(The Center Square) – The federal government spent $1.8 trillion more than it collected in tax revenue in fiscal year 2024, according to figures released Friday by U.S. Treasury Department.
Yes it was … the trouble was that in the early part of the empire, there were many wealthy individuals and a fairly large wealthy middle class citizenry … wealth was concentrated but at least there were many, many wealthy people.
But generally speaking (I’m no historian, I’ve just read lots about it so this is my own interpretation) … as the empire grew, conquered more and stretched itself further, more wealth went to the wealthiest, and the military needed more soldiers, being a soldier meant you had to be citizen but you had to leave your land - leave your land, you made no money, so you sold your land - now you are a full time soldier with no land and your only life is the military - meanwhile your land gets bought for cheap by wealthy land owners - multiply all this for about a hundred years and now you have a few wealthy families with all the land (and all the say in where to fight) and a landless middle class who have no option but the military … the wealthy don’t want to give up control so they free up citizenship to more and more non-Romans … now you have a situation where all of mainland Rome is owned by a few people with all the money (but do no actual fighting), the rest of the people there are either slaves or don’t own anything and the army is becoming filled with people who have never been to mainland Rome and have allegiance to it.
Wealth got concentrated to a very small group of people … and nothing was left to support it … so it collapsed.
We are basically doing the same thing today and the only way we seem to want to sustain it is through perpetual war (which can not be sustained either)
Like I said … I wouldn’t worry about it because we’ll probably repeat it again in a few hundred years … we always have.
Yes it was … the trouble was that in the early part of the empire, there were many wealthy individuals and a fairly large wealthy middle class citizenry … wealth was concentrated but at least there were many, many wealthy people.
But generally speaking (I’m no historian, I’ve just read lots about it so this is my own interpretation) … as the empire grew, conquered more and stretched itself further, more wealth went to the wealthiest, and the military needed more soldiers, being a soldier meant you had to be citizen but you had to leave your land - leave your land, you made no money, so you sold your land - now you are a full time soldier with no land and your only life is the military - meanwhile your land gets bought for cheap by wealthy land owners - multiply all this for about a hundred years and now you have a few wealthy families with all the land (and all the say in where to fight) and a landless middle class who have no option but the military … the wealthy don’t want to give up control so they free up citizenship to more and more non-Romans … now you have a situation where all of mainland Rome is owned by a few people with all the money (but do no actual fighting), the rest of the people there are either slaves or don’t own anything and the army is becoming filled with people who have never been to mainland Rome and have allegiance to it.
Wealth got concentrated to a very small group of people … and nothing was left to support it … so it collapsed.
We are basically doing the same thing today and the only way we seem to want to sustain it is through perpetual war (which can not be sustained either)
Like I said … I wouldn’t worry about it because we’ll probably repeat it again in a few hundred years … we always have.