The Storm Before The Storm

[The Grand Nudger]

Mike Duncan, in an interview with Smithsonian.com, schlepping his book;

After Rome conquers Carthage, and after they decide to annex Greece, and after they conquer Spain and acquire all the silver mines, you have wealth on an unprecedented scale coming into Rome. The flood of wealth was making the richest of the rich Romans wealthier than would’ve been imaginable even a couple generations earlier. You’re talking literally 300,000 gold pieces coming back with the Legions. All of this is being concentrated in the hands of the senatorial elite, they’re the consuls and the generals, so they think it’s natural that it all accumulates in their hands.
At the same time, these wars of conquest were making the poor quite a bit poorer. Roman citizens were being hauled off to Spain or Greece, leaving for tours that would go on for three to five years a stretch. While they were gone, their farms in Italy would fall into disrepair. The rich started buying up big plots of land. In the 130s and 140s you have this process of dispossession, where the poorer Romans are being bought out and are no longer small citizen owners. They’re going to be tenant owners or sharecroppers and it has a really corrosive effect on the traditional ways of economic life and political life. As a result, you see this skyrocketing economic inequality. 

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/fa...oundations-

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Mike Duncan, in an interview with Smithsonian.com, schlepping his book;

After Rome conquers Carthage, and after they decide to annex Greece, and after they conquer Spain and acquire all the silver mines, you have wealth on an unprecedented scale coming into Rome. The flood of wealth was making the richest of the rich Romans wealthier than would’ve been imaginable even a couple generations earlier. You’re talking literally 300,000 gold pieces coming back with the Legions. All of this is being concentrated in the hands of the senatorial elite, they’re the consuls and the generals, so they think it’s natural that it all accumulates in their hands.
At the same time, these wars of conquest were making the poor quite a bit poorer. Roman citizens were being hauled off to Spain or Greece, leaving for tours that would go on for three to five years a stretch. While they were gone, their farms in Italy would fall into disrepair. The rich started buying up big plots of land. In the 130s and 140s you have this process of dispossession, where the poorer Romans are being bought out and are no longer small citizen owners. They’re going to be tenant owners or sharecroppers and it has a really corrosive effect on the traditional ways of economic life and political life. As a result, you see this skyrocketing economic inequality. 

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/fa...oundations-

Is it a really heavy book?  Or did he just bring a lot of them to the interview? (You misused the word 'schlepping').

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

Cultural, Boru, cultural.  

Did you read through the interview, one of the best from them in awhile...and they have alot of good stuff.

[Brian37]

Mike Duncan, in an interview with Smithsonian.com, schlepping his book;

After Rome conquers Carthage, and after they decide to annex Greece, and after they conquer Spain and acquire all the silver mines, you have wealth on an unprecedented scale coming into Rome. The flood of wealth was making the richest of the rich Romans wealthier than would’ve been imaginable even a couple generations earlier. You’re talking literally 300,000 gold pieces coming back with the Legions. All of this is being concentrated in the hands of the senatorial elite, they’re the consuls and the generals, so they think it’s natural that it all accumulates in their hands.
At the same time, these wars of conquest were making the poor quite a bit poorer. Roman citizens were being hauled off to Spain or Greece, leaving for tours that would go on for three to five years a stretch. While they were gone, their farms in Italy would fall into disrepair. The rich started buying up big plots of land. In the 130s and 140s you have this process of dispossession, where the poorer Romans are being bought out and are no longer small citizen owners. They’re going to be tenant owners or sharecroppers and it has a really corrosive effect on the traditional ways of economic life and political life. As a result, you see this skyrocketing economic inequality. 

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/fa...oundations-

GOP is taking a page out of the policy of greed.

[Whateverist]

Maybe the solution is to recognize acquisition in the 100's of millions of dollars as a disease. These people need an intervention. I'll go sharpen the guillotines.

[Pat Mustard]

Mike Duncan, in an interview with Smithsonian.com, schlepping his book;

After Rome conquers Carthage, and after they decide to annex Greece, and after they conquer Spain and acquire all the silver mines, you have wealth on an unprecedented scale coming into Rome. The flood of wealth was making the richest of the rich Romans wealthier than would’ve been imaginable even a couple generations earlier. You’re talking literally 300,000 gold pieces coming back with the Legions. All of this is being concentrated in the hands of the senatorial elite, they’re the consuls and the generals, so they think it’s natural that it all accumulates in their hands.
At the same time, these wars of conquest were making the poor quite a bit poorer. Roman citizens were being hauled off to Spain or Greece, leaving for tours that would go on for three to five years a stretch. While they were gone, their farms in Italy would fall into disrepair. The rich started buying up big plots of land. In the 130s and 140s you have this process of dispossession, where the poorer Romans are being bought out and are no longer small citizen owners. They’re going to be tenant owners or sharecroppers and it has a really corrosive effect on the traditional ways of economic life and political life. As a result, you see this skyrocketing economic inequality. 

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/fa...oundations-

That's not exactly a new theory. Wouldn't be that surprised if it's as old as Gibbon.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Did you read through the interview

Of course I didn't read it.  I don't come to AF to learn anything, fer Chrissakes.  I come here to pounce on trivial mistakes like a starving ocelot on a distracted mouse.  Thank you.

Boru

[vorlon13]

Reg: All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Attendee: Brought peace?

Reg: Oh, peace - shut up!

Reg: There is not one of us who would not gladly suffer death to rid this country of the Romans once and for all.

[Minimalist]

He's spot on until right here.

They’re going to be tenant owners or sharecroppers and it has a really corrosive effect on the traditional ways of economic life and political life.

He left out the part where the owners of the latifundia brought in massive amounts of slave labor to work their newly acquired lands.  The displaced Roman farmers, who not only provided the food for the city but also were classed based on their wealth into the various divisions of the republic's army ( hastati, principes, triari, equites, ) were the backbone of the force.  Generally, the displaced farmers drifted into the city and became the urban mob.  Politically there had been serious rifts between the patrician and plebian classes since virtually the founding of the republic but in the aftermath of the fall of Carthage and Corinth ( both in 146 BC).  Within 20 years the Gracchi brothers were leading the populist movement calling for land reform and although both were murdered by Patrician thugs the process continued on until Caesar defeated Pompey.

When I have time tonight I'll have to read the whole thing.

[The Grand Nudger]

I think he alludes to that in a tiny blip about that particular problem not being solved until they effectively disappeared as a class.  It seems like a hell of an omission..since it would only further highlight parralels to our current situation, in which more easily exploitable classes are the preferred form of labor....and only if the postage to get a product to our doors is too great if it;s shipped from a country with virtual or actual slave labor.