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One precursor to the Industrial Revolution was the bubonic plague. When the Black Death wiped out so much of Europe, labor became more expensive, and farming re
by isykt 3y ago
One precursor to the Industrial Revolution was the bubonic plague. When the Black Death wiped out so much of Europe, labor became more expensive, and farming required the invention of tools. Did Rome have any similar events?
- felipellrocha 3y agoA ton. The Antonine plague comes to mind.
- mitthrowaway2 3y agoA bit later, after the fall of the western empire, but the Plague of Justinian is another significant one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Justinian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Justinian
- rjsw 3y agoRome had slaves, they didn't get the option to move jobs for better pay.
- isykt 3y agoThat was my intuition — that even if a plague came through and reduced the workforce, there were always new peoples to enslave. But I’m not sure about that.
- dredmorbius 3y agoRome evolved its own plauges, which is the central thesis of Kyle Harper's The Fate of Rome. I've come to the view that any networked system will co-evolve pathologies which are fitted to that network's specific niche: cities, civilisations, transportation systems, communications systems, social networks, etc., etc. One challenge is that the growth of such systems occurs in the absence of such pathologies. When they do emerge, things often become quite ugly.