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MammothTankDriver t1_jbkl6hh wrote

Reply to comment by Opizze in What countries/regions currently have *good* projected futures? by Murein

The roman empire and america is like comparing a horse to a car.

According to right wingers, hedonism is the cause of the roman empire falling.

America should have collapsed when it fought a war vs slavery. Abolishing slavery was an act of hedonism.

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Opizze t1_jbklhj3 wrote

The Roman Empire fell over centuries for a multitude of reasons, some of which, however, we are seeing as similarities in the good ole American Empire. It’s not as far off as you make it seem, but given the minuscule amount of time we’ve existed by comparison it’s not a perfect comparison. I mean we did base a lot of our ideas off of the Romans

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MammothTankDriver t1_jbkoqc9 wrote

Calling america an empire is wrong.

Clasical empires worked differently. All issues nowadays are the cause of capitalism combined with geopolitical meddling and Standards of livimf and wars.

America is in decline for no related reason compared to the roman empire.

Most people complain about the cost of living. Thats an issue even in russia and china.

Crime? Also present elsewhere.

Nationalism? Also present in china and russia.

Its not the america just in decline but the world economy. Capitalism is in decline.

The roman empire fell because of extreme issues and threats both within and externally. Not because owning slaves or some demographic issue.

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Opizze t1_jbksk3v wrote

The Roman Empire fell also in part because it’s people stopped giving a shit, they stopped being patriots, they stopped fighting for themselves and for the idea of Rome as an empire. They became divided based on one man seeking ultimate power; essentially the people at the top stopped caring about empire and shifted only to caring about their own power, with some notable exceptions.

At various points plague and war reduced the available labor and soldiers, slaves ruined the economy for Romans at home because of selfish rich people seeking only the next dollar, and yes, various external threats converged at one time or another to sap Roman strength again and again.

The Romans at various points were overexteneded, with Hadrian, and also Augustus before him, trying to redefine defensible frontiers for the empire. You’re right in that this is not the same for America because it’s not outright hegemony, we have allies, but ofcourse our Allie’s spend a hell of a lot less on their militaries than we do. They rely on us marching and sailing around to put out the various fires around the world.

The economic similarities at home, however, with selfish rich fucks who are allowed to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else, is actually similar, though not for exactly the same reasons. There’s no slaves in America anymore, so rich people use different mechanisms to achieve the same end, but the greed is exactly the same, and people in power either not giving a shit, joining in on it, or assisting in the redistribution of wealth is similar to what happened in Rome.

Rome had emperors who at times were sons of other emperors or, at their best, were men of merit selected by previous emperors or, at their worst, were selfish generals, or high ranking government officials that were selfishly seeking power. Some of them weren’t completely corrupt, some of them were. You know anyone like that who assumed the most powerful position of the most powerful country in the world? The Presidency of the United States is nowhere near the same, but the general similarities are there. It IS enough to make some comparisons.

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