dictatorship. The people must take a stand and get rid of every last one of them. We can't let our democracy go.
8
Dr. Krugman many want to read about the collapse of Roman rule in the western provinces (what's usually called "the Fall of the Roman Empire"), when concentration of wealth was extreme (much more so than in the eastern provinces, that held together), the Senatorial elite even used private violence to avoid paying taxes, while, either through economic manipulation or, again, violence, they reduced many ordinary farmers to the status of serfs. And during the same period when the Visigoths sacked the city of Rome, the emperor Honorius was issuing coins with the motto "The State is Healthy". Oh, and the law specified different rules for the rich and for the poor. No, it's not the same, but it's not altogether different...
12
The depopulating effect of epidemics should be taken into account, and the effect of nearly a century of civil war in the third century.
I'm sure Prof. Krugman has already read about what you recommend.
3
It's falling apart because of economic inequality. Trump is the symptom, not the cause of the country's illness. Too many people are losing, Paul, and not enough winning. Neoliberal economics, the idea that you could just deregulate business and lower trade barriers and it would work our great for everybody is a big fat lie, and now we're paying for it.
If we want to get out of this situation and prevent a worse Trump from following this one, Dr. Krugman and liberals and Democrats in power better put aside their ideology and come up with an economic system that works better than this one. It is not good enough simply to support strong social programs -- and expanding Romneycare nationwide was hardly that -- liberals and the left need to support jobs for people and genuine economic opportunity. And sometimes that means vulgar factory jobs as well as exciting tech jobs.
10
Yes, I've thought lots about this also . . .
One of the almost eerie parallels? The Roman Republic fell because the factional deadlock that developed following Rome's complete triumph over their arch-enemy Carthage. The post-victory factional deadlock in the Roman Senate went on so long and was so bitter that when Julius Caesar seized power from the ineffectual Senate, a great many honest, well-intentioned people were relieved, thinking, "FINALLY! We can get something done!" And, boy howdy, did they ever . . .
So very much like our triumph over the Soviet Communist world, descending within 5 years into the Gingrich "revolution" which has now hit its stride with Trump. Complete deadlock and corruption in our legislative and judicial institutions creating an ever-widening vacuum of power. Heaven knows what comes next . . . Caligula or Nero?
15
We have Tiberius, I'd say. If so, the future is very alarming.
7
If we're going with classical societies, I would have thought Thucydides' "History of the Peloponnesian War" would provide the better lesson for modern strategical thinking. If you can imagine Trump placed in similar circumstances, you might see how this presidency cannot end well for Pax Americana. He displays all the worst attributes of all the major players with none of their virtues. Again, if you can imagine one leader destroying both Athens and Sparta, Trump is your man.
7
Well, the Romans gave us Latin!
5
Read William Appleman Williams to find some actual historical analysis. Paul Krugman is an economist and his knowledge of history is no greater than that of the average person.
3
Robert, you can recommend William Appleman Williams without counterfactually abusing Prof. Krugman.
6
What you see is not the collapse of the nation but it's continued growth. News reports are saying the American people are having a hard time telling the difference between fake and real news. What they are getting is a masterclass in how politicians lie. They're becoming wiser for it.
When has the concept of America government become one which all its power lies in the hands of a corporate and intelectual elite? The founders structured the government to avoid fast change that proved destructive in France. They also would recognize the phrase to big to fail.
2
Citizens of the Roman Empire included people from territories as far flung and diverse as modern Great Britain, Tunisia, Rumania, Egypt and Germany. Two of the emperors came from Spain. Never was there a better example of strength through diversity.
11
Unrestrained greed, and the corruption of government, injustice, inhumanity and violence that serve it, is the primary force that ultimately destroys any great country or empire. When there is allegiance to no higher principles than money, when human worth is measured in dollars and productivity, not character or soul, moral rot sets in. When a free people chooses a "braggadocious" billionaire businessman with no qualifications to govern, no record of public service, no moral or ethical code and no compassion to lead their country, we are well on our way to dissolution. Once greed is triumphant, I don't know if a nation's fate can be forestalled.
9
"True, the Roman Empire was bigger than most pre-industrial empires, and lasted a lot longer. But was it really different in any important way from, say, Assyria?"
Oh, boy. Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh boy.
I'm glad Krugman put that disclaimer in about "letting it all hang out" before jotting down the above sentences.
3
Gosh, I wouldn't assume one was a hack merely if one made comparison between ancient history and the present. (But, I love all things ancient Roman: sculptures, architecture, literature, plays, satires, and yes, politics!) (Just as an amusing anecdote, I'll add the following: much as Team Hillary popped champagne on the plane before the election, so did Pompey celebrate victory the night before being defeated at Pharsalus.)
But, this column is way too short for such a buildup. This should at least be a three part series. I agree that we can make comparison because there are strong parallel among human nature, class conflict (leaders, the broader elite, and everyone else), as ineffective or subservient Senate cowering to J. Caesar to maintain privilege and access to power, adhering to the letter of the law, but breaking legal norms.
But, if the criticism is of Trump breaking norms, why compare Trump to the Goths, why not J. Caesar? It seems there are more applicable comparison between the current political breakdown and the fall of the Republic rather than the centuries-long decline of the Empire.
5
Trump is our Caligula. He loves to embarrass his enemies though he would love to rule tough like his new friend Kim or old friend Putin. He has loose moral behavior. He behaves erratically. He has unraveled the protections that make us safe in and outside our nation. Now he going after children.
15
It's the "human nature", stupid. Humans are born as "barbarians", as Hannah Arendt wrote, that need civilizing to become members of a reasonably successful society. As barbarians, they are inherently selfish and prone to fear (and later hate) anyone not of their family and then their born-to clan. If the US is any kind of specimen, roughly half never outgrow that clan-centered psychological orientation, though the clan takes various forms.
So the human is biased toward many very bad identifications and so behaviors unless trained early and then educated through adolescence to comprehend and consider that they are, in the most fundamental ways, equal. Then a conscience can develop that prevents the worst and encourages the best in the adult.
We are doing a terrible job of that nurturing, training and education. And it has always been THE problem that brings us down. We grow sociopaths far more than we nurture hallows.
And the greatest of our failures is now...well, the rest is obvious.
7
fairwitness is out of date. Childhood researchers now think babies are inherently generous and concerned about other people.
1
Where's the gladiator, Russell Crowe when we need him ? You certainly can't find him in the Senate or House of Reps.
5
1. The obedience and subservience of all citizens to "The Law".
2. our alphabet, our language, our legal system, the arch, the use of concrete, our civil architecture, "The Mother" and "the hen pecked husband" beloved of literature, a refined Stoicism (and it's child Christianity), and "beware of dog" and "buyer beware" amongst zillions of other things.
4
Trump would beg to differ. He sees himself as Augustus, the founding emperor of the period Dr. Krugman cited.
Of course he does!
When Trump the black hole looks in the mirror, he sees the sun shining brightly -and he gives thanks and credit to Trump of course for the beautiful light!
Now he just needs a fiddle to play while he burns the country down.
6
This is why we need to study history, art, social science, drama, literature, and probably why the present governmental structure (of both parties) is promoting STEM. The military-industrial complex does not want anyone asking questions, just perform as factotum.
15
I see a lot of similarities between Trump and Nero. Nero had a 60 foot high gilded statue of himself erected near her lavish house (near the present day Colossium) and fancied himself a genius. People got sick of him, however, and he was murdered. We don't do that sort of thing (much) anymore. All we can do is hang on and hope the next election corrects the Error of 2016. The Romans had no system for imperial succession, which is one of the main reasons the Empire finally fell apart.
9
The similarities between Obama and Cicero are staggering. Both great Orators. Well spoken. Intellectuals. Both unable to pull their respective Senate's together.
And what came directly after Cicero? A Republic of bloodthirsty, egomaniacal, power hungry, rulers and the true "Dictator Republic".
Sound familiar?
1
Despite the brand name "Republican", many in that party care little for the actual republic. Oh there are exceptions: Senators McCain, sometimes Graham, Corker, Flake. But most of those in power: McConnell, Ryan, etc. are gaming the political system to stay in power and support their wealthy donors.
Our form of government isn't a republic or a democracy; it's a donocracy. Donors rule.
If these people really understood how to sustain a democratic republic, they would address global warming, income inequality, public education, etc. as cancers that are metastasizing. They don't believe that these problems will cause the republic to actually fail.
20
Of course, the question in the headline for Dr. Krugman's Opinion piece from "Life of Brian".
Monty Python answered the question with more specifics than Dr. Krugman.
7
And the Democrats should be a strong oppositional force to the Republicans criminality and grift, yet they factionalize themselves into the People's Front of Judea and the Judean People's Front.
1
I am a really big fan of Paul Krugman, but have to disagree with one part of this op-ed piece. Paul says: "Not only are we vastly richer than Rome could have imagined, we’re also a lot nicer: America has done some terrible and shameful things, but nothing like what the Romans did when they got angry." Here are a just a few things that come to mind that the United States has done that I would say are equally as bad of worse than what the Romans ever did. 1) Genocide of the Native Americans 2) Black slavery 3) Dropping two nuclear bombs on Japan 4) the War in Iraq may have killed 500,000 to a million Iraqi civilians. I'm sure there are other examples, but sadly, we have been as bad as the Romans.
21
It has become an almost unbearable heaviness of being.
7
His Excellency Emperor Donald the First thinks that everything that came before him is garbage (even though he claims to want to make America great again).
How can America be great AGAIN if it was never great once before? But I digress.
Basically, His Excellency Emperor Donald the First thinks that he alone knows best, and because he says "it", whatever "it" is, "it" magically becomes pearls of wisdom that all of society must follow.
He does not understand that changes to a system that runs fairly well (but perhaps not perfectly) should be made carefully and cautiously. He just wants to "kick over the apple cart."
That is the way of folly. (But what do I know? I have never declared bankruptcy even once, let alone six times.)
8
And do not forget the lead in their water and food. No doubt it affected their ability to think critically.
I truly believe many of the choices made today are because it we are getting stupider as a nation. Whether it is too much bad food, chemical poisoning, anti-intellectualism, or the overall trend to a post-literate society, our ability for critical thinking is diminishing.
When people of a nation cannot no longer make clear and proper judgements, we are in a bad place. I really do not know if we can recover from this.
25
The Roman Empire is now a billion strong. It never went away or declined. It actually enlarged to a world wide empire. It's the greatest example of the battle between good and evil as the Catholic faith took hold and changed the Roman Empire from evil to good, except that cancer on the world; the Mafia. But the Roman Empire is now a great force for good that teaches the world the lessons of Jesus that created many billions of good lives for two thousand years. Economically, it's a mystery, but that's OK with me, as good should always triumph and the Roman Empire always does in this largely peaceful world. The great battle of good and evil will continue.
4
The Roman mass acceptance of the Stoic philosophy/religion prepared the way for Christianity to emerge, and for Catholic precepts to become the state religion and thus expand as it did.
3
Ask the ghosts of those slaughtered during the inquisitions or, more recently, the children abused by priests how benevolent the Catholic Church has been.
Step back and look at this much vaunted democracy in the US. It is fascinating. Every four years, you get a horse and buggy show with campaigning and voting. And then in between, what you get is basically a dictatorship. One person, unilaterally deciding to withdraw from international pacts, impose tariffs and whatever. While the press, again much vaunted for their independence, vainly scream and yell. And your pundits pass scornful remarks about other countries. Some self-examination, anyone?
4
The United States could be so far down the sewer of politics that the allied world democratic countries could place sanctions on us. China could be so successful in the bringing of North and South Korea together, that the U.S. dollar, once the standard of world monetary measure, would be replaced by the renminbi. This is not science fiction. Our country needs to wake up and without compunction clearly and decisively vote against the Republicans who will allow the former descriptions in this paragraph prevail.
9
The article is disappointingly shallow. In the expansion period, Romans offered attractive culture, technology and organization. Technologically, their construction methods were better than in conquered states, resulting in impressive public buildings, the road system surpassed previous chaotic and shoddy tracks, good ports were build using concrete (applied in other buildings too), etc. Centralized political control abolished chaotic wars between smallish states. But the technological benefits waned when they were all in place and there was lack of fresh achievements, so provinces could rebel and for decades enjoy undiminished standard of living. The first force undermining unity and stability were the very soldiers of Empire. There were other aspects, like big improvements in agriculture among Germanic tribes with the absence of similar improvements on the other side of Rhine and Danube etc. So Rome gave a lot to her subjects, but the gratitude waned within few hundred years.
But our bicameral Congress, the idea of provinces (states) with governors etc. etc. were passed by Romans to Founding Fathers who were well versed in the history of the Res Publica and the empire. American reconstituted two party system of Optimates and Populars.
8
And the sad thing is that the barbarians rejecting the values that made America truly great aren’t at the gates — they’re inside the gates, in fact in the Oval Office...
[ Wonderful essay, but the problem is more than barbarians inside the gates. Why have so many in America rejected American values? ]
12
Nancy, so many Americans have fallen for Trump for the same reason they fell for Hitler. Trump and the media sympathetic to him, like Fox News, repeat his lies so loudly and so often that people begin to believe it. The real question is when will those who care about protecting America from the barbarians rise up in its defense? Just typing out these comments doesn't feel like enough anymore.
Somehow I was expecting something much more fun. Since the Pax Romana lasted two hundred years after the fall of their Republic, I wanted Krugman to predict the same for the Pax Americana. For better or worse, it does seem that we're more likely to rescue the Republic after Trump destroys global stability and peace, rather than the other way round.
1
While I agree with this article, I just want to point out that we aren't throwing it all away for no good reason. We are tearing it down so Rush Limbaugh can make $80M a year and Fox News can make a few billion.
The grifters who make up the "conservative media" have made a lot of money creating an alternate reality and now the mindless mob they riled up is out to inflict pain on all their imaginary enemies.
34
I loved this. It begins with the rare realization that the fall of the Republic and of the Empire were separate events about 400 years apart. Too many discussions look for the One Cause of The Fall of Rome and run it all together.
I'd add that the Empire happened almost by accident, as the product of the steady expansion of the soft power of Rome. If America has an empire, it came about the same way. We should expect to see similarities.
Gibbon was writing in a pre-industrial society, so did not see anything about which to make a distinction. Yet his work is the standard. That is a modern weakness, not his.
Rome was more industrial than common credited. It had factories, making arms and armor, and amphora, and much else that was standardized. It also had industrial-scale trade in commodities, such as grain and metals, not just the financial aspect but the actual production and movement and use of those quantities. They were teetering on takeoff into industrial, like late 18th Century Britain. Again, this makes it more likely to offer us lessons about a empire-size economy and society.
Too many of Rome's Emperors were barbarians much like Krugman says here of Trump. From that arose the internal conflicts that tore the Empire apart. That too should be a lesson.
Actually, they were worse than Trump. That too is a lesson, that it can get a lot worse, and very quickly. With Trump we are not there yet, but we are near making Senators out of the horses of the elite.
22
The real death of the US empire is based in economics (that it helped inspire, the US was the seed for an economic revolution that allowed world economies to flourish based in part on having the US currency as a solid basis), and also by rebuilding what later became competitors. What destroyed it was the growth of a new empire, the corporate state, that in its interests didn't care about any one state (other than China, whose corporate interests are the state), and allowed them to rip apart the one thing that made the American empire great, the idea of the middle class. For a brief period in the US, and in the western democracies, something unheralded happen, the middle and working classes enjoyed a true middle class existence....and the rise of the corporate state and its cold search for stock price appreciation destroyed that.
16
When we consider this resident of the White House--or any other--we have to remember that it was the American people, and maybe the American approach to politics, that gave that resident the keys to the house. One might argue that the barbarians are more the so-called "base" to whom he answers than the inner circle actually walking the corridors of power. The "base" is what may bring down the American ideals and values.
15
Can we also recall that the present occupant of the Oval Office (like the previous Republican resident) did not win a majority of the vote? What is happening here is a confluence of mass media, failure of civics education, overweening corporate power that does not, indeed, need nations to flourish, and an ugly core of white supremacy.
1
Bingo! And the prize: A moronic brutish economic foreign policy and a promise to alter democracy at home because it is an inconvenient obstacle to those who seek power.
4
"Local elites were offered a good life, with attractive Roman values — Amphitheaters! Bathhouses! Wine! Stuffed dormice! — and the imperial system was open enough that especially able and ambitious provincials could aspire to move to the center of things. And that thriving, interdependent economy rewarded those who adopted Roman values and assimilated with the Roman system.
Or to put it another way, Rome did so well for so long by not being too greedy, by limiting short-sighted exploitation of its power in favor of long-term system-building."
Actually, there is a different conclusion about Rome- if people adopted Roman values and were ambitious, they could enjoy success and the luxuries that accompanied it. And that is exactly what people in post-WW2 USA did- if you bought into "American Values" (e.g. hard work, traditional marriage, responsible sexual behavior, avoid drug use, etc), you could achieve a comfortable life.
But Krugman claims that Trump is the threat, when the real problem are liberals who are attacking that path to success:
1) they decry "American Values", attempt to destroy the traditional family, and redefine sexual norms,
2) they decry work ethic and meritocracy as racist, sexist, ableist, etc,
3) they encourage drug use and escapism over personal responsibility,
3) they decry inequity when successful people enjoy the results of their efforts.
Sadly, once again Krugman distorts an interesting topic in order to fit his narrative.
2
My parents did do well compared to their parents. My father served the U.S. Navy before WWII and then rejoined again in WWII. With the help of his union (I suspect you would rail against trade unions) my father had a small pension that was not enough. As trains changed, the last decade or so of his work was not very well paid. Krugman played it rather softly because the well-to-do always think they deserve their wealth and the well-to-do accuse the hoi pollio for their failings. I also suspect that you've done well, but think you deserve much more and would have it but for the undeserving upstarts taking things away from you.
5
Say what you want about baby boomers but we inherited the Pax Americana from the previous generation and kept it going until 2016, when the youngest of us was already looking at retirement. We also made a bit of a fuss about the most inept emperors and the stupider wars. Who knows, maybe we deserved the 71 year, fascist free hiatus.
3
Rome, whether "Republic" or "Empire", survived for as long as it did for one reason only.
It knew when to quit.
It never would have stood for the uselessness of Afghanistan.
It would have been out a decade and a half ago - or never have gone in in the first place.
Proof?
Pulling out of England.
It would have assassinated Syria's rightful leader without qualm for disturbing the peace.
It would never have listened to our Republican Congress on cutting food stamps, nor would they have cut the guts from education.
The Roman system never interrupted the flow of "corn" to their poor, and they were smart enough to know that their Empire only ran because of the scribes.
They would never have tolerated the Kakisocracy that the Trumpbots have set up.
It's true - the Roman Republic/Empire creeps me out.
However, I'll give them a small due: They knew when to say when and their repulsive Emperors were killed off long before they ever harmed the general populace or tried to starve off their poor.
Thanks for the article.
Pax tibi.
26
I enjoy history too, but I'm disappointed that none of the learned comments on this subject mention a tremendous source of folk wisdom: Monty Python's "Life of Brian". This is how Krugman's stiff-necked ancestors supposedly answered his question, "What have the Romans done for us?"
https://youtu.be/uvPbj9NX0zc
Enjoy. Learn...
5
One should note that the Jewish state ended in 1st century AD when the inhabitants petitioned Rome to be annexed, as their rulers were quite disagreeable, massacring their opponents etc. But then they did not want to pay taxes. And perhaps grumpy but combative minority did not appreciate theatre, circuses and Roman delicacies prepared without proper religious supervision.
2
"We built something wonderful, and we're throwing it all away for no good reason."
Mr. Krugman, if you don't see the reason, you're not "woke" yet.
Trump is a barbarian, as you say, but he is an exacerbating symptom, not a cause. The barbarian won power because of genuine damage to people's quality of life since around 1970, including what National Academies of Science data ("The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration") show to be a current $500 billion a year wealth transfer, from the bottom to the top of our society, because of the wage suppressing effects of our cheap labor immigration policy.
Over these past decades, short-term focused leaders of both parties have consistently put other interests ahead of those of ordinary working people. You rightly often say that Republican dishonesty towards working class people has been much greater than Democratic dishonesty. But the Democrats aren't blameless for ignoring the extent to which working class white and black voters remain the party's real voting strength and are the ones who gave Barack Obama two terms in the White House. The Rainbow Coalition has often served as a screen for increasing inequality, oddly mirroring the Republican's racist "Southern strategy," which has been put to work perniciously nation wide.
Economic stagnation and decline for ordinary workers are why we have gotten into this national mess. It's not a pretty reason. But it shouldn't be trivialized as "no good reason."
6
I almost never agree with anything Paul Krugman writes, but today, as I read along, I found myself nodding my head. Was it possible? Was this going to be the one time Krugman departed from his utterly predictable leftist cant and made an original observation? And one I could even agree with? No. "And the sad thing is that the barbarians rejecting the values that made America truly great aren’t at the gates — they’re inside the gates, in fact in the Oval Office, because they’re basically home-grown (with an assist from Russia, of course.)" Dog-gone it, Paul, you were so close. So close!
If only he had written "And the sad thing is that the barbarians rejecting the values that made America truly great aren’t at the gates — they’re inside the gates. They are the millions of illegal aliens and third-world immigrants, with alien religions and values utterly opposed to the American culture. It's a terrible story. We built something wonderful, and we’re throwing it all away to give Democrats more low-information voters."
Then I could have agreed with the whole column.
1
Don't the largest number of illegal immigrants come from Latin America? And (this may be a stereotype, but you seem pretty comfortable with those) aren't most of them Catholic? Aren't most of them coming seeking better economic opportunities?
So in your view, Christians escaping poverty to seek a better life is un-American. You don't know us very well, do you?
2
Wasn't it Trump who said, "I love the poorly educated"?
Since we are largely responsible for setting up the Banana Republics south of our border, governments that funneled all money into the bankster accounts of their 1%, then this nation is also responsible that the education systems to the south are as failed as the corrupt junta-bots who allocated the $$$ left over. Which is to say, zip, nada, nyet, zilch and zero.
And now, we have the same kleptocracy swiping all our education money.
Was that what Trump meant when he said he loved the "poorly educated"?
1
Sorry, but the general rules apply. You must eat your vegetables as well as the steak.
Liked the article--could have used more emphasis on new citizens (cf America's immigrants, legal & not) to build economy...but loved the headline--long live Monty Python !
6
Sorry, Prof. Krugman. Not only have you gotten some facts about the Pax Romana wrong, you are very wrong about our modern history. The USA seems to be involved in our own version of the European 100 Years War [1336-1453] ! We have been nearly continuously at war somewhere on this globe with someone since 1915. Twice the war was centered initially in Europe (WW I and WW II). One of those times (WW II) we were involved in war which extended into Japan and SE Asia, including China. The next war was focused on the Korean peninsula. Then came our mistaken decision to take up the French cause in Vietnam. (Bao Dai had warned DeGaulle that the French could not return to hegemony over what used to be called "French IndoChina." DeGaulle did not listen, of course.) JFK first sent "advisors" to assist the French. Then LBJ sacrificed the promising "Great Society" programs to extend that war - at the behest of Robert McNamara and his aides. Nixon, elected on the promise he would end the Vietnam War, secretly extended it into Laos and Cambodia. That treaty was barely settled, when 9/11 gave Bush-Cheney an - illegitimate -- excuse to invade Iraq (which had no connection with the bombing of the Twin Towers by Saudis) and Afghanistan. We are still engaged there -- as well as being still in Korea. (Notice, the S. Koreans pay more than half of the costs of maintaining those U.S. troops there. Also, those troops are considered to serve the defense of the USA.)
8
Paul Krugman can be brilliant at times but this isn’t one of them. The Great Roman emperors during the golden age of Rome spanning from 300 BC to 180AD first and foremost looked after Roman interests. They didn’t lead anyone from behind. Like it or not, Donald Trump embodies that Roman ethos and that’s the primarily reason he won election. The American economy is thriving again with a lower tax base and the military blasted ISIS into oblivion. Hardly a scenario of “giving it all away”!
2
"The Roman Empire began when Augustus Caesar (27 BCE-14 CE) became the first emperor of Rome " so I think you have your dates a bit wrong. And the Eastern Roman Empire continued, technically, until the fall of Constantinople to the Turks around 1453
3
At first I thought Krugman was going to do a riff on the scene from "Life of Brian" where a similarly worded question is asked. Here is that scene from YT pay close attention at the end. Reminds me of someone in the WH.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7tvauOJMHo
6
I can hardly wait for your piece on the Mongolian Empire, free trade, the silk road and religious tolerance all within a paper money economy where friends were rewarded and enemies were treated rather poorly. But they did build Peking, paper money, free trade, etc. However the problem of family rights did them in but not before they gave the whiff to Adam Smith and the Tories and Whigs. Have a go at it but don't just do the stereotype because you're a monotheist. Even that story is time for a revision. REH NYCity Artist
1
"It’s a terrible story. We built something wonderful, and we’re throwing it all away for no good reason."
Empires come and empires go.
The Chinese are on the brink of picking up the mantle of world domination.
The average IQ in China is 105, in the US 98.
The Chinese are rational, pragmatic, unencumbered by religious zealotry and intolerance. They believe in science, not in blind obedience to dogma, Confucian, Christian or otherwise.
Pax Sinica couldn't possibly be worse than any other Pax. And most probably a lot better.
I'm taking a crash course in Mandarin, the most widely spoken language on earth.
13
At least the Trump fascist take-over will be short-lived because of regular elections and independent courts. There is nothing like a written constitution and functioning courts to weed-out the crooks from their corrupt offices.
People - not just democrats - don't like to be lied to. Third world jobs aren't coming back to the first world, the law of supply and demand cannot be repealed, and no one got a $4,000 raise because of the billionaires-only tax cut.
Mueller will soon reveal that Trump is a lying crook. State governments will issue indictments that cannot be canceled by a federal pardon.
People are outraged that children are being separated from their mothers and held hostage to fascist political demands.
The vote is in September and hostage-takers will be voted out.
4
I have to chuckle to myself as I listen to supposedly intelligent liberal Wall Streeters tout the genius of TPP.....and then continue to condemn NAFTA. NAFTA, created first during the Reagan Admin years, and roundly sabotaged by every administration since......will save America's bacon. TPP on the other hand...is a foolish "bridge too far" enthusiaticly pursued by Wall Streeters of limited vision.
2
If the current path our nation is on continues, we will be wrecked from within . . . destroyed by those who set out to erode citizen trust in government. This is the work of one political party and only one party, the Republican Party, which, aided and abetted by extreme right-wing zealots, has created and now sustain a deep-seated hatred for public service, for government regulation, for our courts and justice system, and for truth an the rule of law.
The only similarity from history is the death of the Weimar Republic and the rise of national socialism in the early 1930s.
Think of it as termites eating away at the foundation of our house of democracy.
6
The "barbarians" are the 60 million voters here + tens of millions of european voters.
Donny is just a symbol.
1
Your essay gives me chance to call up a marvelous piece of wit that I first heard quoted by the great art critic Robert Hughes (man, could we use him now). In relating a visit to Rome by Adolph Hitler, Hughes describes how Mussolini built false facades on all the crumbling buildings to impress his guest. This led one Italian to write, in graffiti: “Rome, once a city of marble, now of cardboard, welcomes the former wallpaper hanger who is to be her master.” I think about that every time I watch a Trump rally.
14
Russia did the same thing too, it's called the potenkin façades.
I suggest he, and you, read Edith Hamilton's "The Roman Way" and "The Greek Way" to get a real flavor of the ancient world and its machinations, problems, anxieties, and achievements.
Splendid!
3
This column is a rather frivolous, unexamined answer to some uncomfortable questions about how world powers operate, both past and present -- including an unspoken one of how the enlightened prosperity of some, such as readers like ourselves, has been built on the misery of others. I am an admirer of much that the United States has accomplished, yet I wonder how the Japanese survivors of Hiroshima, the Vietnamese of My Lai, or the Iraqis struggling to rebuild their shattered country would view the idea that America as a world power is inherently more civilized than its Roman predecessor (not to mention the views of those closer to home, such as the American Indians and African Americans). The column ends by comparing Donald Trump's administration to the barbarians at the gate. I am no fan of the president, but it took many failures to reach the current crisis, not least of which was how the country's elites allowed the decay of America's industrial heartland in pursuit of higher profits for themselves. I await a more sober and balanced appraisal by the Times.
5
Just wanted to thank the writer for leading me to research the culinary history of stuffed dormouse. I always learn a lot from Paul...
2
As a baby boomer liberal I have a lot of trouble with the Panglossian view of the American led world order in the post-WWII period. This is what we were protesting during Vietnam and I'm not going to turn around and say it was a great system.
(BTW, I'm was totally for Hillary and am totally against POTUS.)
Blame the lack of education. History and civics is not taught properly. A student who passes football is treated more importantly than the student who secured an A in history.
Democracy should be based on age of voters and life remaining.
We don’t want voters with less than a decade to live, to decide the lives of those with decades to live.
People who are 60 should be given 3/5 of a vote when compared with those aged 25 who get a full vote. This prevents old ideas from being perpetuated.
1
I am 81, and siince most of my education was funded by state or federal government, I feel a duty to pass on what I have learned, which include 2 MIT masters.
Had you said religious fundamentalists get 1/5 vote, I would be in full agreement.
4
But what if we don't want to be an "empire"? What if all we want to be is a collection of free people who expect our government to be acting in our interests. Dr. Krugman says that system has "worked really well". It's worked well for the top 20% or so of the income distribution. For the elites. But it hasn't worked well for the middle 60%. For the real middle class.
4
IDK about the system not working, John.
My grandparents were immigrants who came to America during the Depression. They were a bus driver and a waitress who lived in a 4 room apartment.
My parents were a copier repairman and a secretary who bought their first 1100 square foot home with a VA loan.
My siblings and our cousins in that family have 5 bachelors and 4 graduate degrees among the 6 of us (my sister didn't finish college). We're all home owners who have professional careers in finance, law, real estate and law enforcement. The system still worked well enough when we entered the work force in the mid-80s through mid-90s that we've been able to continue our family's upward mobility.
Did it help that we're white? Absolutely. Did it help that we were able to get our college degrees at good state schools without taking on enormous amounts of debt? Absolutely.
But some of those were choices we made: to go to a "good" school that was a lot less money than the "best" colleges we were accepted to. To get graduate degrees our employers paid for. To buy houses that weren't showroom perfect so we could get into the market. We stayed in school and out of trouble. And overall, we've been rewarded for it.
The system can work -- you just have to be willing to work, too.
1
Many of Prof. Krugman's stiff-necked ancestors, once their kingdoms were forcibly integrated into the empire, migrated to the major Hellenistic and Roman urban centers and became leaders in society and social innovations. People who got to know them were impressed and in many cases joined them.
8
These qualities, noted in the op-ed, obviously made for the advancement of the public/common good within the Roman Empire:"peace, interregional trade, and a sophisticated business and financial system." Perhaps it is the requirement of embracing these qualities for advancing the public good is what the Romans have to teach us.
Of course, the barbarians invading Rome replaced the order brought about by "peace, interregional trade, and a sophisticated business and financial system" with chaos.
Our barbarians are home-grown, unfortunately, and are bringing the chaos that is eroding the order required for advancing the public good.
6
There is a tremendous value in learning the lessons of the classics. Lately, I have been reading Polybius, a Greek historian from the second century BC. His writings on demagogues are every bit as relevant today as they were 2000 years ago. Maybe technology and economies change, but people don't. The elements he describes include: Scapegoating, Fear mongering, Lying, Emotional oratory and personal charisma, promising the impossible, Violence and physical intimidation, personal insults and ridicule, vulgarity and outrageous behavior, folksy posturing, gross oversimplification and attacking freedom of speech (the news media). Sound like anyone we know?
18
What did the Romans do for us?
What did they fail to do?
They could have completed the merger between the Islam, the Christianity and the Judaism into a single faith, free of any clergy, the churches and the official languages of prayer.
Of course, it was impossible for the system founded on the centralization of the power into the single city and into the hands of single ruler to develop the concept of the faith completely decentralized and bestowed directly upon the people.
Thus the Romans gave us the version of the religion that was identical to their state organization and hierarchy.
That was their fault.
Our responsibility was to recognize what they did. We should reform the faith and finally purify it from the inherent ancient human customs and the old age dogmas…
1
Islam began after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The Muslim faith therefore could not have been incorporated into Roman Catholicism under the aegis of Imperial Rome.
2
Rome couldn't have merged "the three faiths", Islam was created well after the fall of the Roman Empire, in the 7th century or so. Christianity becoming the Roman state religion did lead to the creation of the monopoly Catholic Church, but keep in mind that by the time Rome adopted Christianity it was already in steep decline, Constantine took it as the state religion as a desperation move to unify the empire. More importantly, the formation of one Church didn't fully come about until after Rome fell, the various Christian sects didn't get merged in or extinguished until the 8th century.
3
Rationality and science are infinitely more valuable than faith, aka wishful thinking.
1
The current threat to Pax America can be traced to the decline in the economic prospects of much of the Western middle class, brought about by recent trade agreements, lax banking and securities regulation, government austerity, unjustified inadvisable wars, and the resulting immigration large enough to roil Western societies. If the current Pax America falls, it will be at the hands of a horde of modern day barbarians consisting of bankers, wealthy investors and businessmen, multinational corporations, and the incompetent, corrupt, and morally bankrupt politicians that serve them. Their depredations have induced their middle class victims to vote for Brexit and to elect as president, the consummate modern day barbarian, Donald Trump. Yes, the conditions that may bring down the present Western order have been created by the greed, mendacity, and short sightedness of the very people who have benefited the most from it.
7
Paul, Paul, don't ever give up. We need your wise voice. Pax Romana, Pax Americana...they will and have faded. But the principles remain: treat people like humans -- not animals, not slaves; accept and exploit differences -- this has been the wellspring of human progress; and look for creative solutions to societal problems in the darkest of intellectual corners.
5
Why would America be vastly richer than Rome? When I see Roman villas and the life style they represent, then our billionaires should have haciendas on Mars.
Rome is still unsurpassed in its glory, richness and freedom, especially when philosophy and religion is concerned.
4
Monty Python's Life of Brian reference is always for the win.
6
The truth is told. Trump's Fascism is thrashing our long held values and by doing so, is threatening our Democracy in a serious way. Our Congress is only concerned about keeping their jobs and in so doing, are allowing Trump unusual latitude to destroy our long standing standards of ruling.
3
Barry Strauss, a history professor at Cornell University, proposes that the similarity between us and Rome is a fear of terrorism. For us, it is 9/11 and related events; for the Romans, it was the slave insurrection that Spartacus led, in which uninhibited slaves took what they wanted from the land, and moved up and down the Italian boot, twice, before finally being defeated. The Romans feared a repeat of this event, so wanted a strong leader, and turned to the incredibly ambitious Julius Caesar. He established the security while also developing his own cult of personality. He also ended the Roman Republic. and established a permanent dictatorship that soon became the Roman Empire. The Republic was never restored.
6
.
When I read this kind of negative "sky is falling" perspective piece, I simply think the author is projecting their own insecurities/biases/issues.
Meanwhile Pres Trump inspires tourist development on N Korean beaches https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/asia/100000005953051/trading-bombs-f...
Try reading more and writing less, PK.
Harper's book, The Fate of Rome, also convincingly links the ups and downs and final down of the Empire with the climatic events in the ancient world. Rome's greatest period, under Augustine, corresponds with an unusually temperate period that has its own name, Roman Climatic Optimum. Ideal agricultural conditions in this period created Roman grain production, as recorded in ship's logs, that would not be equaled until the 1800's. On the other hand Roman down periods, correspond with ancient climate disruptions caused by natural changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation. Climate change drove the "barbarian " invasions that stressed the empire's frontiers. These climate disruptions also match the probable first appearance of smallpox in the the Antonine Plague and the now confirmed first appearance of bubonic plague during the Plague of Justinian that killed at least 25 million of the Empire's citizens. This might explain all the heavy drinking and orgies of the Hollywood epics.
2
Diz Moore, bingo and bullseye! Sun cycle sending out mass flares may marginally temporarily reduce our atmosphere altering our ecology before re-normalizing; And, in the meantime, may account variously for plunder now management and cultivated god-worship among those who gave up on understanding science after third grade.
2
Rome failed because of the constant political in-fighting and civil wars that drained the coffers and promoted corruption. the "barbarians" were able to sack Roman lands because the damage had already been done within. The other reason Rome failed is that their economy was heavily dependent upon the spoils conquest and slavery. It just could not sustain itself. Finally there was really no middle class, just the elites with all the money and the plebes.
2
Yes, we are seeing a barbarian in the White House, one who is willing to tear it all down. But, the crumbling of Pax Americana has been going on for a long time (since the Soviet Union collapsed in the early '90s). America will have to deal with the fact that it is no longer THE big dog of nations. It will have to settle for being A big dog. It really requires us to change our international role from "President of free nations" to "Chairman of the Board". We will be able to influence things, but the days when we can tell other nations what to do are over. How we will deal with that remains to be seen. Trump is a symptom of the problem, he isn't the problem.
1
I took five years of Latin in high school, reading Cicero and Caesar's Gallic Wars. There are vast similarities between Rome and America. Knowing what ultimately happened to Rome - how it was following by 1500 years of darkness and three competing monotheistic religions, does nothing to relieve the tensions and sheer terror of our current political debacle.
Gibbon and Rome have much to teach us. Mr. Krugman just looks at everything through economic-colored glasses.
2
IF you don't believe in or respect education, don't believe in objective reality, or historical facts, you are in big trouble. This is where Trump and the GOP have led the country. They revel in their ignorance, celebrate dogma and racism. They are proud of their small mindedness. America is really at a crossroads. We are on the road to totalitarianism and unless the GOP and Trump are rejected, this will be the end of America as we know it.
11
Roman marine concrete. The gift that keeps on giving. That is really something, Prof. Krugman.
6
Just over 40 years ago, when I was sitting in my international economics class, one of the students pointed out that the US seemed to get the shorter end of the stick in many of our trade agreements. The professor agreed and stated that in order for the modern political and economic system to continue one side had to play a bit of the 'patsy'. In the modern system the US played that role.
When asked why the US, the most powerful nation in the system, played that role he answered that it proved our superiority and place above the others. The soft power of the example (we could play hardball, but we don't) showed that the existence of the system was more important than any having a single winner. And, should push come to shove in an emergency, we could unveil the power of having the world's reserve currency, the goodwill and support of our allies, and be the center of the world's economic and military might. Such power overshadows any short-term gains by 'winning' every trade deal. We'd have to be good listeners and shrewd international players to keep the advantage, but the best way to destroy it would be if we became too self-serving, too arrogant , too tone deaf, too dishonest, and too defensive.
Always demanding to be the winner breeds resentment among others, not admiration or respect. It's a lesson I've always tried to remember, and one we have forgotten.
21
The greatest benefit USA got at the emergence of WW2 was that the $ replaced the £ as world currency. The US $ is accepted worldwide anywhere anytime. That gives it a lot of leverage.
Esp when oil is settled in $.
2
The Romans were weakened by religion, which is the worst innovation in human history.
2
I would add there is another similarity here. The Roman Republic distracted its people with bread and circus; while corruption clogged up the arteries of their system. We now have bread and circus in the form of right-wing "media" so elites can corrupt and clog up our democracy for personal gain. A strong state is a check on their power, including monopoly power (more mega mergers and consolidation!). But a weak state, for short-term profit, and long-term monopolistic power, invites foreign threats (China, and Russia, where the states are not super-rich, but authoritarian regimes are working on concert with corporate power - be they petropower in Russia, or high-tech ZTE spying on us through our smartphones made in China).
6
Mr. Krugman, thanks for the subtle Monty Python "Life of Brian" quote (the headline)!
2
I am an ancient historian and I agree with you .
6
I trust you mean you are an historian of ancient times!
I agree with most of what you say, but I do think that a people who, for hundreds of years, enjoyed watching people and animals be torn apart need to called something more than "casually cruel"
3
Tell Iraq what happened when we got angry and blamed them for an attack that was not their fault. Tell the Vietnamese what happened when the USA decided to claim the world was a game of dominos. Torture and secret prisons were not our best hours and we never held those responsible. Instead we took the easy way out.
We can also look at the jailing of black men in a war on drugs as pretty dehumanizing.
The US has used hard power in atrocious ways since world war 2.
The main thing the US is like the Romans is patting itself on the back while ignoring our wrongs.
I’m looking at the southern border today. Children in cages. So Roman. And no one will be held for trial for this latest atrocity.
1
Christianity, which grew and flowered out of the disintegration of the Roman Empire, looks now as though it may, for all intents and purposes, totally disappear along with the disintegration of the American.
4
My compliments to the headline writer. It's a shame to see all that was won with WWII and, for the most part, maintined by prudent foreign policy since, be sent down the drain by one administration.
1
"And the sad thing is that the barbarians rejecting the values that made America truly great aren’t at the gates — they’re inside the gates, in fact in the Oval Office, because they’re basically home-grown (with an assist from Russia, of course.)"
Why destroy what otherwise would have been a thoughtful essay with this throwaway and gratuitous swipe at Trump? And this continuing Russia hysteria seems an awful lot like the Salem Witch Hunt. Does anyone other than adolescent girls see the evil enchantresses?
2
"...a society lacking the germ theory had no way to alleviate."
And now we have a party that says "evolution is only a theory." I'm surprised they don't believe that germ theory is only a theory. But therein lies a huge problem. If you don't believe in science, you're going to have a rotten country. To paraphrase Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize winner in Physics: "Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
The trouble is that we'll all be damaged by the science-denying Republicans. The planet will survive, but will we?
2
The "reason" you can see in how Jeff Sessions speaks of the thing. he is speaking from a POV of Assumed guilt. He assumes the people have broken the law or are lying when asking for asylum. I heard a woman speaking on the radio explaining how "this will make them stop bringing their wives and children along and that will go a long way to solving the problem." It is an assumed thing there is no acknowledgment of the reality for these people at home because of what the US did to Central America to create this mess. It has been going on since President Monroe and really got bad in the reagan admin when they literally set up death squads to stop people from establishing their own democracy by calling it communism! This created the mess we are dealing with now.
The Roman's were plenty industrialized. They had factories for milling flour, crushing olives, packaging same as well as secondary industry making containers and other acouterments for the main factories. There were huge quarries where stone was cut from giant blocks a half dozen of more slab pieces at one time factories for making the ingredients for cement. And so on...... But I get what you mean they did not have any source of power than water wheel or human/animal muscle. And yes it was very different than most every nation until the United States, they made people Citizens without regard to where they were from. I suggest Prof Mary Beard "Meet the Romans" & "Mary Beard's Ultimate Rome Empire Without Limit".
7
The Pax Romana didn't start to unravel until Christianity became the dominant religion.
4
Other way around, Rome turned to Christianity in an attempt to stop the unravelling that was going on. By the 4th century Rome was coming apart, and Constantine was desperate to find something to unify it. It wasn't that Constantine believed, apparently he didn't, it was more he saw it as a tool to maintain cohesion.
5
Not necessarily Christianity, but any religion that demands to taken seriously.
Yes, and why does France speak a Roman language and not the Gaulish language, because, as you wrote, the elites embraced the Roman culture, sent their children to Rome and integrated the empire administration. So as French, I am the fruit of the cultural appropriation from the Roman culture by the Gaulishes.
6
Another resemblance between the two empires is that neither was the rule of one race (or nationality or ethnic group) over others. People from different national groups could and did become Americans. Since Rome is not even a country, just a city, from earliest times (starting in legend with the neighboring Sabines) it took in strangers and made them citizens—even far-flung strangers like St Paul, a Jew of Tarsus, or the emperors who came from Spain, Gaul, North Africa, or the Middle East. I wouldn’t press this resemblance very far but I think it does account for something in the common success of the Pax Romana and the Pax Americana—so far.
1
Well said sir. Everyone VOTE 2018.
Don't just complain.
2
Good editorial. Thank you for going ahead and writing it.
What charms me most is that it sounds delightfully like something David Brooks might write (or has written...). Well done.
4
At least Dr. Krugman had the decency to apologize for his flight of fancy (which I quite enjoyed).
Brooks goes on his tortured travelogues in every column, all with the same endpoint: Our Civilization Is Falling Apart Because We Have Lost Our Sense of Community (not because of greedy, rapacious capitalists).
2
"We built something wonderful, and now we're throwing it away." Correction: The people who built it aren't the ones throwing it away. The people and the president throwing it away never wanted an outward-looking, tolerant country in the first place.
4
I love the irony, and hypocrisy, of this piece. Mr. Krugman manages to single-handedly dismiss all ancient history while plumbing that same history for something to support this vapid opinion piece. One cannot dismiss ancient history because the mores were different. There are lessons to be learned in all ancient writings. Thucydides' report of the citizens' clamoring for war on the eve of a thirty year problem in the Peloponnesian conflict are particularly instructive, as are the efforts at diplomacy in a fractured world. Also, consider this, Germany was the only European country not pacified by the Romans, and thus did not experience their law and society. No lessons? Surely this is a joke.
3
Our system of SELF-government in the United States draws heavily from the political/economic/social theories developed by the Romans and their Greek predecessors....Every one of the so-called Founding Fathers writes that this is so.... Of course the Greco-Roman Thing is tempered with good ole confusing Anglo-Scottish-Irish individualism and pragmatism(how can a group of people that fight so much amoung themselves, band together and create one set of rules that actually works???). We venture further into America and it isn't too difficult to observe that our "separation of powers" , election systems, and oratory styles look very similar to what the Native Tribes employed as we battled one another.
America as we teach ourselves,,,,has existed in more or less its present form since the 1500s... close to 500 years....while the idolized, mythologized current image of America only came about during a brief 40 years of Ellis Island Immigration...The Statue of Liberty originally intended to be a symbol of friendship between the two most advanced republics USA and France, shining a light of hope on the rest of humanity, providing a model for the future...transformed into a Porch Light drawing everyone for all eternity to America, exercising a God given right to immigrate to the USA!! Sadly, we in the USA have become disheartened, it appears that the rest of the world does NOT want to emulate the methods of the Republic of the United States of America...they only want plunder.
2
If Krugman reads so much history how come he understands so little about it? My guess is he reads bad historians, or at least historians who make pretend the history they write is objective and not political.
People have been making comparisons between the Pax Americana and Pax Romana for my whole life, which, like Krugman's, spans most of the post war era. The reason they make this comparison is obvious even to me. And guess what: it all predates Donald Trump.
And speaking of Russians, how come we heard nothing from Krugman when we fixed—fixed!—the Russian elections in 1996 so Yeltsin could get a second term? Just wondering.
And why would good people like us do such a bad thing as fixing the Russian election? Why so Yeltsin could continue the Clinton era (according to Krugman, good) structural adjustment policies that—beside lowering Russian life expectancy by seven years—created the reign of the Oligarchs; the Mafia State Capitalism that Putin—late period Yeltsin's last lieutenant—has now rationalized.
"We built something wonderful." The worst thing about Trump is that he has apparently pumped pink fluff into the minds of the New York Liberals and now they are no longer capable of even rational argument. Trump clearly is not mentally capable of such an impressive if dastardly feat, so . . . it must be the Russians.
1
JFK warned about a Pax Americana in 63'. It's now here. Good luck with that.
1
“we’re also a lot nicer”!! tell that to survivors of hiroshima & nagasaki. pax american, prof. krugman, has its basis in the overt threat of nuclear terror. niall ferguson may be silly, but you know history better than to concoct fairytales.
2
I don't think looking at the fall of the Roman Empire is the right place to look for parallels. Rather look at the bloody end of the Republic and rise of the Caesars.
Families interested in aggrandizing themselves at the public trough used the existing political system to enrich themselves and punish their enemies. Democratic institutions (such as they were) become beholden to these wealthy and powerful families and enact policy to benefit them.
Saving that military service was a requirement to advance in the Roman republic, the parallels are eerie.
1
There's another lesson to be learned from Rome, and it's the obvious one -- the fall of Republic.
It was democracy that made Rome. For all that the Empire initially prospered, it was ultimately just another empire, and faded gradually over time. It ebbed and flowed, but ultimately, it lacked the spirit and resilience of the Republic.
And while it seems almost inconceivable that the United States, a nation that seems inseparable from democracy, will sacrifice its freedom, that seemed inconceivable to the ancient Romans as well.
6
I remember when Nikita Krushev said that Russia would not have to destroy us we would destroy ourselves. Well we did. We are still walking and living off our reputation but even that is now in tatters like our roads and bridges, our schools, our Justice system and our once shinning, albeit imperfect, democracy. We have allowed a group of testosteron fueled teenage males in adult clothing tear down almost everything good we had all built since the late 1930’s including workers rights, civil rights, voting rights and wome’s rights. We have allowed the religious fanatics to take over the Congress and the state houses who while they worship a man who seems like a character in a Balzac novel is touted as chosen by god. As a result each and every one of his failings the trivial and the exceedingly cruel or vindictive is forgiven. Roman and it’s fall we not as sad or as swift. It is hard to watch. It breaks my heart.
7
Gibbon asserted that greed, which could be interpreted as over extension was one reason that Rome fell. Internal dissension was another, which could have ramifications for the idea "that short-sighted exploitation of its power was limited". The fracturing of the family system was another, as was slavery, although it is true that the imperial system did become more inclusive with time. I think that perhaps the most interesting contribution to western civilization, over and above the organization of the Roman Army, was the engineering development of the "Rundbogenstil" or Rounded arch style. The precision hewing of stone blocks in a world era when mortar was very limited in its use, enabled them to reinforce the imperial nature; i.e. "...the self-adjusting guarantee of the security of domination", of their activities. This one innovation had practically incalculable effects upon the development of history and it also had far-reaching effects because of its application (bridge building) on commerce and trade. Thus, they felt justified in virtually everything they did, and in this absolutist way bequeathed to the world the proclivity to authoritarianism. Implicit in the Pax Romana was their tax system which was developed from that proclivity.
2
There is indeed a reason "we" (specifically, our elite investor class) are determined to throw away the good things we've built: Myopic greed.
Our economic system of Shareholder Value Capitalism is a zero-sum, winner-take-all game. Corporate CEOs, Wall Street institutional investors, and wealthy Republican donors believe that for them to win, everyone else must lose. And they're entitled to win everything. Everyone and everything else-- workers, non-wealthy individuals, infrastructure, the environment, political institutions-- exists solely for them to plunder, for maximum short-term gain.
They worship Ayn Rand, who provided a moral and philosophical justification for their entitled greed. They have full ownership of one major political party, which exclusively represents their interests. And they have enough ownership of the other major political party to preclude it from effectively opposing the agenda of redistributing the nation's wealth to the Entitled Winners.
We indeed built some wonderful things before the sainted Ronald Reagan made Shareholder Value Capitalism our de facto State Religion. We're throwing them all away for a reason. But it's not a good reason unless you're an Entitled Winner of a game in which most of us are expendable pawns.
17
Rome conquered and subjugated peoples from England to Egypt, and they did not do that with soft power but with hard steel and a well-trained and supplied army and navy. After it set up provincial governments to collect taxes for the central government, then it exercised a kind of soft power, allowing locals to maintain their customs and religious practices--so long as they didn't cause trouble, challenge authority, or interfere with the tax collectors. They kept peace as an occupying, imperial power.
4
One of the most interesting parallels between America and ancient empires is found not in Rome, but China. Early Chinese dynasties, especially the Han (206 BCE-220 CE) and the Tang (618-906 CE), tried to establish equitable systems of taxation that would not be too burdensome for peasant farmers but would ensure a steady flow of resources to the state. However, over time, special interests - especially regional nobility and Buddhist and Taoist monasteries - managed to secure tax exemptions for their huge estates which resulted in pushing the tax burden onto the poorest and most unprotected farming families. When these people couldn't pay their taxes, they became tenant farmers of the big landowners. Because the centralized state grew weaker in the face of regional power inside China and tax flows became less reliable, it did not have the funds to train or equip armies to defend the Middle Kingdom from nomadic "barbarians" who made Central Asia their home.
Sound familiar? The only real difference is that in our case, the "barbarians" are internal, not external.
5
I keep thinking of the sequence of rulers from Robert Graves' "I, Claudius". I never imagined living beneath the delusional, despotic, and abhorrent rule of Claudius' predecessors, but now I can.
One of Rome's achievements building its empire was its ability to assimilate and preserve the many diverse cultures of the Mediterranean basin while giving the administrative overlay of Roman rule. Yes, there was mismanagement and misrule, but there was also superb engineering that created a network of roads and bridges across all terrains, a surprising number of which are still in use.
12
Infrastructure. Yes, roads and aqueducts, but lots of public spaces. Market places, forums for public discussion, theaters and other public entertainment spaces. Maybe most important, a surprisingly accessible legal system and a robust tax collection system to finance all that infrastructure. Roman infrastructure encouraged economics throughout the empire.
16
The Romans were winning because they had respect for military science and a professional army with soldiers that were rewarded with land grants at the end of their service.
There are many reasons for the downfall but unchecked immigration together with barbarian invasions is one. Elite troops were recruited from (German, Goth, Celt) mercenaries who had no allegiance to the state and less to its laws. Roman values - austerity, frugality, honesty, common sense, bravery - were diluted out and perverted. A fact that the Romans themselves lamented and argued about.
6
I have a soft spot for the Romans. Their long fight with Hannibal and their own Latin wars taught them the value of friends and allies. Rome also proved willing to broaden its citizenship as a means to attract and retain allegiance.
7
I don't know if there was a Roman precedent for the abandonment of responsibility by the senate or wealthy land owners that could have been a check on the Neros, but if there was, I wish Krugman would have addressed that also. Trump is not wrecking the western alliance all by himself.
11
Krugman is right that there aren't really definite parallels between the US and Ancient Rome. Underlying factors, for my money, are just too different. To your point, the Senate was just nowhere near as powerful as it would have needed to be to really take on the Emperor (save for assassination attempts, I guess) by the time the Imperial era started - that's why (well, part of why) Julius Caesar and Augustus were able to win and consolidate power so quickly.
There is an interesting point during the later Roman Empire of wealthy landowners being powerful enough to evade taxes and shelter would-be Roman conscripts, putting their estates ahead of the needs of Rome, but again the comparison breaks down pretty quickly.
In any case, I recommend "The History of Rome" podcast by Mike Duncan if you're interested in that period.
It has been under concerted attack by traitors within in league with enemies from without since Nixon was forced to resign.
Paul - you didn't read any architectural/engineering history concerning the Romans. It is absolutely not true there was no technological take off for the Romans.
The Romans made amazing use of the arch. They built aqueducts to bring water to the cities they built. They created the Pantheon and the Coliseum. The Pantheon survives intact today.
The Romans were amazing engineers and architects!
44
The "take-off" he is referring to is the phenomena of early modern Europe, before the Industrial Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution itself,
In the very sentence to which you are objecting to but one clause, he states that the standard of living was not reached again until the Renaissance -- a statement that can only be made if one is aware of the high level of technology relative to the entire ancient world that Rome achieved.
1
Roman emperors ruled for life; American presidents have term limits. Hopefully that's enough to save us.
8
I wouldn't hope too hard if I were you Procrastinator. Term limits mean nothing if the current occupant destroys the country with the willing assistance of the GOP, the Koch Brothers, the Adelsons, etc. And make no mistake about it, that's exactly what those people want so that they can have all the money and all the power.
20
Term limits only apply to those who will step down from power willingly. There are days when I worry that we have seen our last peaceful transition of power.
15
That life, frequently, was not very long.
1
The simplest evidence about the way of life that Rome provided which gave it resilience was pottery, dinner ware plates, found at sites of Roman settlements across the ancient world and the lack of them after the Fall of the Western Empire. This pottery was composed of fine clay thrown on wheels, largely in a few places like North Africa, and sold across the entire empire. It gave evidence to a trading system that was providing high quality products at affordable prices across the known world. After the empire fell, the pottery found was not even thrown locally, it was crudely formed and fired by people who had lost the skills of pottery making from so long relying upon pottery made by specialists.
During the centuries from 200 to 475, the Emperors were continually at war with other Romans to stay in power, with the deciding power being the support of the Legions, and this frequently meant two or more claimants to imperial power in contention. Despite this, the trading system and the legal system held the empire together.
14
Great piece. I like 'paxiest' -- might have to add that word to my Scrabble list of fame;)
20
I had the same epiphany after reading Henri Pirenne’s “Charlemagne and Mohammed.” The Roman economy was unlike anything before or after until modern times. Pirenne uses the example of olive oil to underscore the point: even in the South of England, thousands of miles from the nearest olive grove, and until the collapse of the Roman economy in the early middle ages, olive oil was a vital daily staple of every Roman household, needed for cooking, bathing and lighting. Meaning that trade operated with the kind of efficiency and reliability that made it possible to supply vast quantities of the stuff even to the other side of the known world.
24
Weak analysis. Dean Acheson and President Truman forged the Pax Americana, which was strengthened by Eisenhower and, later, Kennedy. The peace forged by Caesar Augustus was strengthened by Roman jurisprudence and the wise policy of granting of citizenship on a generous basis. Rome propagated the great Hellenic-Roman cultures. Our Pax Americana was based upon a balance of powers with the Eastern bloc. Rome had military and naval supremacy throughout the Mediterranean. Maybe there are similarities, but in the sense of history not repeating itself but in rhyming.
5
It should also be recalled that, unlike the USA, when Rome marched into newly conquered territory......Rome administered the territory with Roman officials applying Roman Law. Rome worked. The last time the USA ever administered a conquered territory successfully was Panama 1898.....and as soon as we left, the place quickly deteriorated. As Military Governor Leonard Woods reported to Congress as he pulled down the US flag from Cuba....."100 years from now and the Cubans will still not understand democracy.".......and his words have proven very true.
3
I agree. The Roman Empire is overrated. The Ottoman Empire, the Hapsburg Empire, the Russian-Romanov Empires also lasted a long time but they weren't exactly good political models for any country to follow in the post electronic world, either. More importantly, we still retain a lot of the political mechanics of the Roman Empire including the immunity of the chief executive from criminal action while in office. It's time to bury all the nostalgic nonsense about how great the Roman political institutions worked. They didn't. They failed the people at the precise time safeguards were needed. We need to move on.
3
The Romans invented, and enforced 'Roman Law' over basically all of Europe and the Middle East.
Before and after the Romans there was no Law until the Magna Carta.
American law is under attack by the Trump barbarian, and we can only fix that by VOTING THIS YEAR.
29
Its no longer our call. Pax Americana will be replaced by Orwellian China. And a new dark age of corruption will descend. All due to short sighted one sided "free trade". Economists will wear this one historically. Although history may no longer be written unless from a Chinese point of view.
24
1400.....China was the most advanced empire on earth. The colonies founded in that time, still exist throughout SE Asia...as the "Overseas Chinese".......they still speak Chinese, worship Chinese, eat Chinese, think Chinese. Soon enuf, the highly educated and powerful Mandarins of the Chinese Court shut down all advancement and funding of trade, selfishly seeing themselves as more important, plundering the treasury for short term gains. the Emperor himself famously quipping,"We already know everything there is to know." And thus the scepter passed from China to the upstarts in the Mediterranean, and Modern Western Civilization was Born. Islam....aligned with China, also began an inward turn and soon petrified into an un-modifiable social order as well. Seasons change, and it may be time for USA to decide to build walls to protect us from a coming onslaught of rigid social order that will prevent society from growing more egalitarian and prosperous. This aint Ellis Island circa 1910 anymore....
I'm not an expert, but weren't the Romans taken down by barbarians inside the gates, also? It's an old story.
12
Yes, they were called patricians.
3
Paul, I know you've heard the saying "Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it", (George Santayana) so it's surprising that you would devalue the lessons contained there. However, despite your resistance, you seem to have gained some insight. Certainly we can't find direct comparisons between the Roman Empire and ourselves, but the parallels are evident. And even more so the parallels to 1930's Germany. Yes, the details are always different, but there really is nothing new under the sun because mankind really hasn't changed all that much underneath our more "civilized" exterior.
You are correct that the "barbarians" have bypassed the gate entirely, having been invited by the greedy traitors who place wealth over all else. Perhaps we should look to Greek mythology and the Trojan Horse for a closer lesson, having those would destroy us allowed entry by those who promote the "trickle down" wealth theory, promising that everyone will prosper, when in reality only the treacherous few do.
I have to hope that we look to our own history, and follow the teachings of our Founding Fathers, and begin standing up to these rapacious forces, because while they are powerful, they are few. As Franklin said "We must all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately".
19
America has done some terrible and shameful things, but nothing like what the Romans did when they got angry.
Forgotten about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Dr. Krugman?
21
As the child of a WWII vet, whose lineage might not have survived had we been forced to invade Japan, I take umbrage at this.
Had the bombs not been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is not apparent that the Japanese would have surrendered. An invasion of the Japanese homeland would have lead to millions of American casualties, and orders of magnitude more Japanese casualties. There was no quarter given or received in the Pacific Theater and this invasion would have been no different. It would have been a battle of extermination.
1
The fire-bombings were ruthless and wrathful, both East and West. The atomic bombings proved,calibrated, and openly demonstrated the qualitative difference of this new power for the benefit of military planning, political calculation, and moral consideration. And they hastened those "proceedings to be closed
1
Cath,The Japanese did far worse in China than the US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some argue that H and N saved lives. The US could have dropped those bombs on Tokyo and Kyoto where the death toll would have quintupled, but chose less populous targets. Let's not ignore what the US did in Vietnam when compiling a list of terrible things.
1
Mr. Krugman quotes my favorite movie, “The Life of Brian,” to anchor his argument. He couldn’t do better.
14
Mr. Krugman, some of these barbarians are tenured professors in the humanities departments of American universities.
11
Please explain how humanities professors of any rank exert real political power. Truly one of the silliest right wing cultural myths.
The sky is falling!! So this is what an adult temper tantrum looks like. Seriously Paul.
200 plus years of republic building and Trump will bring it all crumbling down and declare himself America’s first Caesar.
You give him too much credit, and you show the severe lack of fortitude.
Trump is not going to cross the Rubicon with his Legions and declare himself an Emporer.
Buck up and start the offensive for 2020 instead of rolling over and crying “The Republic is dead! The Republic is dead!” just because it’s not your preferred version at this moment in time.
If he gets re-elected (how is that possible now that everyone knows how horrible he is?), you may have to reconsider that the American people don’t prefer your version.
That will require finding an exit from the echo chamber you reside in.
Gasp!
11
Unfortunately, the educational level of many here is very low. However, that was not what made things the way they are. A lopsided, undeomcratic voting system based on a rural electorial college and foreign influence are what you call the “American people”.
American arrogance at its worst. The Roman Republic lasted 500 years before Caesar. Caesar destroyed the foundations of a 500 year power sharing arrangement between Roman elites in one short lifetime. If we don't guard against it; it can happen here.
1
I'm very uneasy with this argument about America's basic civility. The violence that we've committed -- both internally and externally -- is truly colossal.... _especially_ in the 30 years after WWII.
If there's anything nice about the killing we do, it's best understood in terms of that line from George Carlin on capital punishment: "We swab their arms before we give them the fatal injection -- we don't want them to get an infection."
11
I appreciate your concerns....but I disagree with the severity of the problem. No other nation has done more to ensure peace, health, education, prosperity around the world than the USA. Live TV and ubiquitous Internet connections have allowed us to see more of the world, faster.....and it amplifies situations beyond our comprehension. We see a forest fire in California and assume the entire continent is in flames. If there's misery, poverty, ignorance, war, suffering in the rest of the world......I blame the Rest of the World, NOT the USA. We do our part, only to be rejected by 95% of the worlds population.
1
The Principate survived Caligula and Nero, hopefully we‘ll survive Trump.
14
Seeing what’s happened so far, and the ineffective response so far, I can see how you could conclude Trump represents a new dark age beginning. Maybe not though. We need to take Trump seriously—shock and dismay won’t do it—but not be fooled into taking him as seriously as he takes himself. Dr. K., don’t despair, keep telling the truth.
10
Don't believe anything you're told.....and only half of what you see. You'll be OK.
The Pax Romana may have been something to celebrate, if not for the Legion of violent zealotry which it helped to create.
Don't worry; be happy. Use the number 100 -- start in 1918 -- and just overview that slice of history … and what people made it thru. and the mistakes that enabled WWII and Vietnam and the Cold War. And the miracles that enabled modern medicine, more people fed, polio and small pox wiped out -- and and and.
Abberations, misery along the way... chug chug chug.
New York Magazine decided to give its readers nightmares this week with an article on something I used to worry about -- nuclear war.
There is choice for one and all including ICE agents. So far as men -- testosterone makes some people do weird things. PS it's not entirely WE.
2
The Superpower is generally too unilateral and overbearing and irritating... that said, these decades of Pax Americana will be remembered as an enormous blessing; not just to Americans but to all nations (save perhaps the usual suspects like Russia etc...)
3
First and formost they left us literacy. When barbaric tribes - who had no culture of literacy - swept through Europe and the Empire eventually toppled, the language used in culture, history, diplomacy and science was Latin. It kept its importance well after vernacular languages gained on importance in the 16 ct.
I would call that a significant contribution.
19
Lovely piece Paul Krugman, thank you. This essay connects profoundly with any number of set backs recently. The TPP. the Trans Pacific Partnership, was one example of exemplary leadership by the Obama administration, and our allies, to continue free trade and respect for the rule of law and intellectual property rights in the Pacific rim. It was designed brilliantly to help the US and its allies coax China into more fair and legal trade practices.
I hope and pray that the pro science wave will wash the no-nothings and sycophants of the 1% oil and gas crowd into the corner with a dunce cap on where they belong. Meanwhile, populist concerns need to be addressed.
There is so much work to do. How do we keep out illegal immigrants for instance, without forcing the separation of parents and children, or their repatriation to death by gang warfare and terror?
It might not be the Roman way, but we might have to consider requiring family planning in exchange for military help in controlling gang violence in Central and South America.
David Lindsay Jr. is the author of "The Tay Son Rebellion, Historical Fiction of Eighteenth-century Vietnam," and blogs at TheTaySonRebellion.com and InconvenientNewsWorldwide.wordpress.com
6
The Romans are good to study for what is known as the Lindy effect. No idea can be true today that was not also true in the ancient Roman and Greek times - has withstood the test of time.
Human nature does not change, and every system is composed of humans.
Studying the Romans can also remind us of concepts that were known when people had a lot of time to think, rather than being constantly stimulated by the internet.
Phrases like: dues ex machina - a contrived happy ending which Disney used often. Or respice finem - look to the ultimate effect of your actions.
12
Reading through the comments, I am reminded that concepts like 'civilization,' 'human nature,' 'Dark Age,' and the like are often used in pernicious ways to either support one's own positions, or as weapons against someone/thing found worthy of criticism.
3
I just watched a recent John Ralston Saul lecture at King's College London. Saul went back to his 2005 book the Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World. He talks about Solon the Greek poet who rescued Athens in its darkest hour. Solon did this by freeing the middle class from indentured servitude by forgiving all debt. We on the other hand perpetuated an errant system but saving the banks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouoHlQdEA6Y&t=4153s
14
The drift toward populism and dictatorship is also happening in Europe and elsewhere. But the radical change in the USA is the most shocking and dangerous. I think most people underestimated how far Trump would go. After he has said that he wants Americans to give him the same deference that Kim of North Korea gets in his ruthless police state, we should take him at his word.
17
First of all … give Monty Python proper credit for the headline. Secondly .. there are, unfortunately, very good reasons why the current administration is in the process of destroying America's unique and laudable accomplishments achieved since WWII. Thanks mainly to decades of Republican attacks on public education, we have a society with a 40% illiteracy rate. These voters are easy prey for Republican appeals to racism, bigotry, and hate. These voters recognize their status in society has fallen … do not understand why … and are angry about it. Therefore they eagerly accept the targets given them by Republican politicians … led by Mr. Trump.
There have always been … and there always will be …. politicians who will deceive, lie, and cheat to keep their influential, powerful, and profitable positions. In the past most voters recognized the scam and kept them in the politcal minority. But today we have the supreme irony of an ignorant Trump supporter in a red MAGA hat … helping to insure that the goal of a 'Great' America will never be reached.
13
What did the Romans do for us?
They put the holes into the Jesus hands and into the minds of entire humanity.
Ever since, the alleged essence and key message of the faith is that all our sins are forgiven.
The original intention was to prevent and inhibit us from sinning - from being greedy, deceptive, lying, hateful, false witnesses or bloodthirsty.
After the Romans were done with the reformation of the true faith, even the Emperors were able to go directly to the heaven in spite of all the sins committed in their lifetime.
So, what do you think, he ordered those additional credos, Jesus or the Roman Emperors a few centuries later?
Do you really believe that Jesus’ last word were to declare the Rome as the epicenter of the faith and the Latin as official language of the prayers?
If not Jesus, then who?
Somebody extremely powerful, located in the Rome, and eager for the eternal life?
2
Huh?
How did they do it all with Roman Numerals as their number system?
9
Krugman blames only the right wing of our home-grown barbarians, not the left-liberal one as well. Both share hostility to the best cultural, social and political values and pursuits the West created and nourished, from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment and in its battle to defeat the external barbarians of Fascism and Bolshevism. The barbarians can be found not only in the Oval Office, they can be found on campuses and in Starbucks as easily. Barbarism, like humanism, begins in the mind, and it has invaded and captured minds on both sides of our cultural and political divide.
11
Do the barbarians in Starbucks also have the world's largest military (and nuclear buttons)?
Give me a break. The current issue is the right wing in the country. Do you blame the Russian Whites for the rise of Bolshevism? Do you blame the German communists for the Nazis? Of course not, so why blame the left for the radicalization of the Republican party in this country. It makes no sense. Place the blame where it belongs.
Starbucks is barbarism? Lol. Someone is taking themselves too seriously.
With my own ears I once heard mustache guy Stossel on Fox explain that high taxes and too much regulation brought down the Roman Empire.
5
Like all tragedies, there are likely many causes of our current problems, but one is certainly the failure of our school system to continue to educate students about the classical era and its values and lessons. The founding of our country and its system of government consciously and directly drew heavily from the classical era and it is a mistake to discount that history in the education of our children and naturalized citizens. Good citizenship in America requires an understanding of that era as it is the foundation upon which our government is premised.
12
Paul Krugman is always a joy to read - even when the subject matter is so depressing.......
4
'Still, our sort-of empire, like Rome’s, has been held together mainly by soft power rather than violence.' I am troubled by this narrative of US power. This was an era of 'relative peace and prosperity' that began and always existed in the shadow of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I would have thought that creating, maintaining, and using nuclear weaponry more than gives the Romans a run for their money when it comes to doing terrible and shameful things. What if the years of ignoring, minimizing, and justifying the violence the US has historically inflicted on people within and outside of its borders is part of the problem today? Might it be problematic to continue doing that to make a short-term rhetorical point?
2
Paul should also read the works of Peter Heather, the world's foremost expert on mass migration in antiquity and the impact that it had on Rome.
If Paul doesn't have the time for each of Peter Heather's 600 page tomes on mass migration and the fall of the Roman Empire, then maybe he should spend a day or two with Brian Ward-Perkins' The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization.
Either way, the evidence is pretty clear cut. Mass migration destroyed the civilization of Rome. Archaeological and anthropological evidence tells us that following the fall, literacy plummeted, living conditions plummeted, coinage went out of use, bodies were smaller and more malnourished, livestock were fewer in number and smaller, slavery and banditry was rife, and the building of sturdy structures gave way to mud and thatch.
What was the catalyst for the migrations? In some cases it was turbulence on the frontier, in other cases it was simply living in proximity to wealthy Roman camps on the frontier, and wanting the good life.
What was different between now and then? Today, we actually do have the technology, the communications, the defensive advantage, and the means to protect our borders. But fundamentally, we're dealing with the same problem of barbarians at the gates. And make no mistake, the barbarians are definitely outside the gates. Just look at the depredations of MS-13, of ISIS.
Trump isn't the only one (EU has fighters too). And he won't be the last.
6
And they are only 4-12 years old! Think how terrifying they will be when they grow up and go to college!
1
Hungry people, terrified people, people looking for a better life will always be in migration. No amount of technology, communication and defensive advantage (weaponry? really? against unarmed migrants?) will stop them. They are leaving something that has become unbearable, not necessarily knowing where they are going.
It would be the Christian thing, to help these people, but we are not a Christian people or nation. As has been noted recently on another topic, "The wise man builds bridges, the fool builds walls."
2
Siding with local oligarchs and people they could do business with. They would not deal with republics. Which is ironic. They were a Republic which was ruled by a oligarchy but allowed tribunate power to placate and control the vastly more numerous proletarians. Once they expanded past the Samonites and Pyrus had been defeated and the later the Carthaginians they became expansionist and extortionate. They were masters of playing one side against another. The Romans by the time of Julius Caesar had defeated the major powers around the Mediterranean and they had coopted local oligarchs to do Romans tax collecting and maintain local order. There was nothing friendly about Roman taxes.
Paul, your 30 year time frame is a little narrow, but don't despair. The Pax Romana lasted about 200 years. Let's see where things stand 170 years from now.
2
The Romans exhibited the capacity to solve big problems (clean water, etc.) by approaching them with a combination of theory and reality. The brightest minds were engaged to design systems which solved the problem without creating a new one in the process.
America today lacks the will (surely the capacity exists) to approach problem solving the same way. Immigration, a problem recently made worse by trying to apply 1960's thinking, laws and global circumstances in addressing it, is a prime example.
13
"We built something wonderful, and we’re throwing it all away for no good reason." Really?
This is Trumpland where claims without evidence and conspiracy theory without fact flourish. So I am going to offer my own and dispute, in a fashion, what Dr. Krugman claims in the quote above.
In a fashion because I am question the use of we. The "We" did build something wonderful. The 'we", however, aren't throwing it away. They got Russian funding for the condos, if not more, they got Chinese funding to the tune of $450 mln in Indosesia in addition to trademark protection, so I would not exactly call that "throwing away".
Now if the "we" is referred to the GOP in power, they didn't exactly throw anything away. They got their Supreme Court "Justice", their tax cut for the wealthy, not to mention their "socialized medicine" as personal benefit. Yes Dr. Krugman can argue these are all short term gains. But as Dr. Krugman quoted just a few days ago: "in the long run we will be all dead" so why should these "we" care?
Back to to conspiracy theory I even have some preliminary facts. The $450 mln loan in Indonesia is real. The Russian funding is at least partly real - they did buy lots of units. The Russian collusion, whether it happened or not, at least can be said to be Russian "contact".
4
I am sympathetic to the argument, but the Pax Romana was built by an authoritarian regime which could impose the domestic price of international peace and prosperity from the top down. The Pax Americana had to be built in a democracy - which required domestic support to establish and maintain it. In the aftermath of WWII, America was the only power left standing, and there was support for helping others to re-build and creating an international system that would prevent trade and security conflicts from erupting that would undermine the peace. With the fall of the Soviet Union, those trade and defensive pacts remained; but the justification that drove their creation waned, while the conflicts they created in domestic society waxed. At that point, those pacts should have been reviewed--not with a mind to tearing them down, but rather with the purpose of justifying them (and their expansion) to those who would live under them. Support for these institutions eventually became hollow enough that a TV game show host and real estate huckster could be elected, peddling a narrative in which America--the nation that had built and profited from these institutions--was portrayed as their victim, being bilked by foreigners. Donald Trump simply dressed up the "welfare queen" trope and applied it to foreign security and trade policy. He would have had a tougher time if a case for these institutions--one that matched the changing times--has been made and re-made to American voters.
2
Truer words were never spoken. The barbarians are already here.
What about the French? They gave the world the guillotine and put it to good use. Just a thought.
3
The French only now climb upon the High Horse of Morality because their attempt at Empire failed. There’s nothing left but to wag the finger and scold with the tongue. But such a pleasant sound when being scolded in French. Beautiful language. How much longer does it have before it’s lost to history? What say the demographers?
Indeed. The Carmelite Nuns of Compiegne were the truest of barbarians. As well as all the other ordinary French citizens murdered to please the mob. Trump would love your suggestion.
NYT opinion columnists: stop insulting our intelligence. Stop taking a calculated colloquial-tone ("gonna," "silly man") in order to ingratiate yourselves to the readers. Zero specifics are given for the argument, which completely fails to account for the quite bad 1st century AD (Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Domitian) in which war (Varian disaster, Agricola's campaigns) was very common along with domestic purging. Does he not know that his "soft power" co-existed with a very weak civil society and things still worked out? Quite a problem for someone trying to prove a tired "American authoritarianism is here" argument.
3
Add Rupert Murdock's Media empire to that list with Russia...
4
Since the Dark Ages (500-1000 CE) the world has become more progressive, prosperous, peaceful, technological, and united, with major advances during the Crusades, Renaissance, Enlightenment, American Revolution, British Empire, United Nations, etc.
Trump will pass with the Black Plague, religious wars, pogroms, genocides, segregation, lynching, America First, McCarthyism, John Birch, Tea Party, homophobia, intolerance, and ignorance.
We still are left with human rights, inequality and global warming.
Center of power shifts east to Byzantium; Christianity [Orthodox] becomes the state religion -- 4th C.
Islam is invented and expands across N. Africa up into Spain:7th Centuries. Charlemagne imposes a new Imperial Order on a large swath of the former Roman Empire (capital now at Aachen). Filioque controversy splits Eastern and Western church -9th and 10th C. (They had other issues in the Byzantine church.) The Huns started the great migration...
God/the devil is in the details. Quite entertaining...
(PS Charlemagne had several concubines.)
So, Paul, how have you got your prize money invested for the apocalypse?
3
He's not the messiah! He's a very naughty boy!
8
Yeah, the Romans had Nero and Caligula. We got Trump and Pence.
4
While Krugman reaches all the way back to the Roman Empire and with caveats and some odd and contorting maneuvers he extracts relevant comparisons. There's a better and historically closer era he can use to make his case.
The period that directly -- and eerily -- resembles our current predicament is the Weimar Republic from 1919 to 1933 when after WW1 Germany became a democracy with a constitution and free elections. It lasted 14 years until Hitler took over amid chaos and turmoil.
The comparison is obvious and trite. It's a beat-the-horse-into-the-ground cliche to draw parallels between Hitler and Trump. I've always accepted it without actually knowing the particulars, which are stunning: "anti-internationalism," revolt against "elites," exhaustion from a meaningless war, financial crisis, focus on "racial purity" and striking similarities between Trump and Hitler (extreme narcissism, zero empathy, bizarre obsessions, impulsive, indecisive, tantrum-prone, difficulty with women, enthralled by violence, natural actors and chameleon personalities).
Hitler had scapegoating Jews and Lebensraum (more space or expansive territory). Trump has immigration/wall and anti-free trade.
Hitler created such chaos and turmoil that it toppled the elected parliament and he took control at their request. Trump's working on it.
Whatever the Romans did can't begin to compare to what Trump is doing now.
15
One thing we know for sure is that for every corrupt politician and lobbyist, every greedy plutocrat, every bigoted evangelical, every hopeful white supremist and xenophobe, and every science denier and conspiracy fanatic -
“All roads lead to Trump’s Washington.”
3
Thanks but "barbarians" may be too weak a word to describe the violent ones.
See https://www.legalreader.com/republican-racketeers-violent-policies/
While Krugman reaches all the way back to the Roman Empire and with caveats and some odd and contorting maneuvers he extracts relevant comparisons. There's a better and historically closer era he can use to make his case.
If he wants to look at a period that directly -- and eerily -- resembles our current predicament he should look at the Weimar Republic from 1919 to 1933 when after WW1 Germany became a democracy with a constitution and free elections. It lasted 14 years until the elected parliament voted to turn the nation over to Hitler.
The comparison is obvious and trite. It's a beat-the-horse-into-the-ground cliche to draw parallels between Hitler and Trump. I've always accepted it without actually knowing the particulars, which are stunning: "anti-internationalism," revolt against "elites," exhaustion from a meaningless war, financial crisis, focus on "racial purity" and striking similarities between Trump and Hitler (extreme narcissism, zero empathy, bizarre obsessions, impulsive, indecisive, tantrum-prone, difficulty with women, enthralled by violence, natural actors and chameleon personalities).
Hitler had scapegoating Jews and Lebensraum (more space or expansive territory). Trump has immigration/wall and anti-free trade.
Hitler created such chaos and turmoil that it toppled the elected parliament and he took control at their request. Trump's working on it.
Whatever the Romans did can't begin to compare to what Trump is doing now.
No Life of Brian jokes in there, given the title?
OMG! Krugman's gone (David) Brooks on us!
6
Republican voters are haters. They don't really care about what policies are actually better for them. They just like to stick it to those egghead liberals, those elites. They fear anything new or different from themselves. They fear progress.
22
The Roman Empire had achieved something, built on many other things. That’s a summary of my knowledge on a very rudimentary level when I think of its history. ***** Recently, the columnist wrote a piece, “GOP to Americans With Health Problems: Drop Dead”. The photo provided to the piece made me think of a group portrait painting in the 17th century (Dutch). The photo in addition, had double frames - one group is framed inside of another group. In the larger frame, the people (D-s) point at the inside frame with analysis and criticism. ***** If we try to flatten the timeline onto the 2D surface, one way to think about its extension is to imagine a large frame in which events of the past are contained as smaller frames. The Roman Empire for example, can be inside of this moment of the time which is the largest frame until the very next moment comes to include all the precedings. ***** Lots of things are going on now. Political geniuses know how to abbreviate important concepts into the most conveyable messages, as deliverable to people, in order for the practical and the ideal to be exercised in the most effective way. On the way, jewels may become junk. Junk may become dust. Dust then will be down onto the earth. ***** The columnist points out the frail (=my word) inside of the current liberal democracy. If not only chronological, successive views to try to reach the most ideal and effective would be able to offer all inclusive resolutions as possible.
Another anti-Trump screed in the NYT. And folks wonder why many have news fatigue.
4
Not me! Give me more. I never get tired of them.
We don't have a barbarian in the the oval office, we have a fascist.. To quote an Andover High School student in his high school speech "Make the lie big, keep it simple,keep it and eventually they will believe it." It sound just like Trump, but is was said by Nazi Joseph Goebbels first. I would prefer the barbarian.
Americans are infinitely more cruel than the Romans Dropping nuclear and napalm bombs on civilians are just two examples.
6
You need more reading on Roman warfare and expansion. The horrors they inflicted on the defeated are rarely equaled.
1
Well, who's to say if the Romans had the nuclear bombs and napalm that they wouldn't have used them?
Whilst the nukes were dropped ostensibly to end WW-II, I believe the reason is actually worse. The powers-that-be had invested $2 billion in the Manhattan Project. Trinity had given them the "lab test" to show nuclear fission viable as a bomb. One thing in the lab, another in the real world. Given the racial prejudice against Asians (look at our own internment camps, for example), the Japanese provided both by the war and who they are the "political cover" and "justification" for testing them out against a civilian population.
1
>America has done some terrible and shameful things, but nothing like what the Romans did when they got angry.
Oh, give me a break! Atomic bombs, depleted uranium, napalm, agent orange.... Why do liberal Americans refuse to learn their own history? Has there been a country in history of human kind that has been more cruel and inhumane than USA?
1
And what is the US going to do about it?
An ignorant, degenerate buffoon is destroying everything the US is supposed to stand for - and NOBODY seems to be doing anything to stop him...
7
If only Constantine didn't see that cross in the sky, if only Trump didn't see thousands of American Muslims cheering in the streets, if only America would follow reason...
3
The barbarians who sacked Rome were outsiders. Our barbarians have always been with us. (Many, if not most -- including the POTUS* -- are descended from the ancient barbarians, so the shoe kinda fits.)
The West's great liberal democratic experiment, which seemed to those of us who lived most of our lives under its umbrella to be both inevitable & improvable, turns out to be quite unstable. A sizeable minority of Americans -- enough to choose our leaders -- never believed in enlightened democracy; they believe might makes right; they believe they live in a Christian nation; they believe the color of their skin is proof of their rectitude.
Today there is more reason to think that history is cyclical than to believe that "the arc of history bends toward justice."
Many ancient Romans believed that on the Winter Solstice, the Sun God -- Sol Invictus -- gained strength & began pushing back the darkness. As we approach the Summer Solstice, we might want to see in it the power of Sol's adversaries -- the demons who weakened the sun god until gradually darkness prevailed over light. That's where we are now. The demons & devils who pass as world leaders are pushing the world into darkness anew. Praying to the sun god is not going to fix it.
I would rewrite key passages as follows:
Not only are we vastly richer than Rome could have imagined, we’re also a lot nicer: America has done some terrible and shameful things, but nothing like what the Romans did when they got angry.... But now a barbarian invasion seems likely to tear it all down. And the sad thing is that the barbarians rejecting the values that made America truly great aren’t at the gates – they’re inside the gates, in fact in charge of our universities and media, where rich cultural snobs tell the tale that the west has no values at all, that it is uniquely evil: rife with patriarchy, white supremacism, capitalist tyranny, and all manner of deplorables and despoilers of nature, and ought to be more like, umm, well, you know, somewhere outside the west--like, for lack of a real-world example, that place inhabited by the lovely blue people in the film Avatar or all those places like, you know, the ones that were run like rich, multicultural communes with effective homeopathic dentistry before 1492.
Not entirely comfortable with being treated like scum or told that the world will be better when they're dead (i.e., when the Millennial is in charge), many voters who have spent their entire lives voting for normal politicians elect their own barbarian to give the snobs a slap in the face. He's a disaster, but he's not a disaster without a context.
3
Krugman gets chatty. I like it.
2
You know, the Colosseum was built to entertain people so they didn't know how downtrodden they actually were. Every day with Trump is Fresh Hell in the Arena.
4
And the Media gives him full attention for the sake of their ratings. They are the Coliseum, Trump is the show. Shut the doors for a while. Sacrifice profits at the Altar of Truth!
3
Thanks for pointing out that Niall Ferguson is a preening idiot. He gives historians a bad name.
It's not necessary to blame bestial corruption for the fall of empires, although excess has always been part of their final chapters. Excess of leisure, excess of luxury—for the rulers. Although there are trends in history, we still have the text: "there is nothing new under the sun." But there is. The earth began warming, climate became milder, humanity trickled out of Africa and colonized the earth. We invented agriculture. We increased and multiplied. We built cities. Rome was a remarkable example of architecture and governance. Part of what happened there is in the old saying: if you're not ascending, you're descending. People strove, achieved, and gave way to others who had the drive to strive and achieve. Trying to make sense of all that, and to see patterns, requires more than economic analysis. Population growth, destruction of the environment, global warming, drought, and war… What remains are observations such as those of E.O. Wilson: humans have god-like technology, medieval institutions, and Paleolithic emotions. Goethe’s saying is also super-relevant: feeling is everything. Homo sapiens is a mixed bag of emotions, with greed and pride driving some for a time. “Man comes and tills the soil, and lies beneath…” We cannot stem the tides, but we can manage their flow and impacts. We must.
1
and this same backward, frightened, nationalistic trend is taking place in many so-called liberal democracies, seemingly all at about the same time.
why?
clearly, it's a reaction. but, to what?
the present. people fear being left in the dust, fear being eclipsed by other tribes. in their panic, they turn inward, making society vulnerable to ill winds from the East.
sounds a lot like ancient Rome, but with broadband.
plus ca change...
There are many theories about the fall of Rome. One that rings true is that the elite lost the trust of the masses. Their sons no longer served in the military (Donald?). Their accumulation of wealth ceased to trickle down (Mark?). They retreated from immigration and the integration of outside talent (Steve?). Scarily familiar
Well, it's high time we show our patriotism by backing the opposition, the democrats or dissident republicans, both with our time, treasure and vote.
2
Paul Krugman says that we never did anything as bad as the Romans did when they got angry. America dropped atomic bombs on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That was anger.
That we did it to save lives doesn't cut the mustard so much anymore with me. And to answer Paul's title question, "What Did the Romans Ever Do for Us?" The Romans were a very orderly society. Order meant more to them than science, philosophy or art. Our supreme inheritance from the Roman Empire was roman law. Roman law was transmitted to medieval and modern states. The only thing of comparable scope since then is English law itself. That's what the Romans did for us.
2
Of course, those Romans never consciously enriched a competing empire with vastly different values and bent on world commercial and possibly military and political domination.
But that is pretty much what successive administrations here have allowed our corporations to do with China. All under the guise of 'engagement' and 'free trade.'
1
So where did Rome go wrong? Why could they not defeat the barbarians from the North? This civilization brought engineering to its height among many other things and handed us the most lasting of legacies for our democratic system, the Republic. Soft power, hard power, economics are not the lessons here. It was moral decay within its powerful which included its political branch. Pax Romana, Pax Americana..eerily similar and ominous for this 21st Century. For we are daily experiencing an unraveling of ethics and morality caused by our elite. For my counterparts across the aisle, I am not talking about the educational elite. I am speaking of the exploitation and subsequent controlling power of our more corrupt affluent individuals - right up to the Oval Office. Our roots are rotting through greed and blatant violations against human rights. Who out there will rescue us from a looming Dark Age?
3
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Is anybody else stunned that the Christian theologians interpreted those Jesus words as the proof of His intent to voluntarily sacrifice and redeem all our sins on the cross?
If even such misinterpretation were possible, why should anybody be surprised with our leading economists portraying the tariffs as detrimental to the US economy?
If the import fees were harmful to ANY country, those policies would have disappeared together with the dinosaurs.
Do we really have to argue that the tariffs are a defensive measure to protect the higher paid labor from the undervalued and underpaid foreign competition?
The left first charged the GOP with exporting of the American jobs overseas, then blamed the Republicans for trying to bring them back.
It makes as much sense as the priests claiming that Jesus spent His lifetime trying to persuade us not to sin and treat the others with love only to suddenly reverse the course at last moment and die at the cross to forgive all our wrongdoings...
Jesus wasn’t schizophrenic or bipolar.
Our priests and the economists might be...
That's what the Romans did to us. They made our beliefs bipolar in order to mask their terrible crimes.
It's now the official church dogma that without the Roman oppression and crucifying the oppressed none of us would ever go to the heaven.
Allegedly their crimes opened the heavenly doors for us...
1
We're still a republic.
1
Hey Paul; What about the British Empire?
2
It's not just terrible - it's a sad story also.
1
Wasn't a lot of "Pax Americana" really the Cold War? Two competing sets of values: democracy/capitalism vs. despotism/communism? When you note that "we've done some terrible and shameful things" I think you need to keep it in context to the fact that we were at war and if we had lost the Cold War.
Also Rome had effective and ineffective leadership, but endured for centuries. And, we'll survive the short, sad reign of Emperor Donald the Last.
1
There's more to life than riches. Pax Romana wasn't a patch on Athens at her height.
Rome failed to offer individual freedom as Athens did at her best. No wonder Rome produced only the second rate. All their best statues are mere copies of the best of Greece. Virgil doesn't compare with Homer. Cicero's platitudes are a pale mockery of Socrates. There was no Roman Xenophon. Ovid and Lucretius were the exceptions to Roman mediocrity.
Rome took an obscure, fringe religion of slaves and aristocratic women and Romanised it to give us Roman Catholicism.
Greece built ships that colonised the Mediterranean. Rome built slave galleys that transported mercenaries to hammer into subjugation first Carthage then everyone else.
Athens was the shining temple on the mountain peak, overlooking an endless sea of possibilities.
Rome was the landlocked military citadel, founded by two robber shepherds, intent only on subjugation and rewarding with riches the greedy, the venal and the ruthless.
2
By the time of Mexentius in the early 300s, only PR (Populus Romanus) was appearing on coins. SPQR was not cool any more as it put the senate on an equal footing with the populace. The institutions of state lost credibility and the whole show came tumbling down.
1
Ok, Mr. Krugman, let me be the devil's advocate. Trump's "resolution" with North Korea is at worst an American "cave-in" or, to put it another way, Trump, in the words of his fired advisor, Steve Bannon realized, "there is no military solution." So Trump has offered North Korea the benefits of trade with the US and the world upon, worst case scenario, some sham denuclearization. Is this not an example of using American soft power for peace?
Our problems with China, friction between the existing super power and a rising super power, did not start with Trump and I do NOT think our trade disputes with China will be definitive in deciding issues in the South China Sea. Canada and Germany will not get into a war with us over milk, steel and Mercedes cars.
I think Trump's plan is to deliver peace and prosperity (whatever the future costs of increasing the deficit and cutting regulations) and however offensive he is on other issues. So, yes, I think he used American soft power in dealing with North Korea in what you might call a very "Roman" way.
2
Mr. Tump is in the process of losing World War II three-quarters of a century after the Allies, lead by The United States, won it. If we do not stop him, soon enough, everyone who died winning World War II will have died in vain.
This is far from being an invalid comparison. People are the constant. Underlying human nature changed little over the past twenty thousand years. We’ve just added electrified silicon to the stone tablets and sheathed ourselves in polyester. Oh, so much polyester.
4
"And the sad thing is that the barbarians rejecting the values that made America truly great aren’t at the gates — they’re inside the gates, in fact in the Oval Office, because they’re basically home-grown [...]."
If those barbarians were only in the Oval Office, we would be able to hope that they can be toppled soon. One needs to remember that the WH barbarians have been installed there by an army of barbarians outside the Oval Office walls, and whose strength is growing daily as the polls indicate.
1
Actually, the US has done some things at least as bad as anything the Romans did, but probably only because the Romans lacked the means to do it. Dropping a bomb (or a bunch of bombs) on a city that literally incinerates 100,000 people in seconds is about as violent an act as could be imagined. It was also indiscriminate- men, women, children, the elderly- just turned to ashes. I'm not so sure the Romans had anything on us in this department.
1
Trump is Commodus. Can the decline and dissolution into smaller states be averted?
Love this whimsical piece ... except there's a rotten-ness at its core that somehow escaped the author.
Consider his -
How did they manage that? ... Local elites were offered a good life.
What would Mr. Krugman call the "very best year" of Pax Americana? - 1995, 1975 ... It doesn't really matter. So far there hasn't been a really good year for Native Americans since 1840, give or take.
African-Americans? SURELY, Mr. Krugman would admit that whether you look at $ numbers or ANY kind of index of "happiness" and health, the disparity between black & white in our country might just make ROME look good.
I know Mr. Krugman is as decent a human being - not to mention SMART - as anyone on earth. But isn't the answer he provides - The Elite Had A Good Life - more than a little
a) CONTEMPORARY? and
b) flawed.
I'm not colored red, but one of the few figures that has stuck with me was the one where US CEO's used to "net" 100x what the average employee dependent on them netted.
Now that that number is TEN THOUSAND, maybe, the thing to look at re Rome IS ... WHY DID IT FALL?!
Thanks deplorables; you're going to be as famous than the Justinian Plague.
1
Krugman should read "Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century," about how the early 20th century's fascist regimes' big change was to treat Europeans the way Euros treated Africans and colonial subjects worldwide for centuries. He has rose-colored glasses when he apologizes and dismisses American imperial violence over the course of the "pax" Americana. How many thousands of people were made into de facto slaves, like Dole factory workers in Latin America, to give one of many examples? What's the standard here? No world wars? You might as well look at Europe between 1800 and 1914 and say it was a "pax" Europa. It wasn't.
2
The reason is simple: Ruthless, greedy corporatists have harnessed unthinking people's hate and xenophobia to
further their own interests.
2
So who will write “The Rise and Fall of the American Empire”? I understand the “rise” will require 18 volumes. The “fall” will be adequately covered in a single tweet.
5
...and it will not even require 280 characters. Sad.
1
There are too many citizens of America who detest non-white people that they are willing to cut off their noses, like one of those defaced Roman sculptures we see in museums, to spite their face. Unless we solve the racist problem we have (we won't soon) neither shall be save our republic. Trump will preside over our decline but think he is making the nation great. Sad.
2
Then again, another theory for one (there are multiple) reasons for the decline and fall of Rome was its policy to extend new Roman citizenships to those within the Empire...thus making the Rome much less Roman.
My reading has the barbarian invasions taking place not only far outside the gates, coming from beyond the boundaries of the empire, but most decisively inside the minds, the souls of the great public. By the 3rd century, Roman writers lamented that while libraries were closing, blood sports were increasing in popularity and passionate devotion, while land and tax reform favoring the small farmer and artisan citizens was a faded-away dream, as the Senator class, now gone “global” in that context, only increased its wealth, privileges, powers.
One of the best, most convincing, memorable depictions of the way they were then is “Fellini’s Satyricon.” Very memorable is the long “dinner” scene centered around a crude, crass but adored rich braggart-lout. Greek reciters of Homer’s poetry make an appearance but they are no competition for the one who says poudly, “Once I was cockroach, now I am king!”
Perhaps, as writers named Fyodor, Fritz and Franz foresaw, cockroach is now more and more the norm. And we cockroaches want one who knows what we want, who were are, as King Cockroach.
Tell that to the millions displaced and killed by US aggression around the world!
Not possible the headline was not referring to Monty Python:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvPbj9NX0zc
2
Paul, Good stuff.
2 suggestions
1. Read up on some thing called Armagedom.;
2. check out a natural Law called Tactica Adversa.
Might make historical pictuer a little clearer.
I think we are in the 5th century of Roman Empire with Trump resembling Odoacer.
1
Actually, your history recitation and interpretation are inaccurate and likely tinged by western ethnocentric bias.
The Romans were nowhere nearly as “special” (to use your adjective) as the Persians or the Israelites. Both of the latter arguably invented morality, human rights, and certainly strived to live by it (at least in principle). In fact the Persians didn’t employ slaves (as the Greeks and Romans did).
In terms of size, longevity and strength/stability, the Persians empire, under various dynasties, from the time of Achaemenids, to the Parthians, through to the Sassanians, out-did the Roman Empire. Sure Persepolis was sacked by Alexander of Macedon, but so was Rome and/or Italy sacked by the Gauls, Carthage and other multitudes. And these were temporary. (Indeed, thrice the Romans fought the Persians, and thrice the Romans were defeated and their emperors captured or killed). As such, Thomas Jefferson relied heavily on the examples set by Cyrus as recited in spirit at least by Xenophon.
The glory of the Israelites’ kingdom was no less and resided not in conquest of lands but of minds and hearts. It fortified itself with high values and principles - ideas that conquered most of the world and still persist to this day either in religious or secular form.
The laurels of Civilization belong to those who promote human rights and morality; not to those who build colosseums.
5
you can't charge admission to morality nor sell popcorn to the righteous.
can you?
"The emperors, anxious for their personal safety and the public peace, were reduced to the base expedient of corrupting the discipline which rendered them alike formidable to their sovereign and to the enemy." Edward Gibbon, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"
2
Because one selfish, stupid, ignorant, insecure man with no discernible morals whatsoever, tricked, lied, and lucked into the Presidency.
Because he didn't happen in a vacuum, but at the culmination of constant concerted stealth attacks on our Republican Democracy over 40 years that successfully planted their first seeds during the Reagan administration, were fertilized during the Gingrich "revolution", were weaponized under the 2nd Bush, and burst into White-hot flames when America DARED to elect a Black President with a foreign-sounding name.
Because the Democrats stupidly gamed their own primaries while stupidly assuming the Republicans wouldn't wage a total all-out war with no Marquis of Queensbury rules or Geneva Convention defining fair play to limit them.
Because a foreign power saw in ONE candidate out of 17 the GOP put up, an opportunity to get to him and "play" him for a sucker by hacking and judiciously (from their POV) releasing, even cunningly altering, hurtful and embarrassing email.
Because Trump was weirdly right: The election WAS rigged, but for him, not against him.
And now we may lose it all. Bill Maher insists that even if Trump loses in 2020, he'll NEVER give up the White House willingly. Bill may well be right.
You sounded smart until the last bit. Have a little more faith in the other greedy power-hungry politicians and non-politicians out there. They want to be President too!
Besides, time and BMI are not on Trump’s side. Relax, take a candle bath and have a glass of wine. Start figuring out who the Democrats can put up now that the Clinton/Obama era is over.
Agree completely. And that big, beautiful Wall : that's also to keep US in.
As for what's next, see " Fascism for Dummies ". Seriously.
1
Exactly right Paul. Why do we have to pretend that Trump and his pet skunk Putin are acceptable? Especially when the obvious goal is to tear our country apart - and for what? Lame campaign promises fulfilled? God forbid! Get to the polls - turn them out. We can't take much more of this.
1
All great countries, great empires, are eventually destroyed by the hubris within them. Not by the enemy at the gates.
History repeats because history is rarely read and is little understood. The comparison of Trump to Wilhelm is appropriate. "Vain, reckless, belligerent" -- Margaret MacMillan.
3
History repeats itself not because people do not read it, but rather because humans have not changed that much since recorded history. I have to keep this reply short. My cave paintings need a bit more work. The bison is not quite right yet.
2
It is, indeed, a risky thing to pull too many lessons out of ancient history, Ancient Rome included. But after a brief soiree into the fall of the Roman Empire, I can't help but see a few parallels. For one, Rome's death was not brought about by barbarian invasions. Indeed, the fall of Rome was likely stayed by great German (foreign-born) generals like Stilicho for almost 100 years.
One of its greatest faults was an economic system built upon conquest. When conquest slowed and the import of slaves stopped, Rome slowly shriveled from a lack of labor to till the fields, pick the fruit, and sweep the streets.
Another fault was from within, where corrupt officials indulged in the worst sorts of cronyism and theft of the Empire's tax revenues. Large tax breaks to all of one's friends, crooked schemes to make money off the treasury, and so on slowly bankrupted the Empire. The decline of Pax Romana forced cities to wall themselves off from one another and from their surroundings, fearful of crime and bandits that were a product of a declining government.
Perhaps worst of all was the leadership. The Crisis of the Third Century had its roots in the rule of Commodus, a truly immoral man with no redeeming qualities, but the series of strongmen who followed were each worst than the last.
Unlike the Romans, we have a choice. We can still choose to stop this modern-day Commodus before Pax Americana ends and our own Crisis of the 21st century emerges. But will we?
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I like your use of the « paxiest » part of the Pax Romana.
Here we are at a great turning point in history. We’re seeing the red flags signaling the end of the Western Alliance, but it’s something like watching a movie from the front row. We’re all straining to see the forest for the trees, but we can’t make it out very well.
Still, it’s fair to say that Trump is dismantling not only the Pax Americana, but democracy itself. Trump didn’t bring up human rights to Kim because he doesn’t care about human rights. All foreign relations are being reduced to transactional moves that put America first by shoving everyone else aside.
“We will not apologize, “ says Sec. Nielsen about separating children from parents at the border. We shove principles aside as well.
The biggest mystery is WHY won’t Congressional Republicans stand up?
We know what Trump is. But we thought Congress cared about democracy and our Constitution.
8
There were many reasons for the decline of the Roman empire and although Gibbon attributed it to "the triumph of barbarism and religion", that may be too limited. Perhaps there were other reasons for its subversion and some of them may apply to the United States.
As a hypothetical thought experiment let us imagine that someone acting on behalf of a hostile foreign power somehow became president, and consider what he would do to advance the aims of his sponsor.
Internationally he would eviscerate the state department, refuse to nominate ambassadors, denigrate the expertise of foreign service professionals, unilaterally withdraw from treaties and agreements, insult foreign leaders and initiate trade wars.
Domestically he would incite racial, class and ethnic hatred,
demonize the free press, appoint as heads of agencies that protect the environment, supervise our banking system and guide educational policy ideologues who wish to destroy their agencies, try to eliminate our health insurance program, enact a tax program that enriches the richest and astronomically increases the national debt, equate political opposition with disloyalty, destroy the institutions of loyal opposition and respect for the rights of minorities that let us survive for over two hundred years and cast doubt on the very concept of objective truth.
Of course these are only hypothetical musings.
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This is a pretty contrived argument just to get in a dig at Trump. As for Pax Americana, I suspect that a lot of people in places like Vietnam, El Salvador, Iraq and Afghanistan might be less than impressed.
1
I think he made the point that there was always a war going on somewhere--which fits the analogy. But the main point is that we avoided total war. We didn't have perfect peace, but the body counts were orders of magnitude lower.
1
"We built something wonderful, and we’re throwing it all away for no good reason."
Reason has left the building.
3
My takeaway from Roman history is that a Constitutional Republic (i.e., separation of powers across executive, legislative, and judicial branches, in our case) is fragile and voters need to be vigilant to make sure no would-be Emperors get power.
Our Electoral College has recently twice overridden the will of the people (Bush over Gore, Trump over Clinton) to our collective detriment. It was there as a fail-safe in case an emperor showed up, but instead it's putting party before country.
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the excuse for the EC was to prevent the rise of a king who would usurp the power of the people (when the people were white, male property owners over 21 exclusively). it was also meant to protect against a large number of eligible rubes voting in a president who did not satisfy the educated elite.
but the underlying motive for the EC was to insure the agricultural states (eg, the South) would not be overwhelmed at the polls by the rising mercantile states with their growing populations. the plan was to structure the process to insure the continuance of slavery by minimizing the power of urban voters.
so, why do we need it today?
answer: it still works as designed, now insuring the Republicans in sparsely populated rural districts won't be overwhelmed in elections by urban voters... and thereby continue the modern iterations of slavery so dear to their shriveled lumps of coal called hearts.
Julius Caesar was a populist who ended the Roman republic and established the empire as a dictatorship. He came to power because he had the support of the population, which revolted against the greed of the elites. Following his rule, the Roman government was essentially a revolving door of emperors for the next 400 yrs, some of whom managed to stay in power for no more than a few months. It all ended badly when Goths eventually overran a politically fractured Rome, after which it became a ghost town and stayed that way for centuries as it devolved into a bunch of squabbling princilalities. Rome, in its present incarnation as Italy, has yet to fully recover.
2
Just as - wall or no wall - inevitably the northern countries, including Europe and Russia, will be overrun by those fleeing climate change.
We do nothing about climate and we will turn into a Mad Max reality show.
Every empire declines . We’re declining because the economy is highly financialized , replacing the once vibrant industrial based economy . People nowadays make billions out of thin air, by placing bets on bonds or Wall Street .
This is not sustainable. Donald Trump invests in real estate for oligarchs while New York titans squeeze money out of Bloomberg computers.
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The influence of the Roman Empire is undeniable. Roads, bridges, arenas, aqueducts still standing and valid as well as a lasting global cultural influence.
We have so much potential for greatness or we can be a historical blip. Our desire and effort to be great will determine that.
2
The remnants of the Apollo missions should be there for at least a couple thousand years perhaps?
Rome shared a common trait with the British Empire under Victoria; the great Chinese Dynasties, and Egypt at its peak:
An efficient, well organized bureaucracy.
And, with their "burn it all down, sand in the gears of what won't burn" approach, the modern "conservative movement" seems bent on destroying the goose that lays the golden eggs.
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Roman roads are still in good shape. We have lost their ability to construct infrastructure.
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Oh good God. There isn’t a Roman road in it’s best day where an 80,000 lb vehicle could move at 80 mph and not have to stop except for its driver had to use the toilet. Happens in America every x 10,000 (a guess, probably much more).
Not to mention you can get on an aluminum tube in your pajamas and fly to Rome while typing this hyperbole on your iPhone connected to the electronic superhighway with the confidence that the worst thing that may happen is the seatbelt sign is on when nature calls and you have to hold it for 10 more minutes.
The levels of technology and infrastructure that have to work seamlessly to make that happen are mind boggling.
Get a grip.
Thanks for the nod to Monty Python, Professor. It is appreciated.
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There actually is a good reason. We simply neglected the development of real democracy in favor of blunt wealth and power.
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Mike: "We" didn't neglect it. We had no say in the matter. Laws have always been made by the powerful for the powerful. The Framers are revered here, but some of them were slave owners whose conflict of interest pitted their profits and lifestyle against the idea of developing a more democratic America.
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I would and have argued that there is plenty we can as citizens do to create a democracy that works for us, the people. We just haven't found the will to travel that path yet.
Because we built as much as we did in the way infrastructure, wealth and war materiel, we gave ourselves a lot more cushion than Rome did. If we'd kept with letting most everybody get ahead, we could keep at it for a lot longer.
Unfortunately, individual greed is powerful, and quarterly returns have gotten a lot more focus than decades-long planning and forecasting.
We've had a lot of greedy short-sightedness over the past few decades, but it's taken a while to really gut the Pax Americana we'd put together post-WWII.
Right now I'm looking at our military, which is an important component of our current world order, and wondering how much better our country would be if some of that money went to universal healthcare and free public higher education. Or a proper national safety net.
We're moving away from being hegemon to a multipolar world order that sees China, the EU and the US wrangling economically for the top spot, with notable interference from Russia, North Korea and a few non-state actors like ISIS and occasional voices from other countries just trying to live. All I can hope for is a better world order resulting from the trade wars.
Maybe we can stop warmongering for a few decades.
Nice story, Paul, but your timing is all off. We're at the moment just before Augustus when the Roman Republic was fighting for its existence against the oligarchs of that time--the rich (due to the Marian principle allowing generals to keep the spoils of their conquests) oligarchs like Julius Caesar, Mark Antony and Pompe. The corruption of money, then as now, led to the demise of the democratic republic and the age of emperors. Donald Trump may be a barbarian, but he's the 21st century oligarch who has crossed the Russian Rubicon with the clear intent of toppling our democratic republic.
One thing to keep in mind is that Trump's win was not democratic and he does not represent the values of the majority of the American people.
Every week we learn more and more about how Trump stole the election with the help of the Russian intelligence services hacking into the DNC servers; Facebook promulgating fake news created by Russian bots; the obvious coordination of WikiLeaks releases of hacked DNC Emails timed to divert attention away from the Hollywood Access video; the media's obsession with Hillary's private Email server during the campaign; Comey's breaking of multiple DOJ rules, not once but twice, the second time during early voting. All of these combined can easily account for Trump's win in three states by tiny margins that pushed his electoral college total over the top even though he lost the popular vote by a large margin.
Don't believe the false narrative that Trump would have won anyway. He could not have and would not have won without the help of Russian interference.
Without Trump winning the general election the GOP would not now be the party of Trump and American policy would not now be turning away from its core values and we would not be starting a senseless trade war and border control policy would not now be snatching small children away from their mothers simply because they were seeking asylum from horrific violence in their home countries.
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Of course there is a reason, Paul. The same reason as always. Profits.
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Krugman, you took the words out from my mouth. All those words about Roman legacy to the western world always sounded like a fiction to me. I mean, beside political things, the "culture inheritance" always sounded like foam. Precisely, there dont seem to be anything relevant connecting the present and their past.
Mr. Krugman has highlighted one of the American miracles—soft power. It’s not your nukes that get you respected, it’s your values, culture, and economy.
Our values of fair play and an even playing field have always been honored in their breach, but they have been honored. Until a man born on third base stole home while the umpire was distracted. Our current government, all three federal branches, are controlled by a minority set to maintain power by gerrymandering and vote suppression.
Our culture of inclusion is another breached value, but it supported many to come here and join the American experiment. These immigrants are the fuel that powers our arts, gives our science its liftoff, and enriches our vision. Today, we are trying to slam the door by ripping babies out of mother’s arms—a crime in any society and doubly so for one that pays lip-service to pro-family values.
Our economy has been the wonder of the world with not just the highest degree of wealth but its wide distribution. Today, the banks seek to scam us with mortgages and college loans while our political leaders turn deaf and blind to these crimes. Wealth concentrates at the top of the pyramid because our regressive tax system robs the poor—not just of money but a future.
Our soft power has been corrupted with Trump only adding his own twist to the toxic brew. Fixing it will be neither easy nor fast. The first step is to begin returning governing power to the majority. Failing that, we lose our way.
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The world is moving toward greater freedom and justice. With colonial rule a failed idea, wars of domination just can't succeed in the long term. We have given women, LGBT, people needing accessibility and assistance, children and even animals greater justice and rights. People care more about the environment and climate change. Right now though, there are some obnoxious bumps in the road.
On a lighter note I love the nod in the title to Monty Python.
You could have written much the same thing about the British or Dutch empires of the 17th-19th century. There's a reason why Gibbon, and other Englishmen of his era, were so obsessed with Rome. And why that obsession has now, apparently, passed on to modern Americans.
Unfortunately, no matter how peaceful your intentions, maintaining an empire does entail certain costs - among them, a disproportionately strong military, because there's always someone who refuses to play by your rules no matter how much you try to bribe them. And sooner or later, people get fed up with paying for that.
Once the empire is established, you go through a phase where people expect concrete, personal benefits from it. For instance, in the late 19th century, shiftless and frankly lazy young Britons would be shipped out to Africa to make their fortunes in farming or mining on ridiculously preferential terms - which explains a lot about the present state of formerly-British bits of Africa.
This same dynamic is visible in how the American empire is currently - rapidly - falling apart. Regular Americans see no (personal) benefit from it, so they're saying American blood and treasure shouldn't be spent on defending ungrateful "allies". And that's the policy Trump is implementing.
A paragraph that best sums up the rise and fall of the Roman Empire comes from Peter Turchin’s book ‘War and Peace and War.’
'Roman aristocrats of the early Roman republic competed in who could die for patria in the most glorious way, in the late Republic they competed in who could throw the most sumptuous banquet. In 275 BCE possession of 10 pounds of silver plate was considered as 'anti-social behavior', two centuries later possession of 10,000 pounds of silver was a source of pride for the owner.'
My work involves analysing behaviour in terms of mindsets. The quote above describes is a shift from a collaborative coterie of mindsets, e.g. ‘We serve the common good’ and ‘We work in partnership’ to a status oriented ‘Me-First’ and ‘Closed’ mindsets.
We know that people with ‘Me-First’ mindset display the following characteristics. Inflated self importance, Inflated sense of entitlement and Indifference to the suffering of others. These characteristics can be induced experimentally by placing people in positions of unexpected wealth or sudden unearned status.
What to do?
Help people discover their Seek Openness and Learning mindset or SOAL. How to do that? Show people that SOAL helps people laugh more and do good at the same time. People with SOAL do better in a range of activities and especial sport. They handle pressure more easily because they are less fearful of losing status.
Journey with courage and kindness,
Peter Rennie leadershipaustralia
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Economic inequality and the refusal to pay taxes has murdered many a Republic. Romans understood the carrot and the stick does more to maintain unity than any threats of violence. But you need money to make it all go round and we don't want to pay for anything other than the military these days.
While agreeing with PK’s main point, shouldn’t one, in the name of decency, mention Viet Nam as the exception to Soft Power? Two million Viet Namese killed - about the same as the sum of English and French deaths during WW I.
No word from Krugman on Rome's "open borders" policy of the late 4th century. When Valens invited the Goths to settle in the empire in 376--a purely humanitarian gesture offering succor to migrants fleeing dire economic conditions and political violence--he also believed that he was bringing Rome a flood of cheap soldiers, inexpensive seasonal farm workers, and motivated landscapers, all of whom would be his eternal political allies. But what happened to the schools? Taxes? Real estate values? And, by 378, the distance between Valens' shoulders and his head?
The original intent of our democracy as written in the constitution has been totally kidnapped by various political groups over the last 200 years. The balance of power has been lost, the idea of one man one vote was never done and now voter suppression is the thing, the democracy has now become a oligarchy and run by non elected lobbyists paid for by special interests, and we have lost our original democracy intentions.
When the wealth is not shared, the wealthy will pay. The entire system is corrupt. There are no wealthy people who are not corrupt. This corruption will drastically change or possibly end, the current political and economic systems -- possibly in short order.
Yes, we built something wonderful -- for ourselves, briefly, while the post war social contract prevailed, for Japan and for much of Europe. Long before Trump, however, the spoils were redistributed, at least for Americans and the "we" is now the "few".
And of course if you compare the fate of ordinary citizens under the Warsaw Pact with U.S.-promoted slaughter and tyranny in Latin America, Africa and South-East Asia, the venture even during the good years (good for us, that is) begins to look far less benign than it is horrifying.
Trump, for all his incontinence bullying belligerence does reveal a truth about ourselves. He even speaks an occasional truth that's forbidden to American political discourse.
In a word, legions who despise Trump made him possible. And like the Romans, they're deaf and blind to it.
The Romans knew they needed to hold influence in places like Britain because they needed the silver; they needed to hold the Mediterranean region because they needed olive oil for fuel.
They held the region because they needed the resources. They used soft power, because they did not have the bandwidth to send more centurions. The military was expensive.
And maybe we need to understand that there are always barbarians at the gate, trying to get in and grab the wealth and destroy the empire. In our case, the barbarians are inside, and chewing away at the institutions for personal enrichment. We don't have Visigoths; we have ALEC and corrupt lawmakers, and courts that support corporate pillage.
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History closer to home is more relevant. Eastern, university-oriented elites from W Wilson to W Clinton promoted internationalism and trade. Congress never agreed because local interests and folks in the hinterlands were of a much more isolationist, xenophobic and (dare we admit) racist frame of mind. The rubes have always hated the educated, articulate, well-informed and comfortably globalist, regarded them as peering down their noses at them, and consequently dreamt of tearing down whatever the elites tried to build from the League of Nations to the UN to the WTO. The Trump/Clinton debacle was part of this ongoing, uniquely American, drama, wholly analogous to the punting of the sanctimonious Wilson & embracing US isolationism post WW 1, causing the Great Depression through ruinous American trade policies. The less said about soft power, particularly in light of Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, the better. And leave the poor Romans out of it.
Critics of aid to other countries don't seem to understand that almost all of the money spent goes back to American businesses. They may do the work in other counties that improves them, but the "aid" given is paid to American companies to do the work. We benefit as much, or even more than the country getting the aid. Indeed, it is almost a corporate welfare program; a make-jobs program for the US worker. But all the right wingers see is money going to another country.
This is the root of the issue - right wingers are hopelessly ignorant about how the world works. Only education will solve that, but they refuse to be educated and would rather listen to the lies of right wing entertainers. How do we solve that?
2
Given Russia's role, I can understand why Paul Krugman views Trump in terms of a barbarian inside the gates. But I think of him more as an emperor crazy on power while the Pax Romana still existed — specifically, I think of the Emperor Caligula (and even more specifically, John Hurt's brilliant portrayal of him!). Every time his GOP enablers in Congress go along with Trump, groveling like the Roman senators who pretended to agree with Caligula that he was indeed a god, the parallel is reinforced.
1
Mr Krugman, we can hope trump and his trumpettes are not as nasty as Romans were when their empire was cresting and the requisite fall of the empire. But really, have people changed?
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The pace of change—change of all kinds, in the last 40 years or so—has scared the living daylights out of a large segment of American society. The fact of the globalization and de-industrialization of our economy, and the rise in the economies of every developing nation, has changed the nature of work itself.
The rapid change in cultural norms: the push for racial, gender, and sexual equality, the de-emphasis of organized religion in American life has aggravated the sense of loss of the traditions, good and bad, which a large part of the society was comfortable with.
It is all summed up in the current Tea Party/Evangelical lament, "I want my country back." Back to what? 1956, of course!
This is the essence of Trump's political power and what he continually exploits among his base. Trumpworld is white, militarily supreme, hyper-religious, anti-gay, anti-foreigner, and above all, intellectually dead.
Next up: "Bread and circuses?"
Every big, successful civilization has gone it own way. Its the way of the world. I just hope America's passing (which we now seem to be witnessing) isn't too painful for the vulnerable.
1
Consistent with the column I would recommend Adrian Goldsworthy's How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower.
Perhaps Paul could expand his take on history to include the frequent observation of historians that internal decay is the usual cause of succumbing to the barbarians at the gate. With Trump in command, the internal decay can not only be seen but smelled.
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Another analog - the Romans were eventually able to adapt Christianity to their own purposes, as a control mechanism. Sound familiar?
2
The predictability of even Prof. Krugman doing his daily share of kicking into Trump is not helpful.
I was thinking this during W's administration. Quite possibly it is the cornerstone of the Republican party.
Krugman apologizes for finding the silver lining in the Roman Empire. OK--there was disease, slavery, crucifixion and Masada.
But this is an understatement:
"Rome did so well for so long by not being too greedy, by limiting short-sighted exploitation of its power in favor of long-term system-building."
And "it didn’t have a technological takeoff"--misses a huge part of the system building--Concrete.
"The earliest large-scale users of concrete technology were the ancient Romans,...The Roman Architectural Revolution, freed Roman construction from the restrictions of stone and brick materials. It enabled revolutionary new designs in terms of both structural complexity and dimension. They used concrete extensively from 300 BC to 476 AD, a span of more than seven hundred years." Wiki
Roman civil engineering--roads, bridges aqueducts and buildings are still evident all over Europe--obviously designed and built to last. This is multi-generational infrastructure planning, the foundation of civilization then and now. It was NOT private enterprise--but very public enterprise--res publica. Private enterprise aims at the quick payoff--one lifetime--two at most.
"They also achieved remarkable things on the political front"-- mainly Roman Law, the basis of English Common Law--adopted by the USA. And the Jus Gentium--Peoples Law--international law. It transcended local customs and is the basis of "morality" --human rights.
You can't expect Trumpies to appreciate any of this.
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I agree with Mr.Krugman analysis of America providing for a better world after World War 2 until his incorrect blaming Russia for Trumps election.What has Russia done that America has not done since World War2?Mr.Krugman biases towards Russia likely based on the negative information about Russia he received from his ancestors,family biases are very hard to overcome in even the best of us.
Unlike the United States of America, the Romans did not enslave nor make all Africans separate and unequal.
Unlike the Chinese, the Romans were not an independent original socioeconomic political educational technological scientific diplomatic military superpower for most of the past 2200 years.
Unlike the Egyptians, the Greeks, Mesopotamians, Olmec, Indus, Caral, Moche, Tiwanaku, Maya, Wari and Teotihuacan the Romans did not independently develop and influence anything nor anyone.
Donald John Trump is a combination of Tiberius, Caligula and Nero by nature and nurture. While America is much more empire than divided limited power constitutional republic.
1
Paul Krugman: “It’s a terrible story. We built something wonderful, and we’re throwing it all away for no good reason.”
Abraham Lincoln, Lyceum Address, 1838: “At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
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When I hear politicians exhorting the populace to obey the laws of the state because they are the will of some god, I remember Sophocles great play "Antigone," c. 440 BCE, well before the Roman Empire.
After a battle ("the gods have righted one again/Our storm-tossed ship of state"), the king forbade anyone to bury his "miscreant exile" nephew who had fought on the other side: "'tis ordained that none/Shall give him burial or make mourn for him,/But leave his corpse unburied to be meat/For dogs and carrion crows."
But his niece Antigone cannot bear to see her brother, enemy though he might have been, deprived of the sacred rites due to any man. She defies her uncle, arguing for family values of the time, and symbolically lays a handful of dirt on her brother's corpse. The king upholds his threat and sends Antigone to her death - only to lose both his son, her fiancé, and then wife to suicide.
In the end, the tyrant admits he's "a rash, foolish man…for all is amiss with that which is in my hands," and the play concludes: "Great words of prideful men are ever punished with great blows, and, in old age, teach the chastened to be wise."
But I fear there aren't any gods - or colluding religious leaders, for that matter - around these days to step in on the side of rational thought, human rights, and curbing of the current tyrant's greed and exploitation of power. And that, unlike the play, he will be neither chastened or any wiser when his edicts cause great harm.
5
Despite a Nobel Prize and a topic I find stultifying, economics, Paul Krugman can write a piece that has warmth, illuminates, and amuses all before my second cup of coffee.
Still on my Life List is meeting Paul Krugman even though he went to "the other" high school in our town and didn't follow Ben and Jerry, Dana Milbank, and Lindsay Lohan - and me - at the Sanford H. Calhoun High School in Merrick, NY.
That was fun. Ex-60's radicals have been looking for the fall of the American Empire since the Reagan puppet was dancing on oligarchs' strings. Nobody thought the fall would be so venal. I always have to come back to blaming ourselves. We allowed Republicans to outflank us, then they were themselves co-opted by a mutiny of the dark elements they had employed. It all accrues to the benefit of the super rich, in the end. Whatever dog gets the bone after the fight in the gutter, the meat went to the top.
With that headline, I expected a link to a favorite Monty Python sketch and a favorite rebuttal to the right's attack on government and governance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7tvauOJMHo
I laugh just thinking about it.
2
All glory is fleeting.
Oh Dr. Krugman. As an historian who teaches Roman History from a feminist perspective (and you might want to read the work of Sarah Pomeroy to get a different view from the guys you read), I can tell you that the Pax Romana was a lot like the Pax Americana in very uncomfortable ways. An economy built entirely on slave labor, with few technological innovations, except for inventing concrete, because it was too easy to use humans as tools (tech savvy came with the Middle Ages). An elitist autocracy masquerading as a "Republic." The policy of "bread and circuses" to keep a restive underclass docile. The oppression of women and minorities (your German ancestors were better humanitarians than the Romans by a lot). The list goes on.
It is easy to see the splendid remains of the Roman Empire as emblematic of a splendid society, but those remains were built by slaves, maintained by an oppressive regime, and supported by a docile, well fed elite. Sound familiar?
2
I am not a Trumpster but I don't believe he is as innately evil as some people insist. He is just not fit for the job, intellectually or by temperament. Thankfully, so far, his only damage has been through executive order, which is practically reversible. My real fears are: 1. he will do long term damage to the our country because of his narcissistic hunger to make fame on the international stage and through his unfathomable desire to cuddle up to a Russian government that wants to weaken our democratic system. 2. It is possible he could be re-elected.
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You obviously haven't been paying close enough attention - check out the judges, who will be with us for a long time after he's gone.
"He is just not fit for the job, intellectually or by temperament."
If only this was the case we would be in a much better shape. Trump is intentionally destroying our democratic norms and current international system with nothing to replacing it with. Whether it is evil I don't know, but it is way more than "not fit for the job, intellectually or by temperament"
1
The SCOTUS? Surely you don't discount that?
1
The Romans sat on top of the world for hundreds (?) of years. Thanks to our current president, our "king of the hill" time may be much less.
1
Nice piece, but too much of importance has been ignored. We now live in a world where everybody is interconnected, and that means to me that my aunt Sally in Iceland can chat with Uncle Herman in Argentina, etc. More importantly, it really means that somebody in Gov't (ours? Russia?) can read everything. The Romans didn't have drones. The rich overlords can and will control everything. Your medical info? They've got it. When you changed your oil? Got that too. AI will change a lot of things, and you've only seen the beginning.
There's something else not mentioned here. This country has a lot of guns, and a lot of lone wolves ready to use 'em. Maybe more militias? Racially motivated killings? Lots of possibilities here. Not pretty. A new disease, perhaps? What's the point spread on man existing in present form in one thousand years?
1
It's a fine and important point you make Dr. Krugman. The toxicity was building-- wasteful, horrible wars, a financial meltdown, the creative use of right wing entertainers who play on the fears and resentments of white older men... but the center of all of this focuses on one man, whose relentless, self serving, egomaniacal genius for twisting the truth and creating a 27-7 political furor is clearly our undoing. Alas, history also teaches us that representative democracy is complex, and authoritarianism is its undoing, provided that the cultural and historical time converge with an individual who has a genius and a passion for destruction.
1
"We built something wonderful, and we’re throwing it all away for no good reason."
Even if one were to accept Trump's "values" (whatever those might be), his actions are so reckless and destructive as to approach nihilism.
Tom Friedman observed in this paper that in return for the US moving its embassy to Jerusalem, Israel might well have made enormous concessions on behalf of the road to a two-state peace ... but Trump got nothing.
Even if the Iran nuclear agreement were a lousy deal (I don't know that anything better was achievable), the rational course of action would be to replace it with some better regime. Trump's policy? Smash it to splinters in a fit of impotent pique, and open the door for Iran to build a nuclear arsenal within a matter of months.
Multi-nation networks of mutual security and economic cooperation, painstakingly constructed by generations of labor and care -- and founded on the psychic and bodily sacrifices of America's military service men and women -- are now twisted, sabotaged, weakened and undermined by an enormous infant who fantasizes himself as a deity.
Our civilizational treasury, this precious legacy, wrecked ... for what?
Visigoths and Vandals, Stand Aside!
Your handiwork is in eclipse.
Pax Romana took place after the Roman Republic had become an empire. We seem to be headed that way too, with Pax Republicana a not so nice replacement for a citizen centric Pax Americana.
Soft power meaning money has created a government more like ...
" not nice guys; they aren't gentlemen in togas. They had no qualms about slavery, were often casually cruel, and had no compunctions at all about using extreme force to put down any challenges to imperial rule. But while the threat was maintained through the willing cooperation of local elites."
Please volunteer, vote, and be vigilant.
3
If Trump wins a second term, I strongly believe that one of his sons will run for President in 2024. That's kind of Roman.
Jared Kushner is more likely.
One could equally read that a) the U.S. should bring others under our rule to form a Pax-America (America First), b) the elites are the only ones who need the soft rule, c) conformity is a key element and can and should be exercised by force, d) the little guy is grist for the wheel.
For all of your qualifiers about Rome being a horrible place and it not having anything to teach industrial societies, the one lesson you did pull was a) positive, b) supports Trump--you just misapplied it. I'm horrified.
An important difference between then and now is that the Roman way of life wasn't destroying the planet.
10
It sort of was. Lead poisoning everywhere, in fact.
1
The United States killed millions of women and children in the Korean and Vietnamese wars. The Romans, despite their best efforts, never managed to inflict such a toll. At least in a single war, or any 20 year period.
Iraq too.
Stuffed dormice?
Judt to give this post some protein content, The proportion of the electorate that voted for DT has been with us for a couple of generations; they voted for Wallace in 1968, and yes, they voted for Goldwater in 1964. If you read Theodore H. White's "The Making of the President 1964) you can recognize in his description of the Goldwater voter the seeds of the Wallace voter and the Trump voter. These are the spiritual descendants of the Know-Nothings .
Meanwhile, stuffed dormice?
Fun and interesting. I hope Krugman offers more along this line, e.g. the Ottomans and Kubulai Khan.
Paul, you need to take a break. Drop the pen for awhile and stop feeling the need to write (wonkish) pieces lay readers can't understand (like yesterday's journal article on trade) or (uninformed) pieces that lay readers may take too seriously (like today's on lessons for America from the Roman Empire).
Krugman makes a good argument but I bet somewhere out there on Fox News or in the WSJ opinion section, a conservative commentator is making the same lament about America's demise. Instead of positing Trump as the one who is ending it all, however, they are positing him as the one who is going to Make America Great Again, pull the nation back from the brink of 'insanity' reached under Obama and put America back on the road to world domination. They think.
There seems to be no way to persuade the right-wing that America's soft power and cultural influence is where its real might comes from. Sure, the world's biggest arsenal of nukes also helps but people around the world wear jeans and drink Coke and listen to Ariana Grande and watch Friends (or whatever) because they want to be like Americans.
Donald Trump is making it increasingly clear to any semi-literate person worldwide that America is not a cool place to be any more. A country full of old, fat, whiny racists does not appeal. If Trumpism continues, American soft power will diminish and the 'rest of the world' aka the majority of the planet will look elsewhere for their influencers.
1
If Donald Trump isn't a poor excuse for a Gracci (Gaius rather than Tiberius) I don't know who would be. Demagogues that promise the moon to the uneducated and resentful are hardly a new phenomenon. And the danger they represent has been known since at least Herodotus' time.
3
Well, who would have thought that the experience of ancient Greeks and Romans might somehow be relevant today? Dr. Krugman, next time near East Pyne Hall, please drop by and chat. Ask for Mr. Luce ; )
At least the people of Rome got tangible benefits from their government: bread, circuses, bathhouses, public festivals, chariot races, etc. Emperor Trump and his GOP army are less civic minded than the Roman leaders.
Rome survived Caligula and Nero, and a variety of other incompetent emperors, during the Pax Romana. Why can't the Pax Americana survive Trump and friends?
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
~Abraham Lincoln
3
1. For a civilization that didn't have a germ theory of disease, the Romans had pretty good fresh water brought in long distances by aquaducts and disposed as waste by sewers. Something not attained by Western Civilization again until the late 19th century (complete with toxic lead pipes).
2. Those Edwardian gentlemen were not so pacifistic that they couldn't fight the Boer War (with its concentration camps for civilians) and use machine guns to suppress the Mahdi uprising in the Sudan (where a handful of British troops slaughtered 5000 natives in one afternoon).
3. As accommodating as the Romans were in coopting barbarian elites on the borders, the underlying importance of conquest was replenishing the slave population.
It is nice to think that our "sort of" Empire is held together by soft power, not violence. You must give this news at once to our Saudi allies as they carry out their genocidal starving & attacks on the Yemeni people. Or the several million Vietnamese and Koreans slaughtered and maimed by American soft power.
Don't forget killing Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians--by the hundreds of thousands. Soft? I am certain that Mr. Krugman must be being ironic. Do you really admire an ancient brutal slave Empire? As a model for our society?
Thousands of slaves were crucified after the brave revolt of Spartacus alone.
Julius Caesar alone, it was said, killed one million Gauls and enslaved another million. That is not winning people over by superior cultural values.
As an economist, Mr. Krugman should know, there is a parallel to both Empires. As our Empire for our US workers, the Roman Empire was a disaster for the average Italian plebian. Just as US workers can't compete with Asians today, Roman small commodity producers could not compete with the low wages paid in Spain or Libya. Italy was so devestated economically, the rulers had to pass laws to keep people on the land: the origin of serfdom.
We need more historical references such as this; don't hesitate to write more of them Dr. Krugman.
As Harry Truman said: "The only thing new under the sun is the history you don't know." Our current faux president thinks the world began the day he was born.
2
Krugman's ability to stretch any topic to a putdown of Trump is apparently unlimited. I suspect he viewed "The Incredibles" this weekend and fell in love with Elastigirl.
1
Ah Professor, death from within. This is usually the sort that you don't see until it is too rotten. In dear leader's case. It is out in the open, everyone can see it happening, and it seems that nothing is stopping it. Is everyone so afraid of t-Rump? And why?
1
Reading Democracy in Chains by Nancy MacLean. It is the history of another Nobel prize winning economist’s efforts to “make America great again” by giving an intellectual gloss to the racism of the old southern plantation system epitomized by men like John C. Calhoun if South Carolina and Harry Byrd of Virginia. Having gained extraordinary access to the writings of James Buchanan collected at the University of Virginia, it isn’t hard to see the echoes in current domestic events especially when it comes to the push to privatize public education.
Clothed in coded words like “states rights,” “property rights,” and “freedom,” Buchanan and his band of merry “intellectuals,” attacked democratic institutions by weaponizing their “intellectualism.” These “weapons” have been recycled in order to free unfettered capitalism from the bonds of the American form of democracy. Today, when Paul Ryan uses words like “freedom,” “reform” and “choice,” I hear James Buchanan and Milton Friedman, Hyek and Von Mises urging us to help Ceasar cross the Rubicon.
1
SPQR, the Senate and the People of Rome, the phrase that was imprinted on much of the Roman world, said that the power came from the people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPQR
Sure, it was only the rich, powerful people that counted, but at least the sentiment was there.
As empires fall they pretend that the people count, but is the wealth that runs the show, through the posturing thugs that run the country. Either we find a way to defeat great wealth, or we just finish the course as losers, holding on to past glory and magnificent words in a Constitution that are laughable when repeated by fools like Trump.
The US Senate and the people of America...
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
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Excellent analysis, you learned history pretty fast.
Rome was really a poor man's USA. It was brutal, had slavery, tried to wipe out some people like from Carthage but after you were conquered you became part of the empire with full rights as Roman citizens (ie property holding men).
This was the main fact that kept the western empire (including the Republic alive for 1,000 yrs and the eastern empire much longer.)
It was the main reason the British Empire and others did not last as long, ie they never gave any of their conquered people full rights.
The issue that finally brought down the western Roman Empire was their refusal to accept "barbarians", the goths, huns, vandals etc. into the empire.
Sound familiar today with Trump and immigrants?
Having said that, until somebody bombs Pearl Harbor or fires on Ft. Sumter, I think our democracy will survive.
1
You are right about being a hack until proven innocent, Dr. Krugman. You use historical terminology promiscuously, i.e. principate, pax Romana, and republic all refer to different periods.
As to Roman brutality, America has a long and fiercely defended tradition of declaring segments of the population less than fully human and without legal protections. In which tradition you are yourself an unapologetic and public proponent.
I don't see Assyrian influences in our language, architecture, government, philosophies, religion, literature, art, or education. I beg your pardon, Dr. Krugman, but for a Nobel Prize winner, you come across in this piece as an ignoramus.
Pax Americana? We live in a permanent state of undeclared war, which is destroying our civil liberaties, as the dead bodies of our soldiers pile us on the trash heap of history...and the living bodies pile up on our streets. The Vietnam War was a lie from start to finish, but we learned nothing from it (our generals still train by reading Julius Caesar's "Gallic Wars"). Yes, my life as a white male heterosexual life has been fine. *I* can't complain. But I'm glad I will be dead within 15 to 20 years. I don't want to live in a world, peaceful or not, where most bird and non-human mammal species have been exterminated. Because our unending war on the environment, the war that we are fighting that matters the most, is the war we are losing. Badly.
We are not throwing it away, Professor Krugman. They are.
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We could well revert to the pax americana. The period you're talking about included nutcases Caligula and Nero. Rome kept on even though they had much more power than Trump does in the context of Roman government. It took persistent plague a succession of (later) bad emperors and actual barbarian invasions to collapse their system.
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Dr. Krugman, the barbarians pre-dated Donald Trump.
They were the rebellious South, headed by Jefferson Davis and soldiered by Robert E. Lee. The victorious North, predating the 1950’s “Pax Americana,” pardoned the treasonous South. Forgiven for attacking the colors, the former breakaway region established its own version of a “Pax Americana.” This practice of “soft power” by the lenient and indifferent North begat Jim Crow, a system of the “Pax Americana” that continues to thrive to this day.
They were the “courtly” President T[homas] Woodrow Wilson, who barred Afro-American citizens from federal employment.
They were the equally-patrician President F. D. Roosevelt who did the bidding of an overwhelmingly white (and Southern) Congress and looked the other way at segregated armed forces and urban housing.
They were President Dwight Eisenhower who resented the Brown vs. Topeka desegregation decision.
They were President Richard Nixon and his race-baiting Southern Strategy.
They were President Ronald Reagan’s “government is the problem” and his “welfare queens” dog-whistle.
They were President G.H.W. Bush, in office because of the Willie Horton ad, authored by Lee Atwater.
They were President G. W. Bush, in office because of a purge of black Florida voters (2000).
There was Mitch “one-term president” McConnell and his rape of a SCOTUS seat.
Finally, there is now President Donald Trump, “birther” scourge and separator of children and parents.
Rome has nothing on us.
So, dear sir, do you see a connection between Louisa Adams' autobiography and Emily Dickinson's poem, "I'm nobody, who are you...?"
Are you implying that Trump is a modern Commodus?
God, I love reading Paul Krugman! Thank you. You all know that the barbarians and supporters inside the gates: (a) are clueless, and (b) will take a phenomenal amount of energy to displace. A lot of empire citizens voted to put them in office, with the help of Carthage...
Oh what soppy nonsense. All things age and die, empires as well as emperors. It’s not fair to sit at a friend’s funeral and think “if only he’d listened to my advice about diet, exercise, reading, politics, etc., etc., he wouldn’t be in this fix.”
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This would be more like a physician in a community offering urgent advice on how to keep the friend alive.
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That advice didn't save the Roman Empire, and it won't save ours. Notwithstanding our confident plans to live forever. Some new blood would be most welcome about now.
If the Trumpians succeed in bringing Pax Americana down on all our heads, the world will properly shake their heads in amazement and say "they got what they deserved" while Americans say to themselves "if only we had left well enough alone".
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Durable peace is possible when the needs of all economic classes are provided for and both economic and political powers are used to serve rather than abuse.
In our winners take all economy, average means you are losing. These losers then seek salvation by electing narcissistic politicians who then wield both economic and political powers to abuse the "enemies", often including the losers themselves. And the cycle of unmet needs and abuse continues ultimately erupting in war between nation states. That was the lesson of both World Wars.
And here we are again at the doorstep of another moment of self-destruction but this time many nation states possess weapons of mass destruction. It is as if our species has an inherent flaw which predisposes us to this madness – and you can see it on the faces of those who support the GOP agenda.
Like Krugman, I've been thinking about Roman history following Caesar Augustus. Emperors like Trajan, Nero and Caligula. The elitocracy of Pax Romana, wherein mercenary armies and bribed elites oppressed peasants in the provinces. Bread and circuses. Maybe we should hope that our democracy, like the pre-Julian Roman one, won't devolve into a militarist, post-Augustan elitocracy. Maybe we should be taking steps to prevent that.
And now we have our own combo Nero and Caligula, fiddling while the Empire fades and flames, and throwing gasoline (figure of speech) on the fire. What did we do to deserve this? Is it really is true - 'those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it'?
1
Thomas F. Madden, the medievalist, historian of the Crusades, Venice, and most recently, Istanbul, has a book on just this very subject, old boy. It's called "Empires of Trust: How Rome Built -- and America is Building -- a New World."
Gosh, you write as if you've just today learned these undergraduate facts about the behavior of the Roman Empire, found in the first paragraphs of a sophomore world history text. And here we were, plebes to the person, all this time thinking you were brilliant.
If you really want to understand how sophisticated the Romans were, at least politically, administratively and militarily, read The Military Institutions of the Romans by Flavius Vegetius Renatus. It's free on Google Books.
I'm no history scholar but I think, Mr. Krugman, that your analysis is quite superficial. The Roman psyche was never exposed to the mentally deforming effects of the popular media to which, ahem, you belong. And that is only the beginning.....
The Romans gave the world Nero and Caligula and several other sick and twisted individuals.
The U. S. has given the world Donald Trump. I won't make comparisons to the above. You decide.
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I am quite sure that Trump would love to be the man seated prominently in the coliseum, all eyes upon him (of course), awaiting his thumbs up or thumbs down verdict.
I am not joking. The man is that demented.
We either evolve an economic and political system that includes all, or we end as all empires end, with self-aggrandizing ego wrapped nincompoops stealing the treasury and muttering, until the last, about the "ingrate poor".
Wealth disparity is the enemy, in the end. And capitalism cannot fight that horror, because it worships it. It is the black hole that gathers all to itself, until finally it kills the system itself.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
1
China has no military presence outside of their immediate (and a few farther) shores but is gradually establishing the next global empire through soft power, economic incentives and intentional blindness to human rights abuses and local corruption. Look to Africa where Chinese construction crews are building projects everywhere with Chinese government financing, providing infrastructure those countries need but cannot afford. They will be forever indebted to and suppliant to Chinese interests as a result.
America and the rest of the west have no plans to counter or balance this long term, well planned strategy from Beijing.
9
Do civilizations die from the top down -- as it appears ours will, now -- or from the bottom upward? In so many ways, from transparency to representation it surely seems we've lost our democracy. Money has been legally permitted to win elections, and while more than 70 percent of Americans favor strict gun controls and a majority supports universal health care our laws are opposed because we can't overcome capital that elects our putative leaders. Would that our leaders were more wise, but our Mad King and his legislative supporters prove not to be.
6
And now for something completely different --
Go watch the clip from Monty Python's "Life of Brian" when John Cleese's character begrudgingly concedes to the answers from his Roman resistance group when he asks, "What have the Romans ever done for us?"
The aqueduct, sanitation, the roads, ...
3
There is one important and worrisome caveat relevant to our current history and politics. First, the Roman Republic largely fell apart from excessive concentration of power and money; we have the same trends happening today although the actual amounts of power and money are incomparably greater now. Second, the Roman Republic wasn't overthrown and turned into the Roman Empire. Instead, the first emperor Augustus wisely kept virtually all the constitutional and institutional trappings of the Republic and just co-opted them. So the Senate still existed and elected consuls; they just happened to agree with Augustus nearly all the time. Presumably they were cowed into submission? I don't know for sure how the process worked. But, regardless, we seem to be in great danger of the same process occurring now. Our institutions look intact but our system of checks and balances -- with courts being packed with conservative appointees and Republicans completely cowed by Trump -- is in danger.
Lastly, one may conclude from the Roman Republic that republics may not last forever. Theirs lasted longer than ours has but who knows what the future holds?
Now, to be fair, the Roman Republic was an oligarchy not a democracy and its institutions were an incomprehensible amalgam of oft-overlapping rights and responsibilities. So it's not a perfect analogy but still worth looking at.
2
For Plutarch--and the Founding Fathers who knew their PARALLEL LIVES very well (and writers like the Machiavelli of the DISCORSI and the Rousseau who grew up on Plutarch)--the danger to republics lies in corruption and the blandishments of both concentrated wealth and power, not to mention the idiocy of crowds. The Founders made much of the perils of corruption. It's a pity that we no longer have a moral vocabulary that encompasses it. Or that we have so misread Smith's WEALTH OF NATIONS that we have forgotten that the only way the economic system can work morally is if you take the social psychology of shame that Smith outlines in THE THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. I'm not suggesting that we return to either Aristotle or Plutarch, but surely we can do better than the overheated Rand-ism that seems to motivate the GOP.
1
The global world order is an expensive antique. America fashioned it after WWII to fight the Cold War. Well, guess what? The Cold War ended in 1989 and the Soviet Union collapsed.
The US no longer gains a benefit from it, even as the cost of maintaining it persists.
We need the money to rebuild our infrastructure, educate our citizens, protect our environment, and reform our broken medical system, among many other uses.
Fortunately, the US has options few nations possess. Secure behind two vast oceans, energy independence and agricultural plenty, we do not NEED the rest of the world.
Trump is going about it in a wasteful way, but if he hadn't started, someone else would have.
So, we're not "throwing it away." We're reprioritizing. Because, isn't that what you do when times change?
1
Watch John Oliver's piece on China that aired last night. America might not exactly be a benevolent overlord to much of the world, but upcoming challenger to our hegemony is China. Even under Trump's 'authoritarian-lite' administration, I'd take it over the censorship and repression that Xi would be more than happy to export throughout Asia and Africa
1
We're in the middle of the second Cold War with a Russian puppet in charge of putting down the U.S.
We could have done all those thing if we had not given a $1.5 trillion (yes, TRILLION) tax giveaway to the richest among us.
1
Thank you for doing a wonderful job summarizing the current consensus on the Roman Empire. I might add that the Romans saw themselves as a nation of immigrants and were generous with granting their citizenship, first to self-Romanizing elites, and later to all freeborn people in their Empire. Evangelicals should also remember the story of Paul, and that his citizenship gave him the right to a trial and due process.
Because of Rome's policy of good governance, even non-Latin speaking people began feeling Roman. Even the Greeks called themselves Rhomaioi until 19th century Philhellenes convinced them that the Hellenes weren't pagans but their ancestors.
And of course the Romans made it a policy to encourage foreigners to become Roman. Gibbon knew but Tacitus said so explicitly in his Agricola, even though he had a critical take on it:
"He [Agricola] likewise provided a liberal education for the sons of the chiefs, and showed such a preference for the natural powers of the Britons over the industry of the Gauls that they who lately disdained the tongue of Rome now coveted its eloquence. Hence, too, a liking sprang up for our style of dress, and the "toga" became fashionable. Step by step they were led to things which dispose to vice, the lounge, the bath, the elegant banquet. All this in their ignorance, they called civilization, when it was but a part of their servitude."
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One key difference between Pax Romana, and Pax Amrericana, is that the US has made a post WW2 tacit agreement with allies that the US will provide strategic defense if the allies do not develop nuclear weapons. The current administration doesn't seem to understand that while they're destroying the post WW2 structures for trade and defense, they're also working hard on making sure that Japan, South Korea, Australia, Germany, and maybe Canada put nuclear weapons programs on the front burner. This isn't winning, for anyone. The Romans didn't have to worry about this level of strategic threat.
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One might also add that greed and short-sightedness undermined consensus seeking between the Senate and the Plebeians. Arguably, decline began when class differences ceased to be negotiable. Sound familiar?
2
Typical liberal handwringing. The jury is still out. The moral repugnance to family separations is growing, but it's not enough to sink Trump.
When Chinese counter-tariffs start to bite in the heartland, with farmers going out of business, and jobs disappearing, his devoted base will shrink.
All Democrats have to to do is shut up, stop denouncing Trump voters, and the Dems could take the House in November.
We’re not at the end by any means; we may, in fact be at the beginning of a renewal.
3
Um, the point's kinda pretty much that for all their brutalities and ignorances, the Romans maintained something resembling a decent asociety because of their liberal-like openness to social mobility, and willingness to share at least some of the pie.
I take it you did not see "Life of Brian," and John Cleese's immortal rant, but hope that you do not intend to let dismay at "liberal handwringing," stop you from voting for better this Fall.
You didn't have to be born a Roman. Anyone could become a Roman citizen, and by the time of Caracalla every (free man) was.
Plus upward mobility. Horace's father was a freedman. Far from hiding this, Horace celebrated his father's achievement in his poetry.
And of course it never fell. Today a quarter of the world lives under Roman law and speaks one provincial dialect of Latin or another
3
Peter Green (Alexander to Actium) agrees with you, writing about the transition from the Republic to the Empire:
"Finally, after learning one or two lessons the hard way, Roman administrators were, for some centuries, to make a success of the job [managing overseas possessions] - something their Greek or Macedonian predecessors had never quite got the hang of. The lassiez-faire excesses of the publicani were brought into line, local leaders were tempted with the offer of Roman honors and appointments. Nothing had changed in principle' the Romans - with that coarse psychological pragmatism that was at once their curse and their greatest blessing - simply made the system work."
1
I think the similarities to Ancient Rome are more easily found in modern day Russia. The ''elites'' (oligarchs) are being placated, while the ''empire'' expands. That expansion is largely financial and modestly in land. (Crimea)
The American version is not necessarily caring about a centralized power (do any of them live in Washington?) and want the freedom to move about their wealth (tax free) throughout the world. (with only the protections U.S. law and muscle will allow)
I believe the Roman empire worked, because it was in reality and ongoing expansion. This American version will implode really soon, because of pulling within and extremely bad and incompetent leadership.
Think Caligula.
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I think if Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and Stephen Miller all did Ancestry.com,we'd find out they're all related to Caligula, the Kim family, Stalin, Hitler, and Charles Manson.
Thought-filled essay for me to read several times, though I was not amused about the eating of stuffed dormice even though they did...
3
The problem is that our stable system of government is reliant on a separate global economic system that operates outside of the influence of our system of checks and balances. This has resulted in the economic center of gravity slowly migrating away from our heartland. That heartland worked because its citizens are protected by environmental laws, worker safety laws, an independent judiciary, free speech, powerful unions, independent journalists, somewhat equal access to education, etc. But, our global capitalist system finds these protections cumbersome and expensive, preferring to relocate to cheaper countries free of these burdens of justice. The economic empire we created is doing fine, but it has abandoned the interests of the working class citizens that built it, leaving only those on the very top to reap all the benefits, which they horde using our "meritocratic" system to their exclusive advantage.
Bringing down this system will be disastrous to everyone in the end, but there does not seem to be any clear motivation for the ruling elite to cede power and give up their control of virtually all the new wealth created during the last 3 decades.
Instead, this administration created a false hope that we can roll back the clock to the 50s, which was a better era for some, particularly those voters in the heartland. There is no going back of course, but until someone comes up with a believable future where all citizens benefit, we are stuck with our current decay.
58
It seems to me this assessment is 100% correct. So, what is the obvious solution? The system of protections (i.e. the rule of law & constitutional democracy with checks and balances) needs to be applied the world over. With globalism, why not global democracy? If we have local government, state government and national, why not a fourth level? Of course, this idea is generally laughed at (and Americans still see themselves as ruling the world, rather than being a leading but equal nation), or too far in the future, since it will naturally take centuries to achieve. But why, I ask, is there no serious discussion about it now? At one time, people debated democratic capitalism (which seems to me the better way to go) versus Communism (historically shown to be a bad idea). But why is there no longer any discussion of alternative political order or new ideas? If global democracy is the only way to respect individual dignity (and maybe save the planet, by enforcing universal environmental rules on all corporations), why is there no one working for it right now, for future generations…?
1
the heartland literally has total control of every branch of government, the heartland votes for, and has since reagan, right wing pols pushing oligarchy, they have no one to blame but themselves for embracing those who are slowly destroying them economically.. its a voluntary cutting of their own throats because they can’t tell the difference between reality and right wing propaganda
"Home-grown" barbarians at the gate. The fundamental question is, how could this horrible outcome, basically a cultural collapse leading to a rise in self-destructive, short-sighted greediness, happen in such a materially wealthy, successful country?
Or is this collapse happening, not despite, but as a result of, our nation's great material wealth?
19
@Jim Hansen. There is also the possibility that it’s happening because all of that material wealth is concentrated in very few hands.
3
The strange thing is that this sort of foolishness seems to strike wealthy successful countries preferentially. In the last century, the catastrophic wars were not the products of backwards societies, but of the very advanced societies in Germany and Japan. (England too, if you take into account the export of Marxism?)
It seems to take a really big wealthy country to cause a catastrophe. On the other hand, with the US, this was an unforced error. There were no external threats or serious economic problems that force the US into the corner it is now in.
1
Yes, Jim I think you have something. The 19th century, money-thirsty robber barons, set the tone for all of big business to follow, and I think it has led to a trickle down effect to the middle and lower classes who have expressed
the same level of greediness, even though the all riches are held tightly at the top by only a few. This may have played a part in the unimaginable anger and violence in this land of ours today.
Despite what I've said I still believe we are the land of the free and the home of the brave.
We're in trouble because our politicians have forgotten who they are supposed to work for and how to work with each other in order to make everyone's life better. They have grown too accustomed to living with government perks and government monies (namely our taxes which pay their salaries) while accusing us of wanting government handouts. There are too many elected and appointed officials in office who work for their rich masters first and us last.
The other problem is a lack of critical thinking among voters. Too many believe whatever a politician tells them. If a GOP politician says that there are welfare queens out there, there are and everyone receiving welfare must have a hidden source of income. If a GOP politician says that all undocumented immigrants commit crimes it must be correct. And if a Paul Ryan or a Mitch McConnell claims that unemployment benefits make people too lazy to look for a job that too must be true. And it is, until you are the one unable to find a job, in need of welfare, or seeing an undocumented immigrant, who committed no crime, deported.
We have slid back to our isolationist roots. We are shutting out the world and we are returning to the days when America was a backwater country. We're creating the ignorance we laugh at in other less developed and more isolated countries like North Korea. We no longer bother to help each other and we blame people for misfortunes that are not their fault. 21st century we are not.
47
hen3ry, You had me until your middle paragraph. Neither political party can carry the whole blame for the milieu surrounding us. We got the Republicans because the Democrats went overboard. And the reverse will happen in the future. Like a seesaw. And the isolationism you descry is not solely rooted in political values, but in the extreme individualism that our society encourages. We are becoming congenitally unable to form a genuinely communal society that transcends politics.
1
Dlud, what I mean is this: voters are not using their brains or intellect when they vote. Clinton was the most qualified candidate. But she didn't say enough catchy things to ensure that the right votes came her way. The GOP excels at zeroing in on people's prejudices, fears, and hopes. The Democrats tend to be too cerebral. The GOP has a simple message and they make sure to blame the Democrats for everything. The Democrats do not have a catchy tune, a simple message, and they do not put the blame where it belongs for certain things. They use complicated explanations where simple ones will do.
The best example of all is the ACA versus a universal single payor health care system. Not one of them has pointed out that if we went over to a single payor system our employers would no longer be charging us for premiums or that that money would be going to the government to fund the system. We wouldn't have the fragmented, narrow network, confusing system we now have. Our net pay would stay the same and it might be easier for older people to find jobs. Our life expectancy could increase and our health might improve because we wouldn't have to do wallet biopsies before going for care.
Our current political system/mess is encouraging the isolationism. How many of us even know our neighbors any longer? I'm very shy but back in the day even I knew who our neighbors were and who could help in an emergency. Today, forget about it.
1
Dlud,
"We got the Republicans because the Democrats went overboard".
Really? What did they do? Insured 20 millions more Americans, that is going overboard? Don't repeat right wing propaganda, because that is exactly what it is.
Or may be democrats went overboard and elected black man? See the nonsense of your argument yet?
Dear Mr. Krugman, let's talk about the elephant in the room. Pax Americana is in trouble for at least one reason, rightly or wrongly; because of the perception among the modern day Romans that about a billion people are migrating, out of necessity, from south of the Southern Hemisphere to the Northern Hemisphere. I don't know what the Romans would have done, but I can take a guess and its not pretty.
Would it be reasonable to help our Southern neighbors by building a refugee camp in southern Mexico as opposed to walling them out & splitting up families. What should we do to allay modern Romans tribal fears? Democracy is a lot easier to believe in when your tribe is in the majority. Wondering aloud.
9
Indeed, the Romans confronted the forced migrations of many people, as do we. And we are at the beginning not the apex of such stress-related population shifts. At first the Romans tried to seal their borders and, when that failed, admitted whole peoples as unassimilated and armed groups, often recruited to fight for Rome. But, too often, after admitting a people they allowed them to be exploited until they could no longer tolerate the exploitation and turned upon the Romans.
Is there a lesson for us in all this? Probably not. But one wonders what might have happened had the Romans sought to assimilate and accommodate the "barbarians" who, after all, did not want to destroy the Roman Empire but share in its prosperity, many aspects of its culture and peace.
1
A billion? That's a massive exaggeration. Illegal immigration has been declining in recent years -- there are actually fewer illegals here than 10 years ago. This is a perception, whipped up by racist republicans, but once again not true.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/27/5-facts-about-illegal-im...
I don't think I even qualify as a "hack," but my BBC watching tells me that once Julius Caesar declared himself emperor, Rome never looked back to their Republic -- even though they were all intensely proud of it until then. I think that's the scarier resonance for the current moment than the Pax Romana that came after during the imperial phase.
16
Very much like the French Revolution led inevitably to Napoleon.
If the BBC told you that, the BBC was wrong, since Julius Caesar never so declared himself. Perhaps you were listening inattentively, and conflated Julius and his grandnephew Gaius Octavius, whom historians regard as the first Emperor of Rome.
2
Alas, there clearly are gop sheep that would willing yield their liberty to be governed by emperor trump, (lower case intentional.... my juvenile protest...), I still believe we outnumber the morons.
VOTE!!!! If we don’t capture at least the House, we are committing ourselves to Fascism. Is this what we want?
Like "Jim" before me, I am not sure that I agree with Dr. Krugman's assertion that America always walked softly during the 30-year post-war period. It had no compunction against weilding a big stick, And I suspect that there are a whole bunch of people in South and Latin America who would agree with me rather than the good professor, if they were still alive. Sadly, many were assasinated or executed by the governments propped up by the CIA and The White House.
That said, what is relevant here in the second decade of the 21st century is that American Elites are hell-bent on destroying what made the country and its people powerful: Economic equality (especially for whites because Those People have never counted for much), reasonably accessible and affordable healthcare, a really good public education system that was funded largely by Washington, infrastructure that was envied by the world from the Hoover Dam and the Interstate Highway System to what was once a remarkable air traffic control network.
The list goes on.
Sadly, for us and for the world, the claque in charge in Washington on each end of Pennsylvania Avenue is more interested in enriching themselves - yes, I'm talking about you, Donald Trump and Scott Pruitt - and their donors than they are concerned about enriching society as a whole.
66
I generally agree with Paul Krugman. But his assertion that "our sort-of empire . . . has been held together mainly by soft power rather than violence" and that the U.S. "generally exercised restraint, getting its allies to buy in to our system rather than resorting to raw compulsion" seems grossly overstated. It's the kind of view Chomsky's made a career criticizing the Times for.
In the Cold War period alone, the U.S. "exercised restraint" by consistently overthrowing democratically elected governments, supporting repressive regimes, engaging in proxy wars in Asia and Africa and Latin America, and fighting brutal wars in Korea, Indochina, and Iraq.
If soft power has been the primary way it has maintained its "sort-of empire," one wonders why the U.S. has so consistently and substantially spent more on its military than any other nation.
27
We spend more on the Military because we are trapped by the Military Industrial Complex at every level of government. I’d bet there isn’t a district in Congress that doesn’t protect some element of the MIC because of the “benefit” it brings to the district.
I don’t know how to break the addiction, but it is the thing that is sapping our collective economic strength. I’m a Veteran, former Naval Aviator, and do respect the notion of a strong Military, but one fewer Carrier Battle Group and we could rebuild our entire National infrastructure.
Sadly, this would take a collective effort involving some self sacrifice, like getting career politicians to vote for Term Limits. Not going to happen. Sigh.
The Roman Empire did teach us some things, but we should also attend to the series of Chinese empires that stretch back to before the Roman one and continue to the present day. In particular, it is worthwhile paying attention to some of the good things (an administrative bureaucracy that was built upon a meritocratic system) and bad things when a new emperor chose to trash what wasn't really broken (think Mao and the Great Leap Forward followed by the Cultural Revolution). And, perhaps most importantly, the problems caused when truth flies out the window.
6
Here's one of my favorite lines ever from today's essay: "Even during the paxiest parts of the Pax Romana, there was always a war somewhere." Thanks for writing.
19
Mine too.
The professor leaves out the most important thing Rome left us, its constitution. Though largely unwritten, it was alive and mostly enforced until Julius Caesar's permanent dictatorship. It invented the veto whereby a tribune of the people could nullify the laws of the Senate aristocrats. This unprecedented separation of powers was the model for ours; the constitution of the Roman Republic was studied intensively by our Founders when they wrote ours. Of course, the Republic did collapse into authoritarianism, and ours could also.
51
The Founders' interest in Rome was mainly symbolic, not substantive. They used Roman names when writing anonymously (like "Publius" and "Cato"), for example, adopted the classical style of architecture, and adopted the terms Senate and Republic.
But the substance of our Constitution and concepts behind it have little to do with Rome. Roman government derived its authority from Rome's aristocracy, the US government would derive its authority from the people. We were designed as a commercial republic with strong protections for individual property rights, as opposed to Rome whose prosperity came from military conquest.
The Founders were well versed in previous attempts at building democracies and republics--going back to pre-Roman Greeks, down through the British Empire. But they built something quite novel compared to all their predecessors--and that was especially different from the Romans.
7
I shouldn't have given the impression that the Roman Republic was mostly replicated in our system. But several of our features were inspired by it. In addition to the invention of the veto, separation of powers involved the executive two consuls and the legislative senate, which could act separately from each other, and the authority of the assembly of the people, which could pass laws.
And some important features of our constitution were derived from the desire to AVOID the Roman Republic's flaws, such as the division of executive power between two consuls, who often disagreed and couldn't act. Another flaw was the excessive power of the senate, and still another was the office of dictator, who could serve for a supposedly limited term if the consuls couldn't act. Avoiding Roman mistakes was a constant theme in the Federalist Papers that preceded the Constitution. Thus between what we imitated and what we tried to avoid, Rome schooled us in a great deal.
What I learned in college, long ago, was that every government must have the support of the populace or it fails. Even dictatorships survive because the population achieves a type of peace, with enough sustenance so that the vast majority of the people can live relatively undisturbed lives. The great movement sweeping the Middle East and, I think, soon Europe and the US, is that the dictators and oligarchs have not delivered on their part of the bargain. The populace sees itself as trapped by actions that adversely affect most people's lives. In the Middle East abject poverty with no prospect of betterment led to toppling dictators and chaos, and European countries are now faced with being invaded and overwhelmed by refugees from the Middle East. In the US the populace depends on government protection of prosperity, freedom and safety. For the past 20 years Republicans have been promising to protect the populace, through exorbitant lies that transferring all the wealth to a very few oligarchs will achieve these ends, while Democrats have been delivering. The Republican voters are perhaps now going to learn that giving all the taxes to the oligarchs, destroying social support systems and alienating all of our allies (all of them...) will not result in peace and prosperity but the exact opposite - poverty and disease backed by terrifying cruelty. If the mid-term levels elections cannot reverse this direction, we might see another civil war.
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reply to Eero: What I find most perplexing is the question of when will T's base abandon him, I don't think there has been more corrupt and venal facts uncovered about any candidate who has won support to govern, It's as if his base believes every lie he has told them even though the reality shows the opposite,
The question seems to be how long does it take before his base begins to leave him in the face of reality, It almost seems that this is a case for social psychology, I wonder if there is another example where a large group of people vote against their own self-interest and still support their leader even if the welfare of their own family suffers,
Correction, Dr Krugman:
After WWII, the US found itself with the single greatest concentration of power that the world had ever seen. One option was to absorb the Axis and Western European empires and establish a Pax Americana. That's what the Soviets and the occupied Europeans expected. But Americans declined - for good reasons:
1) Occupation doesn't play to America's strengths. A Pax requires long-term occupation, large-scale urban pacification, and in general making the occupied offer up a sizable chunk of their wealth. It means fighting a wide-ranging, manpower-heavy, low intensity war of occupation. Forever. (see: Iraq)
2) The Americans were powerful, but didn't have the numbers to occupy the bulk of the globe: such a "peacetime" army would have had to exceed wartime force levels.
3) A direct American-Soviet face off, soldier to soldier, couldn't be won: the Soviet Army was (and still is) built expressly FOR occupation.
4) America needed WILLING allies.
So they made them an offer they couldn't refuse. They called it "Free Trade," viz.,
a) Access to the American market,
b) Protection for ALL shipping provided by the US Navy (i.e., US taxpayers),
c) A strategic umbrella: a promise to protect all members of the network from the Soviets.
Then, the Cold War ended.
Result: the US doesn't NEED to maintain the global system any more: it no longer gains a strategic benefit, even as the cost continues. For America, it is an expensive antique.
3
P.S. We're not just throwing it away. We're reprioritizing.
Today's America has a whole plateful of unattended needs in medicine, infrastructure, education, and environment. Attending to them will require money - lots of it. The US can no longer afford to subsidize the world while neglecting its own needs.
Fortunately for us, America, due to its geography and demography, doesn't NEED the rest of the world (not the way Germany or China do).
The American economy is almost unique in its relative independence from foreign trade: as of 2016, only 8 percent of US GDP was derived from foreign trade - and half of that was with Canada and Mexico.
With its security assured by two vast oceans, energy independence and agricultural bounty, the US has options no one else has.
Trump is going about the job in a needlessly wasteful way, but if he hadn't started it, someone else would have had to.
5
It's quite seductive to think that a re-prioritizing is meant to accomplish progress towards "unattended needs in medicine, infrastructure, education, and environment." However, even a brief review of our current government's actions in its first 18 months reveals that the new priority is to liquidate the gains from the post-war era (plus much more, increasing the debt) and pocket the cash for themselves (government 'leaders', fake 'conservative' hacks, etc.).
1
In response to your well thought out comment, I'd like to put forth the postulate that America is at its best when threatened by a real external enemy. During the cold war, there was a existential threat to our way of life. Both the right and the left recognized the need to prove that the liberal/capitalist model provided a far better life than the communist model.
Now, without the communist threat, and with a president who wants to take the liberal out of liberal/capitalist, we're left rudderless. We've reached the light at the end of the tunnel. Now what?
To me, the puzzle is why we are gnawing at our own connective ligamentation at a time of relative stability and improving economic prospects.
Through two Obama administrations, despite the speed bumps, the economy steadily strengthened and America's status abroad soared, notwithstanding the dyspeptic right-wing propaganda to the contrary.
We are behaving collectively as though peace and growing prosperity mortally offend us. Has some alien force contaminated America's drinking water? I doubt that Roman history offers much guidance for correction.
We're on our own now, and that is terrifying in a time of collective brain seizure.
36
Obama, slowed the plutocrats consolidation of power and money, and therefore he must be vilified.
DR. Krugman:
Interesting that you forgot to mention that, where the Romans conquered, they built roads, provided of clean water to the cities with long aqueducts, and really, improved their way of leaving. Bathhouses improved also their sanitary conditions. Also, protected them from pirates, opened the routes of communications cleaning them of thieves.
The took, but they built things in the benefit of the societies they conquered. The US Empire never did or does that; with the exceptions of a few things like HIV with Bush in Africa, Ebola; but not to the benefit of their societies, but out of fear it would reach our shores.
5
Dr Valdez, We had the Marshall Plan. Sad that it is so far in the past. Now we destroy nations for oil access and our corporations. Both parties listen to the CIA, bad news for the past and our future.
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It is true, but the Marshall plan was to help rebuild what WW II destroyed; that was a blimp in the story.
I did ot mention it because when you reconstruct is ot the same as "you build."
Besides, even the help to the English against Hitler was a "Land-lease" agreement, same thing with the Rusia.
Great Article.
I just want to highlight that this is the most important statement: " and the imperial system was open enough that especially able and ambitious provincials could aspire to move to the center of things. And that thriving, interdependent economy rewarded those who adopted Roman values and assimilated with the Roman system."
This contrasts to what the plutocrats are doing now to destroy America by destroying economic mobility. It there isn't an economic law that says as a country makes it increasingly hard to change one's birth economic class, the economy overall becomes more and more inefficient, and less productive, I would like to propose one (but I am sure there is.) The study of the world economies show this. Third world economies are dominated by dynastic families that control all of the wealth, and which economic class you are born in determines which economic class you die in. And they are without exception inefficient. Most of the energies of the people are wasted because 99% of the people can't think about anything but where their next meal is coming from.
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Wait, what? In grad school, my stratigraphy professor turned his attention to mapping the stratigraphy of deltas in the ancient world. I recall him declaring (swearing) during a presentation when he found an incorrect reference to a Roman emperor, "this is why you need a classist to do ancient history"!
The point being, Dr. Krugman states, "Even when America was an overwhelmingly dominant economic and military power, it generally exercised restraint, getting its allies to buy in to our system rather than resorting to raw compulsion." Really? Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the Mekong Delta, Iraq, this is Dr. Krugman's idea of restraint? Good gracious! It looks like he needs a contemporary historian. Human shadows singed into sidewalks is not restraint.
11
@It'sanew day. You are right to point out Mekong Delta and Iraq, you could include Nicaragua, Chile and others. However, Hiroshima and Nagasaki came before the period that Krugman is talking about.
7
And don't forget North Korea where we killed up to 1/3 of the population during the Korean War through a ceaseless and ruthless bombing campaign. Even our military estimates at least 1/5 were killed.
Though WE call it The Roman Empire, THEY continued to call it The Roman Republic right up til the end. Augustus and his successors held powers theoretically granted to them by the Senate. They were never referred to as monarchs or dictators though Caesar had held the special office of Dictator [which existed only during crises], in his time).
Our own Imperator (translation: Commander in Chief) holds powers granted him by the Electoral College in the wake of his loss in the 2016 election.
So let's see: our armies are scattered all over the known world, our national wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of the few, and we have an authoritarian populist (Julius Caesar was, in fact, an authoritarian populist) rabble rouser presiding over our fates. It sounds to me like we're more like the Romans on the eve of their civil war than we are like they were at any point during the Pax Romana.
20
When Paul Krugman uses a line from the Life of Brian as an op-ed title I think maybe there is a little bit of hope.
John Ralston Saul's The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World (2005) is an historical examination of economics from ancient Greece and Roman to what is unfolding before our eyes. I would like to see our particular Canadian scenario take place as portrayed in his latest book The Comeback.
John Ralston Saul lecture at King's College London well worth watching
The End of Globalism populism vs citizenship
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouoHlQdEA6Y
1
It's not just the structure of the Roman Empire fell, the technology and infrastructure of the day fell away as well. One needs only spend a few hours at Ostia Antica outside of Rome, where they had relatively sophisticated baths and public toilets with running water in the 200's, to see how quickly knowledge and public systems fall away as well. To think that we went from that to the dark ages, should worry anyone today witnessing that our government is burying its head in the sand about global warming, flue pandemics, and our return to tribalism. There is much to worry about, and we have put the worst possible people in charge of running things.
86
While Buffet and Dimon opine that short-termism is a danger to the US the reality is Wall Street continues to pursue a "quarterly performance" model. The Masters in Business Administration (MBA) is the prevailing intellect of the financial industries and dictates our business achievements. No offense Professor, but perhaps your institution and others in its class should reexamine its MBA programs. If the thought "maintenance is the first sign of civilization" then the context of crumbling infrastructure while corporate "profits" soar should be a canary in this darkening mine shaft.
53
Those very corporations that you speak of, who benefit greatly from our infrastructure: the Interstate Highway System, unobstructed waterways, Air traffic control, clean drinking water, etc. should be paying a lot more for it instead of getting record profits and tax breaks. Instead, it's average American Citizens endlessly subsidizing huge corporations and the super-rich. In November, vote like your life depends on it, because it does!
2
Eric Hoffer, Ike's favorite popular philosopher, wrote a LOT about maintenance.
JLM,
I agree, these wiz-kid MBA types have wrecked havoc on companies everywhere to eke out a little more profit. Professional service (accountants, actuaries and many others) jobs sent to the far East, standardized practices and process that stifle personal growth and innovation. I think you were a bit generous though, its been my experience that it is a monthly business model, at least internally. Some companies have even gone piece meal, so their job depends on their daily contribution.
Don't forget a parallel with modern technology: engineering for the benefit (social and military) of the Empire. The Roman Empire's engineers built highways, amphitheaters, aqueducts, and apartment buildings.
10
Krugman forgot the much more recent Pax Brittanica which lasted for the best part of 200 years and essentially utilized the Roman model of indirect rule whether it was Nawabs in India or Tribal chiefs in Africa. It was quite a tour de force and all those Eastern wise men like Stimson, Harriman, Lovett, Acheson et al who created the postwar world order bore more than a passing resemblance to the British model from their tailoring to their political and social outlook.
9
The Pax Americana may be wobbling but it is not yet down for the count. We have only tried on this bizarro outfit for 17 months and can quickly put it back on the rack within 5 more months at the midterms, God willing.
If Americans can look at themselves in the mirror honestly, I believe the vein of innate goodness we have shared can be resurrected. We rebuilt Germany and Japan under the Marshall Plan in part for selfish reasons--it's easier to control an ally than an adversary--but also because it was the right thing to do when largely innocent populations have been savaged by war.
We have populations under threat by globalization, crop failures, water shortages and non-state actors in many ways more destructive than armed conflict. If we can understand these things for what they are, we can come to address and remediate them in our interest and the interests of the wider world.
We either do this or become Hobbes' world and live lives which are indeed "nasty, brutish and short". Decisions have consequences.
16
The Marshall Plan worked toward coordinating European economies, cooperation instead of conflict. The Soviets chose not to participate, and Japan, wasn't included. The reconstruction democratization of Germany and Japan may have been pushed by the obvious and close Soviet alternative. These changes happened in part using the existing structure of their governments.
I’ve recently read The Silk Roads, which concludes that the Mongol Empire had a sophisticated civil service and an appreciation of trade. I think the lesson is that a large disparate area can’t be held together without attention to good governance and economics.
12
Let's not leave out also that the Roman Empire stopped maintaining its infrastructure as it collapsed as we are now doing.
And worse than that, while we are in decline the Chinese have begun exercising their soft power throughout the glove. If anyone is shopping for a solar panel or for a subway car you won't find it here.
49
That Rome declined is rather an overstatement. Many elements of Rome's contributions to art and culture have endured, in architecture, language, art,law, political philosophy and influenced how the modern West views family and love. Even how we determine the width of our railway tracks is based on Roman road computations.
Just as Rome absorbed Greece's contributions, the system and cultures that followed , even those of the conquering barbarians, preserved much of the Roman way.And it was only in the last century that land ownership began to lose its potency in securing political power.
America in apparent decline may present a similar enduring legacy especially where culture is concerned and there are perhaps other ways that an ascending China might appropriate other aspects of the American way, much as they have appropriated our technology.
4
I doubt that anyone who lived during the period from Caligula in 37 AD to Domitian's assassination in 83 AD -- found it at all "stable".
The theory that Rome provided stability during its ascendance seems as worthy of question as the common claim that the Dark Ages that followed were a period of culture collapse, fear, and violence. Which limits its use as a metaphor for Trump's attempted economic and military realignment of the planet.
The right wing media ecosystem runs a biz model based by outrage. Drives all their advertising. And this has ruled the bottom 90% white portion of the electorate going sideways or down.
The .1% have leveraged this anger to build a voting block that will enable their quest for 2 things: tax cuts and deregulation. The $$ the .1% spend hacking the system return a massive ROI (see last years tax cuts).
To understand this you just need to follow the money and understand the societal side effects of reduced mobility and inequality....
54
Well, at least the Russians didn't meddle in Roman elections. Oh, that's right, the Romans didn't have elections. They did have slaves, and a very different socio-economic system, but that shouldn't keep us from drawing parallels to 21st-century America.
2
Destroy - maybe. But, after the fall (deluge?), some people figure they will be on top of the heap. It might not be a castle but if it is lots better than than what the others have - it's enough for barbarians. It's all relative (as a distant relative once said).
3
Dr Krugman lost me with the phrase "my own stiff necked ancestors." It was only natural for the ancient Hebrews to object to Roman idols gracing their temples when their religion specifically forbade the worship of graven images. So much for Dr Krugman's argument that Rome was tolerant of the beliefs of people in its conquered territories. Rome kept control of their empire by force. Eventually the Pax Romana started to fall apart--the Roman empire split into an Eastern Empire and a Western Empire because it became too difficult for one emperor to govern. The end wasn't pretty either thanks to the growing strength of the barbarian tribes which found the empire ripe for the taking.
3
Like 400 year Ottoman Empire; overextended and eventually sent packing. 1916 Britain moved into the Middle East to gain access of vast Arab oil reserves; colonial empires made of sand and sorrow. Foreign foolish ventures include time-limit: Turkish-Arabia (IRAQ).
Ok, that was a weird one. As far as arguments go, this one does not compute. So the Romans were doing everything right - with the "soft power" and tolerance and generosity and peace. Does Prof. Krugman know what happened to Roman Empire?
4
He does, but the Pax Romana lasted far longer than do most empires for specific reasons. That's his point.
48
The point of his argument was that the judicious use of power and the enticements of a better life brought about peace, as imperfect as it was. I'm confident the professor knows how the empire ended.
25
Krugman now endorses “trickle down.”
1
Paul, I think you've hit on the key element that has made America great: "Even when America was an overwhelmingly dominant economic and military power, it generally exercised restraint, getting its allies to buy in to our system rather than resorting to raw power".
For America that has meant giving every citizen, with all that entails, access to what Rome gave to elite men only.
When that becomes a zero-sum equation - domestic and international brinkmanship with the threat of economic or military attack - we may gain in the short term but lose in the end.
How extraordinary to have all that economic and military power and use it with restraint...and how easy it is to abuse it and lose what had been gained.
84
"Even when America was an overwhelmingly dominant economic and military power, it generally exercised restraint, getting its allies to buy in to our system rather than resorting to raw power."
Generally speaking, restraint, yes. A notable exception was the tonnage of bombs rained down on Vietnam, both North and South, by the US during that war. Remember that Vietnam is a country whose geographical size of 128,00 square mile compares with Germany's 138,000 square miles. The former got *more* bombs than the latter in all of WWII. Not restraint.
1
All white citizens, anyway, and thank goodness we abolished slavery, thereby raising us so far above Rome.
It was easy for the U.S. to exercise restraint when invading Guatemala to overthrow the elected, popular government in 1954. It was less easy in Vietnam - and the outcome was different. After our failure to install corrupt military dictators Vietnam was able to recover and thrive economically, while Guatemala remains very poor and has not been able to get rid of those corrupt dictators or their supporters to this day.
I am not a student of Roman history, other than studying it in high school and then as part of a history course or two in college. So I have a question.
Taking Dr. Krugman's point about carrot and stick governance by the Romans (offered benefits and used soft power to entice, but not afraid to use force to maintain the system), what we have in today's GOP is a core group that hates government. They mistrust everyone in government and see its role as, essentially, only to provide a a very strong border patrol and military. That's about it.
So my question is whether the Romans hated their own government like today's GOP does. It seems to me that a republic will have difficulty sustaining itself when 40% of its citizens would rather its government essentially didn't exist.
26
This is one of those places where the two societies very different. The Roman society was organized around an elite of senatorial landowners, and most commoners were under the dependance of one of those "masters". For the poorest of them often depending on him even for their most basic survival money.
Having too much government was not a Roman problem. In fact Roman society had more in common with Middle Ages feudal society than with modern times.
3
Divide and conquer the hallmark of any empire; like Britain. The American empire built on commercialism with chicken nuggets; bankers betting the shop for instant gratification. A funny thing happened on the way to the forum: Caesar became infatuated with his own power at the expense of the common man. Noble causes served to deflect any dissent. But empires run out of steam based on rampant inequality. For the average American to believe in true democracy an act of faith at this stage. Somewhat difficult with the background noise at peak level from his masters voice; the world wiser to fickle American ways. Today Europe in the same boat as their leaders trip over each other about uncontrolled immigration. Britain lost their empire because the upper classes got too lazy and believed everyone played by their boring cricket rules; but the "Great Game" came to an abrupt end in 1945; ration cards issued after winning another European war.
4
hi there, as a professional Roman historian, I found this column encouraging in a number of ways. First, it expresses great caution about the practice of extracting lessons from history -- regardless whether we do so in comparative or normative terms. Second, at the level of substance, he cites some very fine literature (by Peter Temin and Kyle Harper). My comment amounts to an exhortation that the history of the Roman empire has become a capacious and sophisticated enterprise: the range of information that we know is just vastly greater than a generation or two earlier, and the methods deployed to study it are correspondingly richer. Within this landscape, there's a temptation to turn to the newest forms of explanation, and thus to focus on quantitative forms of analysis of those aspects of conduct that are subject to quantification (and simplification), or to the study of disease regimes. Don't get me wrong: some amazing work is being done in this fields. But insofar as empires and communities were political projects, founded and sustained through communication, don't discount modern ways of understanding ancient politics, which are also currently constantly being renewed.
Here's a plug: https://c4ejournal.net/2017/05/22/clifford-ando-pax-romana-peace-pacific...
29
The right wing propaganda machine has been poisoning Americans against their own system of government for decades now, and the despite has taken hold.
It doesn't help that we have elected so few statesmen and women in Congress with the courage, sense of duty, and commitment to public service to defend it from the self-serving, the corrupt and the greedy, with all too many complicit in the degradation of democratic norms and principles that make our political system function as it should.
Mr. Krugman is right. There is no inherent flaw that is corrupting our political system; no outsiders are causing us to lose faith in democracy and the rule of law, to take a wrecking ball to democratic norms and ideals and institutions - we are doing it (to) ourselves.
167
No the Kremlin is sponsoring Trump and divisiveness. Outsiders. Gangsters.
Krugman is right to extol the virtues of long-term system-building.
What seems lost on Trump and his followers is the strong element of "enlightened self-interest" in all of America's foreign assistance. The Marshall Plan, the Point Four Program and the ensuing AID programs, the Fulbright scholarships, the Peace Corps -- virtually all of our "giveaways" paid us dividends. Almost all of our foreign assistance has very practical justifications redounding to our benefit. Trump's sharp elbows and "America First" are not going to generate goodwill for us to combat transnational threats or make the world a safer, more stable and prosperous place for our children. Indeed, the greedy short-sightedness in Trump's "America First" foreign policy also pervades his approach to domestic policy, much to the detriment of the system and institutions that made our country great.
189
I'm fairly certain that Trump has no idea what the Marshall Plan and the Point Four programs were, much less understand their historical importance. Did they teach anything about the Marshall Plan at Wharton?
1
"It’s a terrible story. We built something wonderful, and we’re throwing it all away for no good reason."
I was with you until the last sentence.
There is a good reason to throw it all away. No, not one that is in the general good. But we live in a society where the bulk of the rewards have always belonged to those at the top, and in the last 30 years all the growth in our economy have gone to those at the tippy-top. Which means that the expense of maintaining that soft power have been in a big measure on those getting the lions share of the income.
This is an unstable equilibrium and it has toppled. The billionaires and their friends have figured out a way to reduce their tax burden. A strong US doesn't matter to them; they figure that with their wealth if things go south here they can always decamp to friendlier environs. But they expect the fall to take decades and in the meantime they will enjoy paying less in taxes. As one of them once remarked, "only the little people pay taxes."
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I'm with the professor about the importance of restraint, in the exercise of power. What we see now is an imperial US military at work in foreign territories, apparently in ignorance of Geneva conventions against this sort of thing. Barbarians at the Gate was the story at the hostile takeover of RJR, enabled by loosening restraints on corporate consolidation. My impression is dividends went down and facilities were liquidated in order to send quite a bit of money into the phantom banking economy, where it would be safe from scrutiny. As for sending our men and women overseas, taxes seem to evaporate in the presence of black budgets, in a wisp of artillery smoke. With all the hocus-pocus sabotage of braking systems going on, Congress needs to loosen some of its own ginger reserve and test the left pedal, in order to check these forces of wealth-drain on the middle class. They are timid about expressing their power to restrain; what a shame. But why?
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Canada's and the world's John Ralston Saul is an historian who writes about economics. Saul's musings on the Cult of Neoliberalis seem to paint a vivid and understandable picture of the world today and America's inability to see clearly what is happening. As Saul clearly points out Rome's gladiators had a life expectancy of 30 one year longer than the average Roman.
We are living half a century longer than the average Roman and have yet to acknowledge that we need basic changes in how we live our lives. The 45 years since Nixon ended Bretton Woods is a thousand years of ancient economic development.
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Former Mexican President, Vicente Fox, recently said that Latin Americans are very familiar with presidents like Trump. It was a very interesting comparison, indeed. While PK's examining of Roman history is apropos, I wonder how much the U.S. is becoming like a Latin American society?
That is, essentially a tiny sector of the society owns and manages the wealth of the country through a close-knit network of political and business cronies, all of whom have little to no connection to or concern for the actual society.
Meanwhile, the masses are left to fend for themselves in a poor and poorly managed public sector, where cronyism, corruption, and crime are often the norms. And trying to improve one's life through honest, hard work is seemingly a quixotic quest.
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You are spot on...I have lived in South America and I can tell you that is exactly where this model is heading. There is no true middle class or democracy and the masses have just enough to survive and work. Not a pretty picture...
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Sad to say, we are becoming much like the Latin American model.
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the masses chose this. No matter what we tried to give them they had their own ideas.
To continue (and slightly correct) Prof K's analogy, it was also not barbarians at the gates that brought down the Western Roman empire and, 1000 years later the Eastern Roman empire in 1453. It was internal struggles that came to involve the use of mercenary armies of the barbarians who were hired by Romans and brought through the gates to hold and seize power for Romans while guarding the frontiers against the next barbarians.
These barbarian armies were thought to be enticed by Roman "soft power", to be new friendly servants of the empire. They later seized power and the throne for themselves. Oops.
Today soft power has kept the Pax America for 73 years and counting, but again it is our forces within reacting to the perceived threat of 'those beyond our walls' who lead us from our path. Our own tribalism in a much more global world than Rome could imagine may cause us to lash out against foreigners and against each other until we think that only a strong leader and not We The People, a dictator rather than elections, can solve our problems.
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It doesn't particularly matter whether the Pax Romana is relevant in its specific details to us. What matters is that even in the case of a dictatorial structure such as the Roman Empire, there was at least some sense of encouraging individual political entities to find reasons to cooperate. That has been true of the Pax Americana since World War II. What's truly astonishing is how fragile that world order has suddenly become. A Nero-like monster has come into power and has thoroughly intimidated the party structure that supports him by appealing to the worst and most powerful instincts of the party's base. Unless Mueller can pull us back from the brink by proving in a conclusive way that ours is a country of laws rather than of heedless leaders, we are lost.
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Indeed, it is appalling that a single individual, that 'Nero-like monster,' can cause so much upset and pain in such a short period of time.
We citizens had been lulled into thinking our system was strong enough to withstand an aberration of this kind.
But of course our Nero has plenty of help from the outside, as well as from a compliant congress.
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Yes the Nero-like monster with his repugnantly visible willful ignorance pustules is in the house and spreading his virulence. But, can attorney Mueller "pull us back from the brink" as you suggest? It just doesn't stand to reason that one man alone can spread the disinfectant of learning and reason with sufficient intensity to reach all the crevices needed to be reached to immobilize all the infectious postules . . . that are already aggressively attacking the decency and hard won democratic norms that are the framework the host's, that is ours, long built, culturally and constitutionally-protective immune system.
Nope, if we do it, we all have to reach into those crevices to disinfect each one . . . recognizing that they're hard to reach and dangerous to touch. Just as in pushing back Joe McCarthy plague, too many of the courageous who stood up him and the culture around him were irremediably hurt . . . we all have to be those heroes this time . . . . while recognizing that heroes are heroes because they took very dangerous and, not infrequently, often mortal risks.
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Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have more wealth than the bottom half of the country combined... that's three people versus about 160 million American people.
Some people think that math is terrific, although in reality it's sociopathic, unsustainanable and immoral,
The problem with America's vulture capitalist system is that it glorifies greed and belittles humanity, and there is one party leading it through that sewer of greed...and it's very Republican.
Say what you will about the Democrats, but they extended an olive branch of humanity to America with the ACA, and Republicans have done everything in their power to reverse it and get Americans to drop dead in exchange for a 1% tax cut.
We're dealing with sociopaths in the American right-wing; both parties aren't guilty; one American political party is thoroughly obsessed with voter suppression, greed and power that has systematically destroyed America by championing Greed Over People while demonizing worker wages and taxes on the gilded class, pensions, unions, public education, mass transit and the common good.
That party is the Republican Party, happy to rig Presidents who cannot win an electoral majority, happy to gerrymander the House and thrilled to surf the undemocratic Senate to Supreme Court hijacking of the world's oldest democracy.
And now, with their 2nd Idiot-In-Chief in 16 years wrecking the nation, the proof is in the political pudding.
D to go forward; R for nationally-assisted suicide.
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Well, at least the Russians didn't meddle in Roman elections. Oh, that's right, the Romans didn't have elections. They did have slaves, and a very different socio-economic system, but that shouldn't keep us from drawing parallels to 21st-century America.
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I think it's interesting that the billionaires you cited in your opening paragraph are not the ones that support Republican policies. Why not mention the Kochs, or Sheldon Adelson, or the Mercer family??
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The proof is not in the pudding; the proof of the pudding is in the tasting. And this GOP pudding tastes like poison, and it might be.
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The Roman Empire was followed by the Dark Ages, when people didn't trust science and most let the church run their lives. Think about that when your government leaders tell us that the dominant religion in this country says we have to obey the government.
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There's a recent, well-written work of fiction titled "Winter Mythologies and Abbots" by Pierre Michon which depicts members of the church struggling against the beastly inclinations of the barbarian warlords — those wild, uncouth Frenchmen ... to bring a little of the light of civilization into their rude hearts.
Religion is just a bad idea. The only philosophical rule people need to follow is 'treat others as you want to be treated'. We can't even follow that simple rule much of the time.
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and now we have science teaching us the new religion of climate change.. nothing changes much.
I’d be very interested in reading the perceptions of economic lessons we can draw from Roman history written by an econ Nobelist in macroeconomic applications. But when he strays too far from the econ wonk, I see little value that the perceptions are Paul Krugman’s, and not those of any intelligent and knowledgeable history or sociology professor well past fifty (you DO need a few rings beneath the bark to get my attention on such ruminations) in a school operating out of any backwater.
But there are a MANY more things that are relevant to us today about Roman history than Paul seems to think, and his generalized contempt for the relevancy of that history to today is unfortunate. Simply one among MANY examples was our language formation – English went through numerous phases of evolution and wound up being largely Germanic in structure, yet with over half the words we use derived from the Latin (and many of THEM derived from the Greek). And that’s important: there are many who believe that the language you speak contains implicit assumptions in the nuanced definitions of words that largely determines how you think. It was their history, great events and everyday life, that influenced how Latin evolved, and those influences that span every subject of human thought survive in the language WE speak.
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It wasn’t as superficial as merely granting favors to local elites that so willingly bound together their empire. They granted Roman CITIZENSHIP to locals (certainly not to all of them), that gave them rights equal to or largely equivalent in law to those of any other Roman citizen … anywhere.
This vast empire was held together by citizens who saw themselves as Romans from Gaul, or Britannia, or Turkey, or Libya … or any member state. A simple yet brilliant strategy for cohesion. Today we see very few examples of such brilliance – the Russian Federation is a joke as regards equality before law; Britain’s Commonwealth rights have been substantially watered, largely for economic reasons; and the European Union is hardly a proven success so far. Rome could get away with it because large numbers of people could not easily travel then, so granting citizenship did not necessarily threaten basic local cultural coherence or economic prosperity.
Rome had its barbarous invasions, not just by external tribes but by their own seemingly endless number of emperors, that were highly disruptive, and in the end contributed significantly to their fall. With Rome as with America, the embrace of empire may become attenuated for lots of reasons, but our influence likely will persist for centuries.
But I thank Paul for thinking that lies at right-angles to reality. When I think of Rome, the last thing that occurs to me is Donald Trump. But the Romans did a Texas ton for us.
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"But was it really different in any important way from, say, Assyria?"
Don't knock Assyria. It too was plenty special. Unfortunately, in the US education system (and alas in most modern western education systems), it gets short shrift. We also need to study more about ancient Egypt and even Sumeria, not to mention the Medes and Persians.
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Not the Persians please. Isn't that another name for Iranians
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Krugman is NOT knocking Assyria. He is implying that it has equivalence to the Roman Empire. You misread him.
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Rather, it was the Persians who ran a great empire and did cross-nations congeniality and repairs well, at least as the Bible tells us.
Ooooooooops. Did I say something wrong?
B.
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Stick to economics and let historians play their games. You write "surprisingly productive, with an overall standard of living probably not equaled until the 17th century Dutch Republic. Really?
The integrated Mediterranean economy was integrated by the point of the sword: military conquest followed by imperialism. Slavery was rampant, not only as a means of production but as human trafficking. Trade was based on the exploitation of other nations for the benefit of Romans. How did the poor get their bread and circuses if not from the taxation and exploitation of conquered peoples?
Roman government was run as a plutocracy until it became a tyranny with an emperor. "Patrician" and "Plebeian" are Roman concepts. By comparison, Germanic tribal government appeared to be relatively democratic. As well, the great chasm in wealth between the oligarchs and the masses makes the current income distribution in America seem less extraordinary.
Roman conquests and destruction were realized against civilizations equal in wealth and intellectual and technical achievement to Rome. Rome did not conquer by virtue of any virtue other than military power.
American military power has been behind the overthrow of democratically elected governments and the maintenance in power of numerous dictators. The pattern of US foreign investment is just colonialism without the formality of colonies. It always comes as a surprise to Americans that they are often considered to be the "barbarians."
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All good points and they made me think: perhaps that aforementioned Dutch Republic is a more interesting parallel to examine.
If memory serves, the Dutch Republic was the world's foremost economic and military power for a period of almost 50 years. Having invented the stock exchange and the multinational corporation (the East India Company or VOC), the Republic then collapsed at a moment in time when incredible wealth was concentrated in the hands of just a small segment of the population and when financial speculation and a string of poor investments led to the collapse of the VOC, a great depression and 100 years of stagnation.
I would love for Professor Krugman to take a closer look at the state of the Dutch economy just before its collapse and how it compares to the American situation today.
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Interesting and useful research ideas: first the Dutch East India Company/ Bank of Amsterdam, then go on to the British East India Company/ Bank of England. Why did The Netherlands and Britain succeed in creating commercial empires based on exploitation, whereas Spain and Portugal did not?
1
While you assert that "Americans are often considered barbarians" one would hope that you and other "progressives" might at least take comfort and be pound that at least in our "inner cities" (ghettos?) are noble people who - in the eyes of the world - compensate for that barbarian majority population. Right?
As the Empire declined, more of more of the land, of what was essentially an agricultural society, was owned by fewer and fewer people. The large estates, the latifundia became almost independent entities, setting the stage for the feudalism that followed. I remember reading somewhere that by the time the Empire fell, all of North Africa was owned by four Senators. That's where we're heading.
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Except in American, it isn't a landed gentry of Senators who own everything. It is a few extremely wealthy 'landed gentry' who own all the Senators. And Representatives. Although our Congress seems to do remarkably well for itself investments-wise. And of course, we can't overlook the "gentry-man" we've landed in the White House. Sort of like recruiting the bank robber to guard the vault.
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Yes, Dr. K., we agree there are more than a few parallels to the Romans and our own Pax Americana - and while pondering the daily outrages, we've found Rick Wilson's cogent take on things mirrors our thoughts when we hear other Dems say 'settle down, now just settle down':
https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-the-insecure-pledge-in-the-di...
Maybe we're too 'stiff-necked', as you put it, but we actually think it is incumbent upon people who can see/choose to see what's happening, to speak up - whilst we still can.
Primarily, readers like the Times has ought keep in mind the charts in this piece (you must look at the charts):
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/world/americas/western-liberal-democr...
showing how much trouble we're all in because of the large large percentage of Americans who no longer think " it's essential to live in a democracy " (!!)
Reaching these people and educating them is our task - but we already know that most people rarely change their political persuasion, since the brain centers which control that identity are also closely connected to the brain areas associated with religious identity.
Thus - realistically - our only hope may very well be a 'holding action' regarding democracy, while we educate a generation (or two ?) which is still in school, then reaches voting age.
Do we have that much time ?
34
That's the reason Betsy DeVos was put in charge of Education: DT loves the poorly educated!
3
"Harper notes that Rome was held back in some ways by a heavy burden of disease, an unintentional byproduct of urbanization and trade that a society lacking the germ theory had no way to alleviate. But still, the Romans really did achieve remarkable things on the economic front."
When we know we are a part of a nation that not only is history and scholarship-averse, these kinds of posts are rare and oh-so sorely needed, not only written from the economic point of view, but also from the historical and political science points of view.
Just this past week, we were informed in some of our news that AP world history courses are dropping thousands of years of history from the curriculum. We need more, much more - not less.
Alongside the Romans, we should also look at Genghis Khan and the Ottomans. Each brought their own innovations in how trade was conducted. All of history is relevant, and that includes how America became a world power and how, one might argue, it is returning to its roots in a misguided attempt at reclaiming a glory.
We also need to talk about how our lack of knowledge of history, training in critical reading, writing, and thinking, connected to other disciplines in the humanities is changing the way our society thinks, to our great detriment.
We need more like this, Professor Krugman. Lots and lots more!
---
https://www.rimaregas.com/2015/01/17/on-dougbelkin-test-finds-college-gr...
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And we need to read, write, and learn about what really happened rather than the sanitized version of how America was populated and founded. The fact that someone running for office can say that Robert E. Lee was a loyal American when he was fighting against the Union is absurd. He was a traitor and lucky that he wasn't imprisoned for a decade or so. Had the South won, would they have been as generous to the North?
8
Henr3ry,
The same is true of the romantic way we teach our children about our founders and other figures. One glaring case in point, one that stuck out to many observers was Hillary Clinton's rap on Abraham Lincoln during one of the town halls in the Democratic primary in 2016. The particular piece she chose to speak about was a completely tone-deaf choice on her part:
https://www.rimaregas.com/2016/01/26/hillary-clinton-lets-out-her-inner-...
People notice these things and remember them.
Without properly and truthfully teaching our history, Trumps will keep getting elected when they run for office.
Thank you a most excelicence post.
1
You are missing the point, the elephant in the room, the real impetus behind Trump, behind Putin and behind American decline. It’s called Moore’s Law or the rate at which computer power grows. The wealth and power created by computing power has grown so quickly society can’t deal with it. I suppose we could make the same argument for Rome provided you had the scholarship for it. Yes, we could be living in the garden of Eden, Star Trek world where all monetary considerations of the common man are of no concern, however the rate at which technology grew handed that immense wealth to a pitiful few who haven’t the slightest intention of sharing it. In the future the human race will be composed of people named Trump, Koch and Putin. And you can just fill in the blanks for how we get there, but we are already well down that road. So you see that, as we say is that. There are solutions; barring online retail, on line banking, data mining and a technology tax. But who’s listening.
15
Electrification was similar to computerification in causing wealth accumulation for an elite. The Great Depression redistributed the accumulated wealth from electrification; the recent Great Recession (or whatever you want to call the 2008 collapse) tried to undo the computer-induced wealth accumulation, but was prevented from doing so. However, since wealth is held in financial instruments, it can leave quickly; and the stock market is at bubble heights, capitalized at very low interest rates. The Fed is raising interest rates, so the story is still unfolding, its plot line mysterious.
5
There are certainly those who have grown enormously wealthy due to computer power -- Gates, Jobs, Bezos among others. But Putin, Koch and Trump do not derive their wealth from anything remotely related to computing power. Koch and Trump inherited a fortune, the former from carbon based resources (including trees) the latter from real estate. Putin's fortune derives from the oligarchs who have kept him in power. None of your solutions, however worthy of consideration, would have any impact on any of them.
9
You make some me sense but the transfer this time is so immense the only way is social change. Unless someone emerges who can crystallize the issues the outlook isn’t sanguine for humanity.
Good essay, Prof. Krugman, and surely agree about destructiveness of the occupant of the White House. Yet I have to say this chapter is, at least in part, the culmination of the past five decades, wherein civil rights and voter legislation was passed. Hence we have the complicity of one of our political parties, which would rather tear down our successful national ways, including sharing wealth, rather than extend the benefits of many to all. If Trump is successful, it’s only because he has the support of the Republican leadership and many Republican senators, representatives, and citizens, who won’t share with the browns.
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This has always been the truth in America and we like to keep ignoring it. Our only hope is for the numbers of more brown people to increase.
"Government is the problem." [paraphrase]
-- Ronald Reagan circa 1980
"We hope to make it small enough to drown in the bathtub." [paraphrased fragment]
-- Grover Norquist
We have put the people who subscribe to these ideas in charge of the government. Is it any surprise that this had lead us to where we are now?
It's also no secret that the entities doing the drowning of the government in the bathtub are the sector of the economy that have more power than the government. You don't need a PhD and a Nobel in Econ. to know that the sector calling the shots is the corporate sector. The 700+ military installations that the US has overseas are to protect the empire. The empire is an economic one with the military corporations sitting at the top of the pyramid scheme.
5