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I find the article's dismissal of population collapses rather dishonest. There is no doubt that urban centres basically disappeared after collapse of the Weste

I find the article's dismissal of population collapses rather dishonest. There is no doubt that urban centres basically disappeared after collapse of the Western Roman Empire, and that population density went significantly down. Once the city-based specialists were gone, so was any ability of rural folk to buy anything that could not be produced by primitive methods in their own community. And without an efficient trade network, there was no way to import food if local crops failed. Hence, famines, which the previous empire was mostly able to hold in check by moving food over the sea at big distances. A major problem of the Early Middle Ages was diminished security - all those Viking, Avar, Hun and Pecheneg raids were absolutely real, and their targets weren't "the 1%". Of course loot from the rich would be taken, but so would poor young women for sex and their children into slavery, and their meagre food reserves for the raiders to eat. That is what happens to settled people without an efficient defense of their borders. We have had two big imperial collapses right in Europe within living memory - the Nazi Reich (by war) and the Soviet Union (economic). Ask the survivors if they "noticed". They absolutely did. I would even say that the working class "noticed" the most, as they usually had fewest reserves to survive the subsequent chaos. It wasn't that different in the past.

Muromec 1y ago
they are on point regarding people moving rather than dying, but that kinda proves the point that situations can and do get worse sometimes for a whole generation.
- inglor_cz 1y ago
  Historic sources indicate massive workforce (and military force) shortages where once were none, which means that the total population must have dropped significantly. Rome was able to field huge armies by the 3rd century BC already, originally sourced from the Italian peninsula alone. In contrast, when the Eastern Roman forces finally defeated the Goths in the 540s, they were unable to hold Italy against a relatively minor Langobard invasion in 568, which is estimated to some 20 000 warriors. Why? For the lack of soldiers. They just couldn't put together the necessary garrisons and feed them from local sources. That would have been unthinkable in 168. Anyone who would seriously want to conquer Italy at that time would have to field at least ten times as many soldiers. In contrast, the Eastern Roman Empire at home was still able to field massive armies and even send some expeditions overseas, because the more developed civilizational structure was still present there, and with it, much higher population density.
  - thaumasiotes 1y ago
    > Rome was able to field huge armies by the 3rd century BC already, originally sourced from the Italian peninsula alone. That's true, but the contrast to other contemporary states is not felt to be one of population size. Rather, the Romans were able to mobilize a much larger share of their subject population into the army.
    - inglor_cz 1y ago
      This would be an interesting debate, but it is after midnight here, so I will be going to sleep shortly. Basically, yes, but also no. There is a huge difference between being able to mobilize a large portion of your population for a short time vs. keeping the standing army indefinitely. With the latter, various intrinsic economic limitations will bite. Rome started with the "big temporary armies" model, but slowly transitioned into "big permanent armies" model, which required a lot of support from civilians. Professional soldiers are economically unproductive; they have to be fed, clothed and provided with weapons. Just the necessary smelting of iron in order to equip a single legion would be a lot of work for blacksmiths, miners and lumberjacks who produced the necessary wood for charcoal. If a premodern empire can field tens of thousands of iron-clad professional soldiers indefinitely, it must have a lot of civilian workers supporting that army. Literally millions. The precipitous drop in the size of field armies in the Early Middle Ages is a good indication of the precipitous drop of the entire economy which would prop them up.
      - hermitcrab 1y ago
        >If a premodern empire can field tens of thousands of iron-clad professional soldiers indefinitely, it must have a lot of civilian workers supporting that army. Or it must continually conquer new territories to plunder and tax. And that was the Roman model. But finally the empire got too big to manage with the technology of the day. They weren't able to conquer new territories and that meant they could not afford the huge professiomal army. Which led to the collapse of the empire in the west. Or you could argue that it just morphed into the Roman catholic church. (Not a historian, just been reading a bit about this recently)
chrisco255 1y ago
It was far worse in the past, for the reasons you mentioned about security in particular. This is when we see the rise of castles and fortresses and the feudal system. The Nazi Reich was very short lived (12ish years) and after its collapse, Western Germany was in a better place. The collapse of the Soviet Union was a bigger deal, as people had lived a few generations under the communist system and had to adapt rather suddenly to market economics and new governance. No doubt there was a shock period, but by and large people's lives got better. This is largely because of how globalized we are in modern day. The Dark Ages lasted for hundreds of years and were a regression in quality of life for vast majority of western europe.
- inglor_cz 1y ago
  "Western Germany was in a better place." Due to a somewhat historically anomalous generosity of the winners, who (from a mixture of humanity and economic motives) decided to invest into its rebuilding. In earlier times, debellatio of an enemy state after a long, vicious existential war would end in a way similar to what the Romans did to Carthage.
  - gregorygoc 1y ago
    WWI was a thing.
    - inglor_cz 1y ago
      Can you expand your comment? I am not sure what you mean by such a short reaction. Of course there was WWI, but ... ?
      - hermitcrab 1y ago
        The victorious allies imposed a punitive peace on German at the end of WWI. This caused huge resentment, that was at least partly responsible for the rise of Nazism and WWII. The Marshall plan was, I believe, an attempt to the stop the same cycle from happening again. Similarly for Japan. It was an act of incredible generosity by the USA, but I think history shows that it was also a very smart investment. I can't imagine such generosity and foresight being employed again any time soon.
knallfrosch 1y ago
I don't think the people in Latvia, Lithuania Estonia, Finnland, Germany, Hungary, Georgia, Ukraine etc pp et al were particularly sad about not being ruled from Moscow anymore. You could even say they grew happier, healthier, taller and had less dental cavities.
- inglor_cz 1y ago
  I am a Czech myself, and old enough to remember that period. We were all happy to escape the Russian yoke, but the transformation was really challenging, not to mention the potential threat of wars as various ancient ethnic hatreds, suppressed by the defunct empire, reappeared. A lot of people lost their jobs, a lot of currencies collapsed and took people's life savings with them... There was a wave of crime and various oligarchs tried to lift themselves above the law. And your healthcare quip is way off. In many places further East, basic healthcare structure collapsed, and diseases like tuberculosis or HIV either returned or spread anew massively. The situation began improving by re-attachment of the newly free countries to another, more benign empire, which was the EU.
- plorkyeran 1y ago
  In 2011 I spent a month in Latvia and while no one ever outright said that they wished the USSR had not fallen, I heard a lot of stories about how things got a lot worse in the short term and had only recently recovered. They were mostly centered around how Latvia’s economy was very intertwined with things on the east side of the border and trade became much more complicated (and supplying make-work Soviet factories was suddenly not viable). I suspect the fact that I spent the entire time with ethnic Russians played a role in this, as it sounded like the Latvians had been second-class citizens in their own country.
AnimalMuppet 1y ago
I noted the data point of the civil war in Syria: 20 times as many people moved as were killed. That's good news as far as it goes - to run is better than to die - but that doesn't make the Syrian civil war a good time for the people involved. They were running for a reason - the threat of death was too high if they stayed put. So they left. They left their homes, their belongings, their jobs, and ran to a very uncertain future somewhere else. So I'm not sure that "the death toll wasn't that high" should be casually interpreted as "it wasn't that bad for regular people". Yes, most of them lived. That doesn't make it benign. (Hmm, I seem to have used a lot of dashes in the first paragraph. No, I'm not an AI.)
- inglor_cz 1y ago
  A good remark, but also a word of caution. The Syrian situation is not directly comparable. With modern logistics, it is way, way easier to feed even big masses of displaced people. We can produce food efficiently and we can move it over long distances before it spoils. If you run away from active fighting, chances are that you actually survive, even though the refugee camps are miserable. Neither was true in the Early Middle Ages and if an invader displaced tens of thousands of people from somewhere, they would just die of hunger. The capacity to take care of sudden crowds of refugees just wasn't there.

Muromec 1y ago

they are on point regarding people moving rather than dying, but that kinda proves the point that situations can and do get worse sometimes for a whole generation.

inglor_cz 1y ago
Historic sources indicate massive workforce (and military force) shortages where once were none, which means that the total population must have dropped significantly. Rome was able to field huge armies by the 3rd century BC already, originally sourced from the Italian peninsula alone. In contrast, when the Eastern Roman forces finally defeated the Goths in the 540s, they were unable to hold Italy against a relatively minor Langobard invasion in 568, which is estimated to some 20 000 warriors. Why? For the lack of soldiers. They just couldn't put together the necessary garrisons and feed them from local sources. That would have been unthinkable in 168. Anyone who would seriously want to conquer Italy at that time would have to field at least ten times as many soldiers. In contrast, the Eastern Roman Empire at home was still able to field massive armies and even send some expeditions overseas, because the more developed civilizational structure was still present there, and with it, much higher population density.
- thaumasiotes 1y ago
  > Rome was able to field huge armies by the 3rd century BC already, originally sourced from the Italian peninsula alone. That's true, but the contrast to other contemporary states is not felt to be one of population size. Rather, the Romans were able to mobilize a much larger share of their subject population into the army.
  - inglor_cz 1y ago
    This would be an interesting debate, but it is after midnight here, so I will be going to sleep shortly. Basically, yes, but also no. There is a huge difference between being able to mobilize a large portion of your population for a short time vs. keeping the standing army indefinitely. With the latter, various intrinsic economic limitations will bite. Rome started with the "big temporary armies" model, but slowly transitioned into "big permanent armies" model, which required a lot of support from civilians. Professional soldiers are economically unproductive; they have to be fed, clothed and provided with weapons. Just the necessary smelting of iron in order to equip a single legion would be a lot of work for blacksmiths, miners and lumberjacks who produced the necessary wood for charcoal. If a premodern empire can field tens of thousands of iron-clad professional soldiers indefinitely, it must have a lot of civilian workers supporting that army. Literally millions. The precipitous drop in the size of field armies in the Early Middle Ages is a good indication of the precipitous drop of the entire economy which would prop them up.
    - hermitcrab 1y ago
      >If a premodern empire can field tens of thousands of iron-clad professional soldiers indefinitely, it must have a lot of civilian workers supporting that army. Or it must continually conquer new territories to plunder and tax. And that was the Roman model. But finally the empire got too big to manage with the technology of the day. They weren't able to conquer new territories and that meant they could not afford the huge professiomal army. Which led to the collapse of the empire in the west. Or you could argue that it just morphed into the Roman catholic church. (Not a historian, just been reading a bit about this recently)

chrisco255 1y ago

It was far worse in the past, for the reasons you mentioned about security in particular. This is when we see the rise of castles and fortresses and the feudal system. The Nazi Reich was very short lived (12ish years) and after its collapse, Western Germany was in a better place. The collapse of the Soviet Union was a bigger deal, as people had lived a few generations under the communist system and had to adapt rather suddenly to market economics and new governance. No doubt there was a shock period, but by and large people's lives got better. This is largely because of how globalized we are in modern day. The Dark Ages lasted for hundreds of years and were a regression in quality of life for vast majority of western europe.

inglor_cz 1y ago
"Western Germany was in a better place." Due to a somewhat historically anomalous generosity of the winners, who (from a mixture of humanity and economic motives) decided to invest into its rebuilding. In earlier times, debellatio of an enemy state after a long, vicious existential war would end in a way similar to what the Romans did to Carthage.
- gregorygoc 1y ago
  WWI was a thing.
  - inglor_cz 1y ago
    Can you expand your comment? I am not sure what you mean by such a short reaction. Of course there was WWI, but ... ?
    - hermitcrab 1y ago
      The victorious allies imposed a punitive peace on German at the end of WWI. This caused huge resentment, that was at least partly responsible for the rise of Nazism and WWII. The Marshall plan was, I believe, an attempt to the stop the same cycle from happening again. Similarly for Japan. It was an act of incredible generosity by the USA, but I think history shows that it was also a very smart investment. I can't imagine such generosity and foresight being employed again any time soon.

knallfrosch 1y ago

I don't think the people in Latvia, Lithuania Estonia, Finnland, Germany, Hungary, Georgia, Ukraine etc pp et al were particularly sad about not being ruled from Moscow anymore. You could even say they grew happier, healthier, taller and had less dental cavities.

inglor_cz 1y ago
I am a Czech myself, and old enough to remember that period. We were all happy to escape the Russian yoke, but the transformation was really challenging, not to mention the potential threat of wars as various ancient ethnic hatreds, suppressed by the defunct empire, reappeared. A lot of people lost their jobs, a lot of currencies collapsed and took people's life savings with them... There was a wave of crime and various oligarchs tried to lift themselves above the law. And your healthcare quip is way off. In many places further East, basic healthcare structure collapsed, and diseases like tuberculosis or HIV either returned or spread anew massively. The situation began improving by re-attachment of the newly free countries to another, more benign empire, which was the EU.
plorkyeran 1y ago
In 2011 I spent a month in Latvia and while no one ever outright said that they wished the USSR had not fallen, I heard a lot of stories about how things got a lot worse in the short term and had only recently recovered. They were mostly centered around how Latvia’s economy was very intertwined with things on the east side of the border and trade became much more complicated (and supplying make-work Soviet factories was suddenly not viable). I suspect the fact that I spent the entire time with ethnic Russians played a role in this, as it sounded like the Latvians had been second-class citizens in their own country.

AnimalMuppet 1y ago

I noted the data point of the civil war in Syria: 20 times as many people moved as were killed. That's good news as far as it goes - to run is better than to die - but that doesn't make the Syrian civil war a good time for the people involved. They were running for a reason - the threat of death was too high if they stayed put. So they left. They left their homes, their belongings, their jobs, and ran to a very uncertain future somewhere else. So I'm not sure that "the death toll wasn't that high" should be casually interpreted as "it wasn't that bad for regular people". Yes, most of them lived. That doesn't make it benign. (Hmm, I seem to have used a lot of dashes in the first paragraph. No, I'm not an AI.)

inglor_cz 1y ago
A good remark, but also a word of caution. The Syrian situation is not directly comparable. With modern logistics, it is way, way easier to feed even big masses of displaced people. We can produce food efficiently and we can move it over long distances before it spoils. If you run away from active fighting, chances are that you actually survive, even though the refugee camps are miserable. Neither was true in the Early Middle Ages and if an invader displaced tens of thousands of people from somewhere, they would just die of hunger. The capacity to take care of sudden crowds of refugees just wasn't there.