<:pepelaugh:544857300179877898> <:pepegun:588019479401726001>

@ "Functionally speaking the Roman Empire worked. Morally speaking, eh."


To which :

"Roman taxes varied over time, but was generally a couple of percent on wealth, and sometimes also on sales. However, in the provinces they could not reliably tax in this way, and instead they put a levy on the whole province payable by the governor of the province, who in return got pretty much free reign in the province. So what he taxed and how much, was up to him.

In general Roman government was run as personal fiefs. Even armies were funded and run by the generals with their own personal money, and as a result the Roman gains were really their personal gains as well, it didn't end up in the state coffers, because there were no state coffers as such.

http://www.unrv.com/economy/roman-taxes.php

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/299558?uid=3738840&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21101954265801

The Roman empire was hilariously corrupt

And yes, there was all kinds of slavery too, freedom of speech was done completely differently as of today... Etc.

BUT


IMAGINE

Not being a slave
Paying only a couple percent 'tax' directly to the local provider
Oh.. And all local officials having to be economically responsible for all decisions they assist the population with

Hilariously corrupt as judged by modern standards.

Not really, the governor had a fixed term and it was basically a race to extort as much out of your province before the time ran out

Which is not a fair comparison.

Easy. No state "coffers' no headache

That said, the governing system of Rome was not fit for purpose, once Rome reached certain size.

I'd say Roman political thought was sophisticated enough to make the corruption unexcusable

What's not easy is to stop the human heart from 'naturally' levitating towards power in the absence of a happy childhood.

The governing system was unsustainable and Rome was doomed to fail sooner or later.

tbh the only empire that cam close to not being a corrupt mess was the British Empire

(unsustainable at that size)

Yeah Rome was over extended as hell

particularly in the west

I have a suspicion that looking at fall of Rome was one of the reasons for 2nd amendment.

i think thats a bit of a stetch imo

stretch

Could you explain?

The way the state/cohesion started falling apart once army professionalized.

The way the army/pretorian guard became the ultimate arbiter in later Rome.

That was largely due to state force being divorced from general populus.

hmm I'm gonna have to disagree I'd say they learnt the lesson that the military must be subject to the civil authority

not about an armed populace in general

Washington definitely understood the danger of a political military

If you read about fall of Rome, that's one of the lessons you should learn.

The military essentially seized power from about AD 100-200 onwards.

Yeah they definitely had way too much independent influence

especially as they started recruiting foreigners from outside the empire

You'd always get them coming down from Danube or Rhine down to Rome to install someone into power.

True

at the end of the empire the power was centred in the german border in the west

Trier i think it was

Whilst the east was getting beaten to hell and back by the Sassanids

Italy itself was not capable of defending against that, the people didn't have the capability and weren't trained (afaik in the times of the Republic, fathers had the obligation to train their sons to have some basic ability to fight in a Roman army)

yeah the med in general was demilitarised

The vandals managed to steal Africa with pretty much no resistance

but tbh I'm glad Rome fell, it was necessary really for Europe to advance

Will European Union fall?

No