Are We Going

the Way of
Rome?

by Lawrence W. Reed
 There’s an old story worth retelling about a
band of wild hogs which lived along a river in a
secluded area of Georgia. These hogs were a
stubborn, ornery, independent bunch. They had
survived floods, fires, freezes, droughts, hunters,
dogs, and everything else. No one thought they could
ever be captured.

One day a stranger came into town not far from where the hogs
lived and went into the general store. He asked the storekeeper, “Where
can I find the hogs? I want to capture them.” The storekeeper laughed
at such a claim but pointed in the general direction. The stranger left
with his one-horse wagon, an ax, and a few sacks of corn.

Two months later he returned, went back to the store, and asked
for help to bring the hogs out. He said he had them all penned up in
the woods. People were amazed and came from miles around to hear
him tell the story of how he did it.

“The first thing I did,” the stranger said, “was to clear a small area
of the woods with my ax. Then I put some corn in the center of the
clearing. At first, none of the hogs would take the corn. Then after a
few days, some of the young ones would come out, snatch some corn,
and then scamper back into the underbrush. Then the older ones began
taking the corn, probably figuring that if they didn’t get it, some of the
other ones would. Soon they were all eating the corn. They stopped
grubbing for acorns and roots on their own.

“About that time, I started building a fence around the clearing, a

little higher each day. At the right moment, I built a trap door and
sprung it. Naturally, they squealed and hollered when they knew I
had them, but I can pen any animal on the face of the earth if I can first get
him to depend on me for a free handout!”

The moral to that story happens to be the connecting link between

the course of ancient Rome and the path which America has been taking
for much of the last century.

Roman civilization began many centuries ago. In those early days,

Roman society was basically agricultural, made up of small farmers
and shepherds. By the second century BC, large-scale businesses made
their appearance. Italy became urbanized. Immigration soared as
people from many lands were attracted by the vibrant growth and great
opportunities the Roman economy offered. This growing prosperity
was made possible by a general climate of free enterprise, limited
government, and respect for private property. Merchants and
entrepreneurs were admired and emulated. Commerce and trade
flourished and large investments were commonplace.

It is certainly true that slavery existed within Rome’s sphere of

influence. That’s deplorable from any standpoint, of course. But to be
fair to the Romans, it must be said that slavery was far more common
and far more brutal in the rest of the world in those days.

Remarkable Achievements
Historians still talk today about the remarkable
achievements Rome made in sanitation,
transportation, the arts, public parks, banking, architecture, education,
and administration. The city even had mass production of some
consumer items and a stock market. With low taxes and low tariffs, free
trade and private property, Rome became the center of the world’s
wealth.

At one time, the political and military power of Rome dominated

Europe and the Mediterranean. Roman roads facilitated speed of travel
and communication to a degree that would not be surpassed until the
development of the railroad, the steamship, and the telegraph in the
19th century. Roman law and justice enabled the traveler to journey
throughout the empire with a considerable degree of safety. “The
benefits of the Pax Romana [the peace of Rome]”, says Arther Ferrill in
“The Fall of the Roman Empire,” “included the development of one of
man’s most impressive codes of law and an administrative system that
met the needs of men of varied languages, ethnic backgrounds and
cultural traditions. The poet Virgil was not far wrong in claiming that
his nation ruled the world in peace and justice.”

All this disappeared, however, by the fifth century AD, and when it
was gone, Europe was plunged into darkness and despair, slavery and
poverty. In the space of 700 years, explains Max Shapiro in his book,
“The Penniless Billionaires,” “the Appian Way, where Roman legions
had frequently paraded in celebration of victory, was clogged with
rubble and weeds. Wild dogs roamed through the ruins of the Forum,
in search of food. And the 60,000 souls who inhabited the desolate
place which had once been called the Eternal City now referred to it as
‘the great cow pasture.’”

Why did Rome decline and fall? The record is abundantly clear on
this point. Rome fell because of a fundamental change in ideas on the
part of the Roman people—ideas that relate primarily to personal
responsibility and the source of personal income. In the early days of
greatness, to a considerable degree, each Roman regarded himself as
the chief source of income. Each individual looked to himself—what
he could acquire voluntarily in the marketplace—as the source of his
livelihood. Rome’s decline began when large numbers of citizens
discovered another source of income: the political process or, the state.

When Romans abandoned self-responsibility and self-reliance and

began to vote themselves benefits, to use government to rob Peter to
pay Paul, to put their hands into other people’s pockets, and to envy
and covet the productive and their wealth, they set into motion
Kershner’s First Law: “When a self-governing people confer upon their
government the power to take from some and give to others, the process
will not stop until the last bone of the last taxpayer is picked bare.”

The legalized plunder of the Roman welfare state was undoubtedly

sanctioned by people who wished to do good. As Henry David Thoreau
once said, “If I knew for certain that a man was coming to my house to
do me good, I would run for my life.” Another person coined the
phrase, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Nothing but
evil can come from a society bent upon coercion, the confiscation of
property, and the degradation of the productive.

Early in the process, a politician named Clodius ran for the office
of tribune on a “free wheat for the masses” platform and won.
Candidates for office began spending huge sums to win public favor
and then plundered the population afterwards to pay their campaign
debts.
 When Julius Caesar came to power in 48 BC, he found 320,000
persons on government grain relief. Temporarily slowing the welfare
state bandwagon, he ordered the welfare rolls cut to 200,000. Within a
half-century, the rolls were back up to well over 300,000.

Government Bread
A real landmark in the course of events
came in the year 274 AD. Emperor Aurelian,
wishing to provide cradle-to-grave care for the
citizenry, declared the right to relief to be hereditary. Those whose
parents received government benefits were entitled as a matter of right
to benefits as well. Aurelian gave welfare recipients government-baked
bread (instead of the old practice of giving them wheat and letting them
bake their own bread) and added free salt, pork, and olive oil. Not
surprisingly, the ranks of the unproductive grew fatter, and the ranks
of the productive grew thinner.

Surely, many Romans opposed the welfare state and held fast to
the old virtues of work, thrift, and self-reliance. Just as surely, some of
these sturdy people gave in and began to feed at the public trough in
the belief that if they didn’t get it, somebody else would. That attitude
only hastened the slide into bankruptcy.

The central government also assumed the responsibility of

providing the people with entertainment. Elaborate circuses and
gladiator duels were staged to keep the people happy. The equivalent
of a hundred million dollars per year in the city of Rome alone is one
modern historian’s estimate of what was poured out on the games.
These days, many Americans think that by virtue of being artists they
are entitled to grants from the federal government at other people’s
expense. If handouts for the arts constitute a legitimate function of
government, by what possible rationale can just about any other
handout be resisted?

In Rome, the emperors were buying support with the people’s

money. After all, government can give only what it first takes. The
emperors, in dishing out all these goodies, were in a position to
manipulate public opinion. As Alexander Hamilton observed, “Control
of a man’s subsistence is control of a man’s will.”

By the second century AD, many cities had spent themselves deeply
into debt. Beginning with the emperor Hadrian, municipalities which
got themselves into financial difficulties lost their independence as the
central government placed them under the authority of imperial
curators. Local authority was increasingly replaced by the power of
the central government.

Taxes & Regulations

Civil wars and conflict of all sorts increased as
faction fought against faction to seize control of the
huge state apparatus and all its public loot. Of 27
emperors or would-be emperors between 180 and 285
AD, all but two met violent deaths.

High taxes and burdensome regulations were the order of the day.
Business enterprise was called upon to support the growing body of
public parasites.
 All this robbery and tyranny by the state was a reflection of the
breakdown of moral law in Roman society. The people had lost all
respect for the sanctity of private property. This author is reminded of
the New York City blackout of 1977, when all it took was for the lights
to go out for hundreds to go on a looting spree.

The Christians were the last to resist the tyranny of the Roman
welfare state. Until 313 AD, they had been persecuted because of their
faith and their unwillingness to worship the emperor. Under Diocletian,
Christians were cast into dungeons, thrown to the wild beasts in the
amphitheater, and put to early death by every other mode of torture
that ingenious cruelty could devise. In this year, Emperor Constantine
granted them toleration in exchange for their acquiescence to his
authority.

Constantine himself professed Christianity but his personal

morality belied his word. Within three years of his announced
conversion, he put a nephew to death, drowned his wife in a bath, and
murdered his son.

Meanwhile, Constantine showered the Church with land, gifts, and

patronage at taxpayer expense. Thus corrupted, the Church lost its
old simplicity and high moral standards. It, too, had jumped aboard
the gravy train.

In the year 380, a sadly perverted Christianity became the official

state religion under Emperor Theodosius. Rome’s decline was like a
falling rock from this point on.

Foreign Policy
In another arena, the foreign policy of
Rome in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries
had become one of weakness and
appeasement. Politicians, too busy buying
votes at home with pie-in-the-sky programs, ignored the Empire’s
defense. Barbarian “converts,” whose loyalty was still suspect, were
even permitted to hold important posts in the Roman military
establishment.

In 410, Alaric the Goth and his primitive Germanic tribesmen

assaulted the city and sacked its treasures. For three days, Rome
was plundered. Palaces and temples were stripped and Roman
citizens were raped and killed by the thousands. The once-proud
Roman army, which had always repelled the barbarians before, now
wilted in the face of opposition. Why risk life and limb to defend a
corrupt and decaying society?

The end came rather anti-climactically in 476, when the German

chieftain Odoacer pushed aside the last Roman emperor, Romulus
Augustulus, and installed himself as the new authority.

Some might say that Rome fell because of the attack by these
foreigners. Such a claim overlooks what the Romans had done to
themselves. When the Vandals, Goths, Huns, and others reached
Rome, many citizens actually welcomed them in the belief that
anything was better than their own tax collectors and regulators. It
is more accurate to say that Rome committed suicide. Like the wild
hogs, Romans first lost their freedom, and then they lost their lives.
 By the time of Emperor Antoninus Pius, who ruled from 138 to 161
AD, the Roman bureaucracy was as all-embracing as that of modern
times. The historian Trever wrote that by the third century, “the
relentless system of taxation, requisition, and compulsory labor was
administered by an army of military bureaucrats . . . . Everywhere
were the ubiquitous personal agents of the emperors to spy out any
remotest case of attempted strikes or evasion of taxes.”

Another writer, W. G. Hardy, said several years ago that in later

Rome, “what the soldiers or the barbarians spared, the emperors took
in taxes.” The crushing cost of the military, the top-heavy bureaucracy,
and the public programs taxed the middle class out of existence.

Clearly, the state gradually became the prime source of income for
an increasing number of Romans. The high taxes needed to finance
this drove business into bankruptcy and then nationalization. Whole
sectors of the economy came under government domination in this
manner. The first industry in Rome to be taken over was
transportation—shipping in particular. Interestingly, the first industry
in America to suffer comprehensive control was also transportation—
specifically, railroads.

Emperor Nero may have been the original architect of urban

renewal legislation. In the 10th year of his reign (64 AD), a great fire left
more than half of Rome in ashes. It was rumored then, and many
historians now believe, that Nero had ordered the conflagration to be
lighted to clear the ground for a rebuilding of the city.

Nero is said by Gaius Suetonius in “De Vitae Caesarum” to have

once rubbed his hands together and declared, “Let us tax and tax again!
Let us see to it that no one owns anything!” That reminds this author
of Harry Hopkins’ famous allusion to the welfare state during the
Roosevelt years: “tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect.”

In 91 AD, the government became deeply involved in the business

of agriculture. Emperor Domitian, to reduce the production and raise
the price of wine, ordered the destruction of half the provincial
vineyards.

As the old virtue of self-reliance gave way to political redistribution

of income, priests, teachers, and intellectuals extolled the virtues of the
almighty emperor, the provider of all things. The interests of the
individual were considered a distant second to the interests of the
emperor and his legions. A spiritual vacuum ensued, which was filled
partly by the rise of cults and partly by worship of the emperor. The
latter reached its zenith under Emperor Diocletian in 285 AD. No one
could approach him without prostrating himself on the ground and
kissing the hem of his garment. Formerly, the proud, free citizens of
Rome had refused to render such servile adoration to any of their
magistrates and rulers.

Natural Disasters
The Roman Empire, amid this sickening
spectacle of moral decay, fell victim to an
unfortunate series of natural disasters and plagues.
Earthquakes, volcanoes, and harsh storms caused great damage. By
200 AD at least one-fourth of the population of the whole empire, both
civilian and military, had perished by a plague brought from the East.
A later one, from 252 to 267, was nearly as bad. A morally righteous
and strong people might have recovered and rebuilt, but these disasters
only reinforced the growing despair of a desperate people. The fabric
of Roman society was rotting away under the influence of government
paternalism, bureaucracy, and spiritual malaise.

Cheapened Money
Rome also suffered from the bane of all welfare
states—inflation. The massive demands on the
government to spend for everything created pressures
for the multiplication of money. The Roman coin, the
denarius, was cheapened and debased by one emperor
after another to help pay for the expensive programs. Once almost pure
silver, the denarius by 268 AD was little more than a piece of junk
containing only .02 percent silver. American dimes, quarters, and half
dollars, incidentally, contained 90 percent silver as recently as 1964;
today, they contain no silver at all.

Flooding the economy with all this new and cheapened money had
predictable results: prices skyrocketed; savings were eroded, and the
people became angry and frustrated. Businessmen were often blamed
for the rising prices even as government continued its spendthrift ways.

The easy money policies produced periodic crises in the economy.

The panic of 86 AD and a severe economic contraction of a few years
later are examples. The government responded by imposing penalties
for trading in gold, especially for exporting it, much as Franklin
Roosevelt did in 1933.

Demanding relief from economic disorder, the people of Rome

cried out for a strongman. He arrived in the person of Diocletian who,
in the year 301, imposed his famous “Edict of 301.” This law
established a system of comprehensive wage and price controls, to be
enforced by a penalty of death. The chaos that followed inspired the
contemporary historian Lactantius to write in 314: “After the many
oppressions which he put into practice had brought a general dearth
upon the empire, he then set himself to regulate the prices of all
vendible things. There was much bloodshed upon very slight and
trifling accounts, and the people brought provisions no more to market,
since they could not get a reasonable price for them; and this increased
the dearth so much that at last after many had died by it, the law itself
was laid aside.”

From Welfarism to Despotism

Diocletian also ordered that all offices, trades,
and professions, in so far as possible, were to be
made hereditary. Young men were forced to carry
on in the trade of their fathers. There was no escape
from this regimentation. The welfare state had become a despotism.

This tyrant left his mark on history in other ways, too. It was during
his reign that fully half the men of the Empire were on the government
payroll. Not only did he impose across-the-board wage and price
controls in relative peacetime, but he also resigned from office, in the
year 305. Nearly 17 centuries later, Richard Nixon would become the
first American president to impose peacetime wage and price controls
and also our first chief executive to resign from office.
 History does seem to have an uncanny knack of repeating itself
now and then. America, by elevating government power at the expense
of individual responsibility, has made some of the same mistakes that
Rome made centuries ago. In a famous statement, philosopher George
Santayana warned that those who ignore history are condemned to
repeat it.

No one reading this, however, should despair for the future. The
growing intrusiveness of government in America is not inevitable; it
is not something beyond the control of the American people. It is, rather,
the consequence of faulty ideas, which can change if only this message
is carried forth by those who cherish liberty. Indeed, there are very
promising indications that the intellectual battles these days are being
won—often decisively won—by the friends of freedom and limited
government, not by those who foolishly seek to put government in the
driver’s seat.

Most people who cherish freedom oppose the welfare state for
moral, philosophical, spiritual, and economic reasons. We would do
well to add another reason: the lessons of history! As we work to restore
and preserve those ideas and institutions which made our nation both
free and great, let’s keep these words in mind:

The penalty men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled

by evil men. —Plato

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
—Edmund Burke

The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who—in a period of
moral crisis—maintain neutrality. —Dante

Lawrence W. Reed is president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy,

an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational
institute devoted to analyzing Michigan issues. This essay is based on
a speech he first made in the 1970s and which has been in strong demand
since. For more information, please contact:

140 West Main Street • P.O. Box 568 • Midland, Michigan 48640
(989) 631-0900 • Fax (989) 631-0964
www.mackinac.org • [email protected]
© 2001 Mackinac Center for Public Policy. All rights reserved.