Message from @Joe The Communist
Discord ID: 689633204021231665
And centralised industrial weapon production
if rome began to industrialize the working class would begin to hold factory jobs while the slaves worked the countryside
Yes
With who's money?
in our timeline the agricultural innovation came first
but for rome
Every wealthy person in Rome had money in plantations or political ambitions
in our situation
Grand urban improvement projects were populist projects to gain political power
would devolp steam first
Cheapening labour is the opposite of populism
urban improvemnt+ jobs
Steam engine takes away jobs short term
That's the point
It's a labour saving device
Means less labour
it would very fast create factory jobs
It'd require basically a long reigning Ceasar to have a weird fascination with steam engines and metallurgy
No it wouldn't
And before it did that it'd unemploy thousands
Yes
unless the plebs rallied to remove slavery so they could have farming jobd
That'd be put down
The patricians would never tolerate it
And would tell the plebs that the slaves will take the pleb jobs
Also job shortages weren't a massive problem in Rome till near the end
so it would just hasten the collaspe of rome
holy shit
There's no plausible way for Rome to do it unless a time traveller came from the future and became Ceasar
ik exactly what caused Rome to fal
And just pushed industrialisation for 20 years
Heron of Alexandria
the steam engine came into be
if that rich dude put the engine on a wheel
Steam engine was never in wide use during Roman Empire
then something would habe happened
IF
Wait, weren't water and air mills used extensively until the Middle Ages?
Putting a steam engine in a mill would not be that huge of a possibility, contrary to wheels.
Rome would need an easier way to create metal parts before steam could be common