Is the fall of the Roman republic a portent for 21st century America?

I’ve long felt that the Soviet Union was good for America. Sputnik provoked innovation in American schools. Shaming by the USSR on the world stage helped accelerate civil rights in the US. Fear of the USSR enforced a sort of patriotic unity of purpose in our politics. Yes, it had unhealthy effects like the Vietnam war and the support of Central and South American dictatorships, but the perceived threat and rivalry seemed to place limits on what was acceptable in domestic politics.

I’m reading Thomas Madden’s “The Fall of Republics.” My interest in history has always been moored in the conviction that it can help me better understand the world I live in and where it may be headed. Today, I came across this passage:

“It is an irony that the affluence and power that so enriched the Roman people also doomed their republic. Unlike previous mixed governments, the Roman Republic was never conquered by enemies. It succumbed instead to the spoils of its success, the blessings and curses of peace and prosperity.”

It is alarming to contemplate that our history and the present politics of grievance and retribution has parallels with the violent replacement of the Roman republic with the emperors of the Roman empire. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, America found itself in a unipolar world, the sole military superpower with the largest economy and the world’s reserve currency, enjoying the spoils of success and the blessings and curses of peace and prosperity. Sadly, in the last decade, we’re well on the way to throwing that all away to the muffled cheers of our rivals and dismay of our former allies. History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.

I tremble for our country.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tesla robotaxis aren’t coming any time soon

The idea of a robotaxi appeals to me. The day is not far off when someone—my wife, my daughter—will tell me I’m no longer safe behind the wheel. It would certainly be handy to call or text a robotaxi to drive to the grocery store, a show or a dentist appointment. So is that happening? “It turns out not even the people building Tesla’s self-driving tech trust Elon Musk’s extravagant claims about the company’s autonomous vehicles. “New reporting by Reuters interviewed nine former data labelers and a former self-driving engineer about their take on Tesla’s Full Self-Driving mode. The results were overwhelmingly negative, with seven of the data specialists admitting they wouldn’t ride in a Tesla in FSD.” *snip* “ In recent months, Tesla operating on FSD move have driven riders   into lakes ,   off bridges , and even into the path of   oncoming trains   — and those are just the incidents that get media exposure. Given these insiders’ direct access to terabytes’ worth of p...
Read more

Yes, the CDC can change its mind

The Nobel Laureate economist Paul Samuelson famously acknowledged in a Meet the Press interview: “Well when events change, I change my mind. What do you do?” This observation applies to the advice from medical authorities such as the CDC and WHO during the COVID pandemic. Some members of the public are fond of pillorying these agencies for having published different guidelines at different times, as though health officials are in the business of issuing ex cathedra dogma rather than responding to incomplete and ambiguous information. Science doesn’t deal in proof, it deals with the weight of evidence. A scientific hypothesis is one that is capable of being tested and falsified by experiment. I get it. I used to teach problem-based learning to first year medical students, and they often struggled with what to do with incomplete and ambiguous information, which is what physicians in clinics do every day. Sometimes, one cannot wait for all the tests to be completed and all the data analyz...
Read more

The economics of deportation

The Trump administration is threatening to deport >10 million people. These are people who, regardless of their immigration status, are contributing to the economy and jobs by purchasing goods and service (“job creators”) and contributing to social programs like Social Security and Medicare. Indeed, if they are undocumented, they will never see benefits to the programs they subsidize, since they use fake SS numbers. How will Trump’s deportation hurt working class Americans? From the link: “Higher prices “Deporting millions of undocumented workers would mean that businesses will need to replace those laborers. With historically low unemployment, finding people willing to work for low pay could be difficult, and companies may need to advertise higher wages to attract workers to replace deported laborers. “Job growth will slow “If huge populations of migrants are deported — or at the very least population growth slows as a result of tighter immigration policies — there will be less con...
Read more