Chapter IV. Rome as an Exhibit of the Nature of Government

CHAPTER IV Rome as an Exhibit of the Nature of Government Rome governed the world. Neither before nor since has any other nation occupied a wholly equivalent position, exercising one function exclusively in the comity of nations. The isolation of a function is the only means by which its nature can be determined. Rome was the political power crystallized out of the social solution for the first time, and thus fixed as a historical exhibit of the nature of government. What it reveals is a peculiar negative 5 during her regime, Rome contributed nothing to the actual productive processes. This is not to say there were no productive persons among the Romans. In the republic, they had been capable craftsmen and good farmers, disposed to thrift, else they would never have developed their keen sense of property \ but from the beginning of empire, the ratio of production to population diminished in Rome, while unemployment increased and became chronic. And in the imperial set-up, Rome was strictly a consumer of material goods.

The whole energy which sustained the empire as a going concern came from outside the imperial city. Further, it arose from private effort and intelligence, from the enterprise and labor of individuals, who asked in return—simply to be let alone. What Rome did for them, as compared to any other known form of government, was to do nothing; the margin of benefit consisted in the limitation of government. The political power being withheld from economic activity, production was thus left to private management. The government of Rome was better than that of its predecessors because Rome governed less. This was the first demonstra37 38 THE GOD OF THE MACHINE tion of the axiom that the country which is least governed is best governed. The stream of energy welled from innumerable tiny springs to flow into the great trade routes. It had been rising little by little for centuries, washing away innumerable obstacles, carrying down the wreck of kingdoms. Before Rome found her formula, no clear distinction had been made between the public and private domain. Egypt was fossilized by government ownership of the land; the absolute power of government made the country a helpless prey of invaders* Private property was the norm with the Athenians; but they tried to impose monopolies on commerce with their colonies.

Carthage was a corporative state. When the enterprisers of any nation tapped a source of trade, forthwith they sought to use the political power to impound the resultant flow completely. It cannot be done; once energy has been released, it must obey its own laws. Greece and Carthage were continually rocked and fissured by the energy which backed up and pressed for an outlet; they could never achieve equilibrium. The Phoenicians were dragged along the track of the energy from Tyre to Carthage. Precisely because Carthage did contrive to clamp a monopoly on the main channel of trade with Europe, Carthage was swept away. But because the Romans were not primarily traders, having been engaged with their great problem of finding the political principle, they were predisposed to allow the stream to follow its natural course. The structure of the republic was vertical and its source of energy internal. It collapsed from the horizontal drive of an overwhelming current of energy from without. The mechanism of the empire operated horizontally, by a centripetal intake of energy. Given the existent factors, it was capable of wide extension; but its continuance called for positive resistance to the agencies of government from the peripheral parts. It was really maintained by the residual separatist tendency of the component nations. While the ROME AS AN EXHIBIT OF NATURE OF GOVERNMENT 39 sentiment or aspiration toward independence remained in the provinces, the bureaucracy was restrained from taking a heavier toll than the traffic would bear. As receiver of taxes, the provincial governor was in immediate danger if he took too much. Then if Rome made excessive requisitions generally, the next person endangered was the emperor. The mechanism was thus constructed to utilize the pressure of latent revolt in its action, to kick back, recoil. When finally the provincials regarded themselves as Romans, and could not imagine themselves reverting to a separate nationality, the empire was done for. In effect, it blew the cylinder head.

The latent opposition became negligible. The exactions of the bureaucracy increased, and the number of officials multiplied. More and more of the flow was diverted from production into the political mechanism. Whatever elements in motion compose a stream of energy, enough must go through to complete the circuit and renew production. Water running in an aqueduct to turn a millwheel is a stream of energy; or electricity going through insulated wires; or goods in process from raw materials to finished product and conveyed by a system of transport. If the water channel is pierced with many small openings en route; or electricity taken off by more and more outlets; or the goods expropriated piecemeal at each stage of the process, finally not enough will go through for maintenance of the system. In the energy system comprised in an exchange of goods, the producers and processors have to get back enough to enable them to keep on producing and working up the raw materials and to provide transport. In the later Roman empire, the bureaucrats took such a large cut, at length scarcely anything went through the complete circuit.

Meantime the producers, receiving less and less in exchange for their products, were impoverished and discouraged. Naturally they tended to produce less, since they would get no fair return; in fact, effort from which there is no net return automatically must cease. They consumed their 4O THE GOD OF THE MACHINE own products instead of putting them into exchange. With that the taxes began to dry up. Taxes must come from surplus. The bureaucrats inevitably came down on the producers, with the object of sequestrating the energy directly at the source, by a planned economy. Farmers were bound to the soil; craftsmen to their workbenches; tradesmen were ordered to continue in business although the taxes and regulations did not permit them to make a living. No one could change his residence or occupation without permission. The currency was debased. Prices and wages were fixed until there was nothing to sell and no work to be had.

"The reforms of Diocletian, A.D. 260-268, made still heavier the already unendurable load of citizenship." * Men who had formerly been productive escaped to the woods and mountains as outlaws, because they must starve if they went on working. Sealed at the source, the level of energy sank until it was no longer sufficient to operate the mechanism. The Roman Wall in Britain marked high tide. When the Legions were withdrawn from the Wall, they had not been defeated by the barbarians; they were pulled back by the ebb of energy, the impossibility of maintaining supplies and reinforcements. The barbarians were not a rising force; they floated in on the ebb. They had no objective, and no ability to take over or set up any system; they came in as wild animals will graze across once-cultivated fields when the cultivator cannot muster sufficient strength to keep his fences in repair. The tax-eaters had absorbed the energy.

A map of the Roman empire in the fourth and fifth centuries traced with the routes of the barbarian migrations is a network of wandering lines showing where the East Goths and the West Goths, the Huns and the Vandals, simply followed the main trade routes. There was nothing to stop them. The producers were already beaten by the bureaucracy. •ROME AND THE ROMANS. By Grant Showerman.