Could Rome Have Survived if it had organized as a pluralistic democracy?

[Bronzeage]

There were always foreign troops in the Roman army. They were in units called Auxiliaries. Roman citizenship was granted to an Auxiliary who retired in good standing.

I know, but regular legionaries were Roman citizens, which the Italians early became.

If I recall correctly, the original question was whether the Roman Empire could have survived if it had transformed into a pluralistic democracy.

Roman citizenship was valuable because it exempted a person from local laws. Any complaints or charges against a Roman citizen had to be brought before a Roman Magistrate. If everyone in the Empire was a citizen, the relative advantage of being a citizen is greatly reduced.

Beyond that, Rome's wealth was greatly derived from heavy taxation of the provinces. If the provinces had effective political power, the first thing they will do is cut off the flow of money back to Rome. In the later years of the Empire, this actually became a factor in tax collection. Many legionnaires were granted land in France and Spain as their pension. Roman tax collectors found it much more difficult to extract money from Roman veterans than they had from French and Spanish farmers.

If we take away the special privileges of being a Roman citizen and greatly reduce the theft of goods from the provinces, the Empire cannot hold together.

 

[SLD]

Wait a minute. Rome at its height was about 2.2 million square miles. The U.S. Is 3.8 million square miles. But Rome can't conquer it's empire if it was a democracy? Hmmmm. Seems to me that a democratic republic is better at conquering empires. Just a thought.

SLD

 

[lpetrich]

I think that a big problem for the Roman Empire was that it was top-heavy, subsisting off of plunder from conquered regions. When the Empire ran out of rich and easily conquerable neighboring lands, that caused a lot of trouble, especially since its northeastern border was long and difficult to defend. That was the  Crisis of the Third Century (232 - 284 CE), which was a period of civil war, invasions, economic depression, and plagues. It was a great setback for the Roman Empire, and part of the collapse of its western half (How Civilizations Fall: A Theory of Catabolic Collapse by John Michael Greer; the start of that fall he dates at 166 CE). The western half of the Empire famously fell a few centuries later, but the eastern half survived a millennium more -- it was easier to defend.

So if some farsighted leader figured out how to avoid the Crisis of the Third Century, the Empire would not have fallen so quickly.

 

[Bronzeage]

Wait a minute. Rome at its height was about 2.2 million square miles. The U.S. Is 3.8 million square miles. But Rome can't conquer it's empire if it was a democracy? Hmmmm. Seems to me that a democratic republic is better at conquering empires. Just a thought.

SLD

Sort of a Appians and Oranges comparison. The purpose of Roman Expansion was to obtain wealth for the ruling class. The purpose of the American Expansion was to provide wealth for an increasing population. This gave the US democratic republic support from the people who elected the government.

The only true American war of conquest was against Mexico in 1846-47. We ended up with New Mexico, Arizona, and California, out of the deal. There was a good deal of popular opposition to the war, but in the end, expansionists won out.

- - - Updated - - -

Wait a minute. Rome at its height was about 2.2 million square miles. The U.S. Is 3.8 million square miles. But Rome can't conquer it's empire if it was a democracy? Hmmmm. Seems to me that a democratic republic is better at conquering empires. Just a thought.

SLD

Sort of a Appians and Oranges comparison. The purpose of Roman Expansion was to obtain wealth for the ruling class. The purpose of the American Expansion was to provide wealth for an increasing population. This gave the US democratic republic support from the people who elected the government.

The only true American war of conquest was against Mexico in 1846-47. We ended up with New Mexico, Arizona, and California, out of the deal. There was a good deal of popular opposition to the war, but in the end, expansionists won out.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

The only true American war of conquest was against Mexico in 1846-47.

Don't forget the War of 1812. Just because your attempt at conquest failed miserably and you got bitch-slapped like a bunch of little bitches doesn't mean that you weren't attempting a war of conquest.

 

[SLD]

Sort of a Appians and Oranges comparison. The purpose of Roman Expansion was to obtain wealth for the ruling class. The purpose of the American Expansion was to provide wealth for an increasing population. This gave the US democratic republic support from the people who elected the government.

The only true American war of conquest was against Mexico in 1846-47. We ended up with New Mexico, Arizona, and California, out of the deal. There was a good deal of popular opposition to the war, but in the end, expansionists won out.

- - - Updated - - -

Wait a minute. Rome at its height was about 2.2 million square miles. The U.S. Is 3.8 million square miles. But Rome can't conquer it's empire if it was a democracy? Hmmmm. Seems to me that a democratic republic is better at conquering empires. Just a thought.

SLD

Sort of a Appians and Oranges comparison. The purpose of Roman Expansion was to obtain wealth for the ruling class. The purpose of the American Expansion was to provide wealth for an increasing population. This gave the US democratic republic support from the people who elected the government.

The only true American war of conquest was against Mexico in 1846-47. We ended up with New Mexico, Arizona, and California, out of the deal. There was a good deal of popular opposition to the war, but in the end, expansionists won out.

yes, it was different. That's my original question - if Rome had not been different, i.e. it had been a democratic republic, would it have been able to survive? I'm not convinced yet it could have. I like the technology argument. It requires modern communications technology to manage such a large land mass.

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Give it up tom!



SLD

 

[bilby]

The only true American war of conquest was against Mexico in 1846-47.

Don't forget the War of 1812. Just because your attempt at conquest failed miserably and you got bitch-slapped like a bunch of little bitches doesn't mean that you weren't attempting a war of conquest.

So in summary, America has only attempted wars of conquest against all of the nations with which she shares a border.

 

[bilby]

Sort of a Appians and Oranges comparison. The purpose of Roman Expansion was to obtain wealth for the ruling class. The purpose of the American Expansion was to provide wealth for an increasing population. This gave the US democratic republic support from the people who elected the government.

The only true American war of conquest was against Mexico in 1846-47. We ended up with New Mexico, Arizona, and California, out of the deal. There was a good deal of popular opposition to the war, but in the end, expansionists won out.

- - - Updated - - -



Sort of a Appians and Oranges comparison. The purpose of Roman Expansion was to obtain wealth for the ruling class. The purpose of the American Expansion was to provide wealth for an increasing population. This gave the US democratic republic support from the people who elected the government.

The only true American war of conquest was against Mexico in 1846-47. We ended up with New Mexico, Arizona, and California, out of the deal. There was a good deal of popular opposition to the war, but in the end, expansionists won out.

yes, it was different. That's my original question - if Rome had not been different, i.e. it had been a democratic republic, would it have been able to survive? I'm not convinced yet it could have. I like the technology argument. It requires modern communications technology to manage such a large land mass.

I don't think the communications argument stacks up; The Roman Empire was very big for a very long time, and managed very well - indeed, one of the reasons for their success was the excellent communications technology they had that set them apart from the peoples they conquered - With the good quality roads, messengers on fast horses could get information from Rome to Hadrian's Wall in a few days; and armies and their supplies took not much longer.

I agree that communications are vital to sustain an empire; but I don't agree that the communication options the Romans had were inadequate to the task.

 

[SLD]

yes, it was different. That's my original question - if Rome had not been different, i.e. it had been a democratic republic, would it have been able to survive? I'm not convinced yet it could have. I like the technology argument. It requires modern communications technology to manage such a large land mass.

b

I don't think the communications argument stacks up; The Roman Empire was very big for a very long time, and managed very well - indeed, one of the reasons for their success was the excellent communications technology they had that set them apart from the peoples they conquered - With the good quality roads, messengers on fast horses could get information from Rome to Hadrian's Wall in a few days; and armies and their supplies took not much longer.

I agree that communications are vital to sustain an empire; but I don't agree that the communication options the Romans had were inadequate to the task.

That's a good point. They were better at communicating than their opponents. But I wonder if they could be better. Why didn't they invent a semaphore system? They might have been able to communicate with Rome. in a matter of hours. I did read that Tiberius had an inventor executed because his invention would have put a lot of people out of work. That's one of the big problems with dictatorships. They can't seem to get past simply preserving the status quo. A democratic republic can do that and there are incentives to do that. Rome started out that way. Caesar put it on a different path.

SLD