Comments (17)

• Sally Copperwaite

  Very interesting article, to me at least. I will buy the book but shouldn't it be required reading for Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling and Mervyn 'the financial crisis is nothing to do with me' King!

  Published: June 18, 2009 9:10 AM

• fundamentalist

  Absolutely fascinating history! Thanks! It shows that humanity is too stupid to learn from its mistakes. The debasing of money goes back much farther than Rome. As much death and destruction as it has caused in the past, people still want to do it. No wonder people learned nothing from the failures of socialism.

  "As a desperate measure, succeeding emperors tried to tie workers to the land or to their fathers' occupations in order to prevent workers from changing jobs as a means of evading the low wages prescribed for certain professions. "

  Is this how feudalism began? Anyone know?

  Published: June 18, 2009 9:11 AM

• newson

  charles adams touches on the diocletian era, from memory:
  http://mises.org/multimedia/mp3/adams/3.mp3

  the edict on prices saw the entire appian way constantly lined with crucified infractors.

  Published: June 18, 2009 10:02 AM

• mushindo

  Had to smile at this line:

  'To this intellectual and moral morass came the Emperor Diocletian and he set about the task of reorganization with great vigor. Unfortunately, his zeal exceeded his understanding of the economic forces at work in the empire.'

  We've seen this movie soooo many times over the centuries - most recently in 2009.

  Published: June 18, 2009 11:09 AM

• David K.Meller

  I wonder if the Roman experience cited in the above article was part of what "our" government's fearless leader and his gang of disreputable inflationists had in mind when he was chattering about "change we could believe in".

  The more things change, the more that they remain the same...

  PEACE AND FREEDOM!!
  David K. Meller

  Published: June 18, 2009 12:35 PM

• Jay Greathouse

  @fundamentalist, IMHO, the main contributing factor to the emergence of manorial serfdom (labor relations during feudalism) was the increasingly unmanagable slave situation in Rome. The Servile Wars, with the Third Servile War featuring Spartacus, involved armies of 100,000+ escaped slaves.

  Manorial serfdom became the norm until the Great Plague reduced population levels to the point that land owners started paying for labor, often touted as one of the drivers behind the emergence of capitalism.

  The primary issue facing civilization has always been separating raw materials production from the producers, since cities have never been able to feed themselves. The history of civilization may be understood as involving these 3 great periods: slavery, manorial serfdom and wage labor (or wage slavery if you read Marx.)

  Hence the facination with Raw Materials Economics by so many.

  Published: June 18, 2009 1:45 PM

• Matt

  Excellent Article ..
  Proof positive, as Government grows mal-intervention in the lives of citizens in most areas increases. The easiest way, among others for Government to pay for these 'services' is through the inflation (debasement) of the circulating money, a form of taxation.
  It was ever so and still is. The public at large for the most part is oblivious to politicians' insidiousness .. Politicians for the most part know what is going on, however they take the easy way out and inflate for in the long run they are out of office or dead; there is great pain and revolt then the cycle starts all over again.

  Published: June 18, 2009 4:27 PM

• Vanmind

  Screw Galt. Who will rise and call themselves Spartacus?

  Published: June 18, 2009 5:03 PM

• Tom Hurst

  I've read the entire book - definitely a very interesting read for those interested in curious history. As for its obvious lesson? Well, as Ron Paul has been heard to say, "The only thing we learn from history, I am afraid, is that we do not learn from history."

  Published: June 18, 2009 6:08 PM

• C

  What is especially poignant, is that conventional scholars and historians create elaborate explanations for "The Fall of Rome" and consistently ignore this well-documented economic reality, which appears to be the core reason for the decline of most empires.

  see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_rome

  "Give me control of a nation's money supply, and I care not who makes its laws." - M. A. Rothschild, 18th century.

  Published: June 19, 2009 9:41 AM

• J. Cuttance

  I'm interested in how the problems were fixed (or fixed themselves?) post-currency-fiddling. We probably all should be.

  Does the book discuss this? If so, I'll buy it.

  Published: June 19, 2009 6:31 PM

• P.M.Lawrence

  Jay Greathouse wrote "IMHO, the main contributing factor to the emergence of manorial serfdom (labor relations during feudalism) was the increasingly unmanagable slave situation in Rome... Manorial serfdom became the norm until the Great Plague reduced population levels to the point that land owners started paying for labor, often touted as one of the drivers behind the emergence of capitalism."

  Many scholars believe that the manorial system had its beginnings in a synthesis of customs the barbarians brought to their conquests and of late Roman developments (e.g. giving honestiores privileges over humiliores to keep them well enough off to pay taxes, while the latter only supported the former in kind and weren't in the cash economy and all were bound to their fathers' occupations). However, the cash economy did not end until centuries afterwards, when - according to Pirenne - Muslim conquests cut northern Europe off from mediterranean trade and supplies of coin.

  This article is incomplete from not mentioning Constantine the Great's currency reforms, which did eventually stabilise things - possibly on the back of new gold supplies coming with trans-Sahara trade from West Africa.

  Published: June 19, 2009 9:35 PM

• DaveGillie

  Should we trust an article that says ROMANS bought and stored CORN
  (as in, did they really trade with America or something??)

  and trust a website that censors anyone pointing out such outlandish claims in one of their articles??

  Published: June 23, 2009 7:28 PM

• Gil

  The Romans used corn? How could that have happened?

  Published: June 23, 2009 9:15 PM

• Matt

  
  The Romans used corn? How could that have happened?

  
  The British word for 'Wheat' is Corn. They tend to use Maize for Corn..

  Why can't the English speak Aerican ? :-)

  Published: June 24, 2009 10:27 AM

• regina

  I liked your comment about inflation Matt, it certainly rings true for us even today in Rome. In the last 10 years we have seen inflation go through the roof. So sad to see Rome become almost untouchable for the average tourist.

  Published: July 6, 2009 8:28 AM

• El Anonymous

  Price fixing in modern Pakistan:

  http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\08\31\story_31-8-2009_pg7_22

  The ongoing ‘samosa politics’ between the district government and shopkeepers has reached another twist with most shop owners making it compulsory for buyers to buy chutney (sauce) with the samosas.

  Daily Times found in a survey over the last week that the chutney was being sold with the samosas for the first time in Lahore’s history. Earlier, chutney was always provided free with the samosas. It was found that the shopkeepers had found this way of making up for the profits they lost with the government fixing the prices of samosa.

  A CDGL spokesperson told Daily Times that the government was leaving no stone unturned to clamp down on profiteers, and the public should also report such incidents to the magistrates.

  Published: August 31, 2009 1:53 AM