The Roman Empire predates capitalism so I wouldn’t read too much into how their economy operated.
Please tell me does this make any sense? i can not sleep, is capitalism inherently designed to be invasive?
Submitted 9 months ago by i_have_no_enemies@lemmy.world to aboringdystopia@lemmy.world
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/efee1e79-686e-4a4c-9cfb-271ee02601d9.png
Comments
ultranaut@lemmy.world 9 months ago
anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 months ago
Their economy can tell us something about the demand for infinite growth in a finite world, which is inherent in modern capitalism.
ultranaut@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Sure, but there’s better examples that would be much more useful and relevant. You’re not going to learn much about modern capitalism trying to extrapolate from the limited knowledge available on how an ancient precapitalist economy functioned.
Num10ck@lemmy.world 9 months ago
i think the infinite growth is an expectation of short-range vision investors in stock markets.
drahardja@lemmy.world 9 months ago
The description is a vast oversimplification of the fall of the Roman Empire, of course.
Like the game Monopoly, unrestrained capitalism will always end up with a few people owning almost all the value while everyone else live in poverty, and it will always end up in systemic collapse because you can’t get infinite value out of finite resources. At some point the game will be over.
But unrestrained capitalism doesn’t exist, even in today’s very unequal world. There are forces that undo the momentum of capitalism, including taxation, regulation, trade barriers, and public goods and services. Some countries do this better than others.
I happen to think that regulated capitalism, balanced with a heavy emphasis of wealth taxation and investment in public goods and properties, is better than any other system that relies on non-monetary control of resources. It can be sustainable, but not in its current state.
muelltonne@feddit.de 9 months ago
TBH: You shoudn’t base such broad historical theories on 7 lines of Reddit comments without sources. There is a broad literature about the fall of the roman empire and its causes and a lot of research into the british empire and also capitalism, so maybe read a few books on the topic before jumping to such far fetched conclusions?