Paul Hill

I'm a storyteller. I will tell you a story. Not a thinly veiled allegory or analogy. Not a fable. Not a parody or a satire, or some smug little parable featuring characters "Ronald Grump" and "Alan Tusk". No, this is a true story, and it means what it means, with no hidden symbolism whatsoever. It contains only facts, and general principles to derive from them. It is a story about Rome. We all know what Rome was. It was a republic, then an Empire, then nothing. But every time we ask why, historians wish to tell us it is complicated, and that we desperately need historians, such as themselves, to sort it all out. The decline and fall of the Roman Empire was not complicated. The decline and fall of the Roman Empire can be explained in two words. Cheap labor. The Romans, as you know, had two classes, the patricians and the plebeians. The patricians ruled Rome. But the plebeians were Rome. And the patricians forgot this. Around this point in the story, you may be thinking you understand me already. You may think you have anticipated where I am going with this. You may think that this is going to be some general polemic about the importance of remembering the little people. It is not. I have a very specific meaning, and I always choose my words very, very carefully. Two words. Cheap. Labor. The Romans patricians, like the old and the rich of any society, owned land, and sold goods. To do this, they bought labor. The Roman plebeians, most especially the young, sold labor. So that they could buy goods and land. So, it should go without saying, but often doesn't, that it was in the interest of plebeians that goods and land be cheap, and labor be expensive, and in the interest of patricians that land and goods should be expensive, and labor should be cheap. Now, markets have natural cycles. The price of every thing fluctuates up and down, looking for an equilibrium which is only ever temporary. Sometimes goods and land are cheap, and labor is expensive. Then the plebeians become fat and prosperous, and they marry pretty girls and have lots of healthy children. Sometimes goods and land are expensive, and labor is cheap, and patricians amass vast fortunes and build fine estates and eat honeyed dormice. To every thing, there is a season. But the patricians controlled Rome. Not fully or directly, not in theory, but they had money. And money buys power. Just as power buys money. And the temptation, in the long run, became irresistible. To buy political power, and put the finger of that political power on the scales of the market. To make sure the cheap labor stays cheap forever. In Rome, cheap labor meant slaves. Elsewhere, it has meant other things. In Rome, slaves kept labor cheap not only because slaves don't get paid, and can't quit, but also because every plebeian who sells labor must compete with the slave on price. Little by little, this took away from the plebeians, not only because real wages were depressed, but more importantly because there were no seasons of labor scarcity. No cycles in the market where wages went high. No fat seasons for the plebes, just an ever-increasing drought. And, while the patricians controlled Rome, the plebeians were Rome. It was their blood, shed in the legions, that conquered the world. Their sweat that built the shining city of seven hills. And their patriotism that defined what Rome was. The patricians ruled Rome. But the plebeians were Rome, and when they ceased to bear allegiance to Rome, Rome ceased to exist, because the only thing that Rome ever was, the only thing that any city or nation ever is, is its people. A man who has no work, a man who must compete with slaves, a man who is beaten down to want the hungriest beggar will take, is a man who cannot have a home and a family. Not only because he cannot afford such things. But because no woman will have him. No woman will bear his children. The ultimate expression, after all, of female lust and admiration, is "I want to have his babies". Fewer people seem to realize that the reverse is true. I was told once, by a man who should have known better, that Rome fell because the Romans forgot what it meant to be Roman. Nonsense. Rome fell because Romans knew exactly what it meant to be Roman. Which meant they knew that to be Roman meant to be replaced by slaves. The patricians bore no allegiance to Rome, because it was cheaper to replace the Roman workers with slaves, and the Roman legions with mercenaries. The plebeians bore no allegiance to Rome, because Rome bore no allegiance to them. And so Rome simply ceased to be. The outward forms hung around awhile, until the mercenaries, bearing no true allegiance to Rome, realized they didn't have to wait to be paid. They could just... take. The patricians destroyed Rome because they thought like politicians instead of kings. A politician buys a crown by offering the most to those whose support is most in doubt. A king knows that crowns and thrones are only symbols, and power comes from armies of loyal men, whose loyalty must be bought with loyalty in turn. Not table scraps. The Roman plebeians didn't want, and couldn't survive on, free bread and circuses. They needed work and land and incomes to have families and happy lives. But no Caesar emerged in time. Tick tock, Mr. Vance. Tick tock.