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I've heard people compare the Roman Empire with the United States (implying an eventual, similar downfall). What are your thoughts to such a comparison?

mikece 7y ago
Will be a longer trip for the Barbarians.
nkozyra 7y ago
The Roman Empire was a true empire in that it comprised many very dissonant places and cultures under one umbrella. For the time, logistically, the scope was absurd and power was very weak or yielded in many areas. It was bound to fail for this reason alone. There were kingdoms within who sometimes battled Rome, installed antipopes or just ignored Rome altogether. It was remarkably loose and the reason Germanic kingdoms were able to consolidate so (relatively) quickly was because they basically already operated as a German kingdom. The British Empire is a far better analog but on a shorter timeframe. American imperialism was curbed early on and assimilation was done largely by force. Beyond that it grew at a time of great communication improvements and radical methods for building nationalism via mass communication.
adventured 7y ago
The comparison empires such as the Roman or British, contract physically and decline, literally. One of the obvious flaws in comparing them to the US, is that the US power emanates outward from its epic domestic economy, which has been the world's largest since shortly after the Civil War. The US economy didn't require the present size of the US military or its global positioning to get so large - nor did modern Japan, Germany or China (#3, #4, #2) require epic global militaries to do what they've done economically. What would the downfall be? The US is going to contract physically and lose its overseas land holdings? It has few. It has a massive size core land holding that is the country itself, including all of its resources. The Roman Empire had no such thing, nor did the British Empire, for two prominent examples; their land holdings were largely conquered, foreign cultures. One would have to project the US shattering into state regions, multiple countries. It's very unlikely to be allowed by the Federal Government. It will be forced to pull in its military and close 100 overseas bases? That will be a benefit, its people will be healthier and wealthier if $250 billion were presently diverted from the military to infrastructure, healthcare or almost anything else domestic. The dollar will lose its position? The US economy was by far the world's largest prior to the USD reserve standard. If you roll the economy forward 30 or 50 years into a theoretical downfall time, then chop 1/3 off its GDP per capita to represent the downfall -- with 380 million people it would still have the world's #1 or #2 largest economy and still have one of its highest output per capita figures. The Eurozone, Japan and China do not require any unusual global military superpower positioning to have powerful currencies, there's absolutely no reason to think the US does (other than in cases of fantasy US collapse projection); they require large economic output to support and make relevant the currencies in question (Euro, Yen, Yuan). Right now you can combine Spain and Italy's GDP per capita figures and you are still below where the US is at ($65k). So how far does the US have to fall economically, while having a future ~380 million people, to no longer be a global superpower compared to everyone not named China? For the US to implode as a global superpower, its economy has to shrink by around 50% to 65% or more. For example here's a % comparison on GDP to other nations over the decades: In 1980 France had an economy 25% as large as the US; now it's 12.5% as large approximately. Was the US not a superpower in 1980? In 1980 Italy had an economy 16.6% as large as the US; now it's 9.3% as large. In 1980 the UK had an economy 19.7% as large as the US; now it's 12.7% as large. In 1990 and 2000 Japan had an economy 50% as large as the US. Now it's about 24%. So how far would the US have to fall economically (the base of its military power is its economic output, the ability to tax & fund it), compared to where it was at in 1980 versus other powerful nations, to no longer be considered a global superpower? I think these figures put it into perspective, you'd somehow need the US to massively collapse economically. What would cause that? Federal debt? It can deal with that for a long time yet and ultimately very slowly debase its enormous dollar wealth to deal with it (basically debase the $130 trillion in wealth at 1% per year, so if you're still growing at all it might end up as a net wash or close to it, until you erode the debt enough to flip the scenario).
- k__ 7y ago
  Yes, I think the only thing that could bring down the US would be another civil war, but I don't know how big the dissonances between the states are right now.
  - scythe 7y ago
    I think the worst-case here is that political stagnation and populist anger continue to increase, leading to popular unrest and a military coup or other suspension of democracy. Factional civil war seems very unlikely because urban vs rural is not a regional divide. But what's interesting is that political breakdown leading to a military coup wasn't what brought down the Roman Empire, but it was what brought down the Roman Republic! So maybe we're just entering the real imperial phase of our history.
    - k__ 7y ago
      Ah, yes, the republic was before the empire, right.
    - socialdemocrat 7y ago
      Now that is completely possible. More countries have had civil war over political disagreements than due to regional differences. Left-right kind of civil war has happened countless times through history. An example from more democratic countries would be Finland and Spain. I can very well see the start of a civil war after next election result if everything goes wrong. If say Trump loses and rejects that he lost the election while FOX and Friends pump up right wing voters and say the election was stolen from them and that people need to take up arms to protect their rights and prevent the deep state from stealing the election from them, then you may very well see a bloody civil war unfold. Nobody with any force on the right is fighting to calm people down. Right wing voters can be whipped into a frenzy and go berserk. Remember these are the very same people who believe Guns are for protecting their freedom. If they feel wronged their logical conclusion would be to grab their guns and start fighting.
    - leetcrew 7y ago
      it's part of what brought down the western empire. commanders of armies sent to secure the borders would often march back and try to secure the throne. this is what a lot of the third century crisis was.
JadeNB 7y ago
There's a great book by Daniel Immerwahr on the subject: How to Hide an Empire (https://www.amazon.com/How-Hide-Empire-History-Greater/dp/0374172145 https://www.amazon.com/How-Hide-Empire-History-Greater/dp/03...).
drharby 7y ago
I feel like that's a broad and general comparison. It would be equal to ask that of the UK during the height of their reach. To do any real comparison you need to isolate something quantifiable. For example, languages. Latin influence is real and measurable. English is derivative from Germanic languages and was borrowed, and we didn't really export English...the UK did that. Why is Spanish one of the more commonly spoken Latin languages? The spanish crown was real good at that whole conquest thing, with the germs and the horses and the etc. America? We influence geopolitics thats for sure.
cryptonector 7y ago
What Athens was in miniature, America will be in magnitude -Thomas Payne I believe that is a much more apt comparison. The USSR was the 20th century's Sparta, and the U.S. was the Athens of the past 200+ years.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  this too is a very forced comparison. there are certainly some similarities between the US and Athens, mainly because the founders were obsessed with Athenian philosophy and political thought, but there are few parallels to be drawn between the USSR and Sparta or the Peloponnesian and Cold Wars. to start with, the Peloponnesian War was a "hot" war, and Sparta won! the cold war was also very ideological (communism vs capitalism) in a way that would be totally foreign to the people of antiquity. they fought for much more concrete reasons, mainly for immediate defense and to secure access to resources by controlling territory or extracting tribute. Sparta also had little in common with the USSR as a society. it was certainly not egalitarian like the ideal of communism, but neither was it autocratic to the degree of the Soviet Union under Stalin. Sparta had a system of government with two Kings, whose power was checked by a council of elders. we should certainly try to learn from history, but we tend to remember strongly a bunch of superficial details from societies of antiquity that seem familiar to us, and fail to see how alien the ancient world truly was. to directly compare ancient conflicts and states to modern ones is almost always to severely overfit.
  - nickik 7y ago
    > to start with, the Peloponnesian War was a "hot" war Comparing those to wars is actually much more relevant then you might think. Both wars were incredibly long and drawn out conflicts, where it was almost impossible for either side to really win. Both wars the waste majority of the fighting was done in far flung regions (Sicily, Byzantium and so on) and threw trade wars/trade zones. The ended differently, but Persia stepping in and massively involving itself broke the balance. Comparable to if Aliens had just started to finance insane military spending for the USSR. > the cold war was also very ideological (communism vs capitalism) in a way that would be totally foreign to the people of antiquity That is very questionable, we don't have enough data. But the few sources we have do make a very big deal about the cultural differences and later writers pick up that thread. Sparta was saw itself as an explicite representation of the perfect greek state and thus the definition of what civilization was about. Athens is the dynamic new state that stands for a number of new things, democracy, ocean commerce, increase use of money and so on. Both tried to get neutral states to adopt their system of rule, but both were willing to compromise if it made strategic sense (just as the USSR and US did as well). The ideological discussions between those stats were limited because of technology. > they fought for much more concrete reasons, mainly for immediate defense and to secure access to resources by controlling territory or extracting tribute. Arguably that is what the USSR and US also did. In both cases you can make an ideological case and a geostrategic case. And in both cases we have both things being said by some people on either side. > Sparta also had little in common with the USSR as a society. it was certainly not egalitarian like the ideal of communism, but neither was it autocratic to the degree of the Soviet Union under Stalin. Sparta had a system of government with two Kings, whose power was checked by a council of elders. There are also similarities. Both stats supported a massively oversized military and depended on other stats they had conquered to subsidies those expenses. They both had a communal system, rather then a family based one. Or at least the ideal they proclaimed was communal. In Sparta there was a very strong identification with the military units, those men spent lots of time there away from there families even if they could have gone home. Children are not primary educated by the parents but rather by a community/state program that teaches them the 'right' ideals to function perfectly in that system and make the system as a whole stronger. Its not a strong connection but the USSR<->Sparta, Athens<->US lines up pretty rather well.

mikece 7y ago

Will be a longer trip for the Barbarians.

nkozyra 7y ago

The Roman Empire was a true empire in that it comprised many very dissonant places and cultures under one umbrella. For the time, logistically, the scope was absurd and power was very weak or yielded in many areas. It was bound to fail for this reason alone. There were kingdoms within who sometimes battled Rome, installed antipopes or just ignored Rome altogether. It was remarkably loose and the reason Germanic kingdoms were able to consolidate so (relatively) quickly was because they basically already operated as a German kingdom. The British Empire is a far better analog but on a shorter timeframe. American imperialism was curbed early on and assimilation was done largely by force. Beyond that it grew at a time of great communication improvements and radical methods for building nationalism via mass communication.

adventured 7y ago

The comparison empires such as the Roman or British, contract physically and decline, literally. One of the obvious flaws in comparing them to the US, is that the US power emanates outward from its epic domestic economy, which has been the world's largest since shortly after the Civil War. The US economy didn't require the present size of the US military or its global positioning to get so large - nor did modern Japan, Germany or China (#3, #4, #2) require epic global militaries to do what they've done economically. What would the downfall be? The US is going to contract physically and lose its overseas land holdings? It has few. It has a massive size core land holding that is the country itself, including all of its resources. The Roman Empire had no such thing, nor did the British Empire, for two prominent examples; their land holdings were largely conquered, foreign cultures. One would have to project the US shattering into state regions, multiple countries. It's very unlikely to be allowed by the Federal Government. It will be forced to pull in its military and close 100 overseas bases? That will be a benefit, its people will be healthier and wealthier if $250 billion were presently diverted from the military to infrastructure, healthcare or almost anything else domestic. The dollar will lose its position? The US economy was by far the world's largest prior to the USD reserve standard. If you roll the economy forward 30 or 50 years into a theoretical downfall time, then chop 1/3 off its GDP per capita to represent the downfall -- with 380 million people it would still have the world's #1 or #2 largest economy and still have one of its highest output per capita figures. The Eurozone, Japan and China do not require any unusual global military superpower positioning to have powerful currencies, there's absolutely no reason to think the US does (other than in cases of fantasy US collapse projection); they require large economic output to support and make relevant the currencies in question (Euro, Yen, Yuan). Right now you can combine Spain and Italy's GDP per capita figures and you are still below where the US is at ($65k). So how far does the US have to fall economically, while having a future ~380 million people, to no longer be a global superpower compared to everyone not named China? For the US to implode as a global superpower, its economy has to shrink by around 50% to 65% or more. For example here's a % comparison on GDP to other nations over the decades: In 1980 France had an economy 25% as large as the US; now it's 12.5% as large approximately. Was the US not a superpower in 1980? In 1980 Italy had an economy 16.6% as large as the US; now it's 9.3% as large. In 1980 the UK had an economy 19.7% as large as the US; now it's 12.7% as large. In 1990 and 2000 Japan had an economy 50% as large as the US. Now it's about 24%. So how far would the US have to fall economically (the base of its military power is its economic output, the ability to tax & fund it), compared to where it was at in 1980 versus other powerful nations, to no longer be considered a global superpower? I think these figures put it into perspective, you'd somehow need the US to massively collapse economically. What would cause that? Federal debt? It can deal with that for a long time yet and ultimately very slowly debase its enormous dollar wealth to deal with it (basically debase the $130 trillion in wealth at 1% per year, so if you're still growing at all it might end up as a net wash or close to it, until you erode the debt enough to flip the scenario).

k__ 7y ago
Yes, I think the only thing that could bring down the US would be another civil war, but I don't know how big the dissonances between the states are right now.
- scythe 7y ago
  I think the worst-case here is that political stagnation and populist anger continue to increase, leading to popular unrest and a military coup or other suspension of democracy. Factional civil war seems very unlikely because urban vs rural is not a regional divide. But what's interesting is that political breakdown leading to a military coup wasn't what brought down the Roman Empire, but it was what brought down the Roman Republic! So maybe we're just entering the real imperial phase of our history.
  - k__ 7y ago
    Ah, yes, the republic was before the empire, right.
  - socialdemocrat 7y ago
    Now that is completely possible. More countries have had civil war over political disagreements than due to regional differences. Left-right kind of civil war has happened countless times through history. An example from more democratic countries would be Finland and Spain. I can very well see the start of a civil war after next election result if everything goes wrong. If say Trump loses and rejects that he lost the election while FOX and Friends pump up right wing voters and say the election was stolen from them and that people need to take up arms to protect their rights and prevent the deep state from stealing the election from them, then you may very well see a bloody civil war unfold. Nobody with any force on the right is fighting to calm people down. Right wing voters can be whipped into a frenzy and go berserk. Remember these are the very same people who believe Guns are for protecting their freedom. If they feel wronged their logical conclusion would be to grab their guns and start fighting.
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    it's part of what brought down the western empire. commanders of armies sent to secure the borders would often march back and try to secure the throne. this is what a lot of the third century crisis was.

JadeNB 7y ago

There's a great book by Daniel Immerwahr on the subject: How to Hide an Empire (https://www.amazon.com/How-Hide-Empire-History-Greater/dp/0374172145 https://www.amazon.com/How-Hide-Empire-History-Greater/dp/03...).

drharby 7y ago

I feel like that's a broad and general comparison. It would be equal to ask that of the UK during the height of their reach. To do any real comparison you need to isolate something quantifiable. For example, languages. Latin influence is real and measurable. English is derivative from Germanic languages and was borrowed, and we didn't really export English...the UK did that. Why is Spanish one of the more commonly spoken Latin languages? The spanish crown was real good at that whole conquest thing, with the germs and the horses and the etc. America? We influence geopolitics thats for sure.

cryptonector 7y ago

What Athens was in miniature, America will be in magnitude -Thomas Payne I believe that is a much more apt comparison. The USSR was the 20th century's Sparta, and the U.S. was the Athens of the past 200+ years.

leetcrew 7y ago
this too is a very forced comparison. there are certainly some similarities between the US and Athens, mainly because the founders were obsessed with Athenian philosophy and political thought, but there are few parallels to be drawn between the USSR and Sparta or the Peloponnesian and Cold Wars. to start with, the Peloponnesian War was a "hot" war, and Sparta won! the cold war was also very ideological (communism vs capitalism) in a way that would be totally foreign to the people of antiquity. they fought for much more concrete reasons, mainly for immediate defense and to secure access to resources by controlling territory or extracting tribute. Sparta also had little in common with the USSR as a society. it was certainly not egalitarian like the ideal of communism, but neither was it autocratic to the degree of the Soviet Union under Stalin. Sparta had a system of government with two Kings, whose power was checked by a council of elders. we should certainly try to learn from history, but we tend to remember strongly a bunch of superficial details from societies of antiquity that seem familiar to us, and fail to see how alien the ancient world truly was. to directly compare ancient conflicts and states to modern ones is almost always to severely overfit.
- nickik 7y ago
  > to start with, the Peloponnesian War was a "hot" war Comparing those to wars is actually much more relevant then you might think. Both wars were incredibly long and drawn out conflicts, where it was almost impossible for either side to really win. Both wars the waste majority of the fighting was done in far flung regions (Sicily, Byzantium and so on) and threw trade wars/trade zones. The ended differently, but Persia stepping in and massively involving itself broke the balance. Comparable to if Aliens had just started to finance insane military spending for the USSR. > the cold war was also very ideological (communism vs capitalism) in a way that would be totally foreign to the people of antiquity That is very questionable, we don't have enough data. But the few sources we have do make a very big deal about the cultural differences and later writers pick up that thread. Sparta was saw itself as an explicite representation of the perfect greek state and thus the definition of what civilization was about. Athens is the dynamic new state that stands for a number of new things, democracy, ocean commerce, increase use of money and so on. Both tried to get neutral states to adopt their system of rule, but both were willing to compromise if it made strategic sense (just as the USSR and US did as well). The ideological discussions between those stats were limited because of technology. > they fought for much more concrete reasons, mainly for immediate defense and to secure access to resources by controlling territory or extracting tribute. Arguably that is what the USSR and US also did. In both cases you can make an ideological case and a geostrategic case. And in both cases we have both things being said by some people on either side. > Sparta also had little in common with the USSR as a society. it was certainly not egalitarian like the ideal of communism, but neither was it autocratic to the degree of the Soviet Union under Stalin. Sparta had a system of government with two Kings, whose power was checked by a council of elders. There are also similarities. Both stats supported a massively oversized military and depended on other stats they had conquered to subsidies those expenses. They both had a communal system, rather then a family based one. Or at least the ideal they proclaimed was communal. In Sparta there was a very strong identification with the military units, those men spent lots of time there away from there families even if they could have gone home. Children are not primary educated by the parents but rather by a community/state program that teaches them the 'right' ideals to function perfectly in that system and make the system as a whole stronger. Its not a strong connection but the USSR<->Sparta, Athens<->US lines up pretty rather well.