16 Comments

1. Legume Sam:

   I would recommend:

   first off, Bryan Ward-Perkins’ “The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization,” which I reviewed here, offers an interesting story of what happens when a whole civilization full of people becomes dependent upon mass production, and then the mass production itself disappears…

   I can also recommend Aldo Schiavone’s The End of the Past and Ramsay MacMullen’s Corruption and the Decline of Rome. Michael Grant’s History of Rome offers an interesting summary of why Rome collapsed in the west: the pagans didn’t like the Christians, the poor didn’t like the rich, the Romans didn’t like the Germanic tribes, and so there was a collapse.

   I don’t buy the Joseph Tainter “thermodynamic” theory of Rome’s collapse, not for a moment. (Tainter is of course the darling of neoMalthusians such as Richard Heinberg.) It’s a way of eliminating class conflict from the equation. One of the ways in which the invading Germanic armies rapidly increased their numbers was by accumulating large numbers of slaves. The build-up of the Visigoth army in this way was one of the reasons why the Visigoths won the Battle of Adrianople, and later why it defeated the armies of the usurper Eugenius at the battle of the River Frigidus. Who says there was no class struggle back then?

   3 June 2007, 2:44 pm

2. Jonas:

   That’s a huge topic.

   One point that comes to my mind:

   Roman soldiers were wage-slaves who risked their lives to protect the interests of the Roman empire or expand its territory, an abstract entity most of them could probably not relate to in any personal way or gain benefits from (similar to US soldiers today). The Germanic tribes that came from the north were based on smaller clans, personal (feudal) relationships between fighters and their leaders, to whom they gave an oath of allegiance. So they did not fight for something abstract like an empire, which gave them an advantage in morale over Roman soldiers who were better equipped and fought more disciplined and with sophisticated battle tactics and formations.

   Another point is that there simply were not enough Romans to protect the borders of this vast empire, so Roman commanders were forced to hire mercenaries who quickly raised in the ranks (like Odoaker) and finally subverted the integrity of their host nation.

   3 June 2007, 3:03 pm

3. Legume Sam:

   There were probably enough Romans to defend the Empire up until the great Germanic invasions of 406/407 — eventually, however, the border defenses were stripped in 401 or so because the magister militum, Flavius Stilicho, used the troops to fight usurpers to the throne.

   3 June 2007, 6:10 pm

4. Fred Barker:

   Just a suggestion on the fall of the Roman Empire and the so-called barbarian invasions. There are references to ‘Bagaudae’ or ‘Bacaudae’. They seemed to be rural rebels organized in a military fashion. Sometimes they occupied large areas of the Roman countryside. There may be some evidence that the Germans were sometimes allowed into the Empire to occupy some areas jointly with the local Roman aristocracy to get ride of the Bagaudae.The Bacaudae disappeared after the German invasions. I’m no expert but I have seen this explanation more than once. Perhaps some others out there know more of this.

   3 June 2007, 6:24 pm

5. Mikado:

   As an American, on 9/11 I feared for those who would be sacrificed on the imperial altar that shows blood, and soaks in money. I feared congressional hearings on baseball misdoings (another memory lane here). I feared the coming up tick in bread and circuses. (among a bazillion possible examples—wonder what they were in ’91…trying to remember…. The war itself was our circus for a long winter’s fortnight…The Pete Rose thing comes to my mind because when they did the steroids hearings, I so thought Pete Rose was in ‘90/’91 (not ‘89) to distract from reality—but no such symmetry)

   As some of Europe aligned against the US in ‘02/‘03, I thought perhaps now the American wolf, affecting ancestry to Romulus and Remus, would perhaps get its defanging. And as we too were reaching the ecological and agricultural limits of empire in desertification of our breadbasket longitudes, I thought of Rome. Our pyramidal hierarchy’s caloric base, food and oil and labor power, was eroding beneath it.

   After desertification, other parallels/points to consider are: the longevity of the Roman Empire after the fall of Rome, as Germanic and Byzantine up-and-comers adopted the imperial form. (A very interesting tangential article if you’ve got the time.) It could be a long ugly twilight. Not to allude to Morris Berman, because I want to help save the Planet from corporate destruction for me and mine, not save western literature for some future proto-Britannic (nice) empire.

   Third (between that September and ’03) I thought of walls. As in Hadrian’s. At the time I was not so literalist as to believe what now has come to be, and is proposed (Gaza, West Bank, Iraq, Rio Grande), but I was thinking of a retrenchment of a Muslim/Christian cultural divide; a deepening divide between religious conservatives like my siblings and secular leftists like my friends; hysterical border protection measures; more national chauvinism, etc. But there you have it, and literal it is. Anyone ever read the Borges fiction (or non-fiction) about The Wall and The Books? The same Chinese emperor who commissioned the wall (if that’s the correct verb) also ordered all the books burned?

   And lastly, on a related, but not Roman connection, I thought of Africa. I was looking at the National Geographic map of the earth at night, connecting in my mind the points on the newly coined “axis of evil”, making a line that fairly accurately bisects the rich and well-lighted north from the poor, and poorly-lit south (a pattern inverted at some points like a certain segment along the 38th parallel), and said map did, along with highways and cities, also show the illumination caused by oil refineries burning off stuff (My computer won’t upload the higher resolution image needed to view these refineries, maybe try the “earth from space” site when it’s dark over Africa and play with the altitude settings). Many people I knew hadn’t heard much about Venezuela’s (one of the bright orange spots on the map) “undemocratic tendencies”, and I thought yes, and next there will be some “undemocratic tendencies” near the points of orange-red light on the African continent. Perhaps even some US-led international recognition and concern with regards to genocide in Sudan. UN peacekeepers. Rebel insurgents. Arab militias. More evil. Another race to Fashoda and an updated heart of darkness.

   My assumptions about our leaders intentions in Iraq, despite claims of their naiveté with regard to that first (probably justified) celebratory clinking of glasses, was that they simply intended get into some good real estate, stir the hornets nest, provoke sectarian infighting, divide and conquer, and build their bases: sow blood and reap oil. Let “unrest” play on the heart strings, justifying a permanent military presence. The success was in just getting the American people into the thing.

   One last thought regarding your previous post: Wolfowitz at the World Bank was Washington’s boy continuing War by other means, loans to Africa, replacing the yoke just as some of the old debt was being forgiven, i.e., trying to do what China is doing in Africa: buying influence over elites. And some European elites must not have liked the terms shaping up for them and so turned on Wolfowitz. (No citation, just opinion)

   And a couple more last thoughts regarding this post, your site in general and the IA site: Thank-you. It’s cool how you invite others to do analysis. This truly democratic streak among the internets is awesome, but highlights the hard work required of those who would (must) educate themselves. IE democracy is not for the lazy, and maybe not even for the merely busy. Guess that’s why the US lights up so bright on the above map. Too busy.

   And lastly, about worms: if you have more castings/tea than you can use, use an outlet like freecycle to offer some free. When someone comes over to pick up the castings, show ‘em your set-up, show ‘em how easy it is, offer to build one for them…you get the idea. Spread the word with the fertilizer.

   Thanks Stan and Company

   4 June 2007, 5:54 am

6. Stan:

   Here is a pdf link to a Jared Diamond piece on the ecological bases of civilizational collapse, including Western Rome.

   This one is very good, even if it winds up with a Gaia-utopian pitch on the end that might be off-putting to some.

   This piece by Anne and Paul Erlich — empirical malthusians, but fact-packers nonetheless — showing Greco-Roman environmental destruction as a causative factor in their political disintegration.

   The contingent particulars — in the hypothesis I am suggesting — are not unlike those we see today, where we can name the leaders, and point to the zigs and zags of policy and ploys. But the underlying trend is Hornborgian… the core sucking the juice out of the periphery like a parasite outgrowing its host, in an exponentially accelerating dynamic that stretches the state between its need to subdue an increasingly restless periphery to sustain an artificially supported “standard of living” (usually some form of profligacy) for its domestic population. One or both of these “fronts” inevitably has to give as the material limits of a system are overreached.

   This is the synthesis of the picture that we seem to need right now — the social relations of the world system AND the impact-trends on our material substrates, and the interactions between these dimensions (as well as an accompanying reductionist ideology that subdivides these “issues” as a mechanism to avoid synthesis). Since the current conjuncture puts many in mind of Rome as the emblematic collapsing empire, demystifying Rome’s fall and making this demystification popularly available are potentially useful projects. The keen interest in anthropogenic climate change nowadays is opening the door just a crack… so we need to jam our foot in there. Then we can expose these carbon-trading schemes and the pernicious lies of “green capitalism,” the hydrogen utopia, and the fact that without energy inputs from abroad, USians would quickly cut down all their own trees for firewood.

   The other connection might be the “barbarians,” because the US is now increasingly dependent (in Iraq) on “allied forces” that are about as sketchy as one might imagine from the standpoint of the colonial authorities.

   4 June 2007, 5:57 am

7. Legume Sam:

   This description caught my attention:

   the core sucking the juice out of the periphery like a parasite outgrowing its host, in an exponentially accelerating dynamic that stretches the state between its need to subdue an increasingly restless periphery to sustain an artificially supported “standard of living” (usually some form of profligacy) for its domestic population. One or both of these “fronts” inevitably has to give as the material limits of a system are overreached.

   I think Ramsay MacMullen discusses how, in the 4th century CE in the western Roman Empire, places such as Gaul and Spain were ruled by a few very wealthy families, as the not-so-wealthy did not have the wherewithal to rebuild their homes after the invasions of the 3rd century CE. So, yes, the later Roman Empire in the west was (according to MacMullen) characterized by an extreme division of wealth. Some of the early Germanic invasions were, moreover, defeated, with the numerous captured people flooding into the slave markets. This was said to be especially true of the invasion of the Goth Radagaisus, I think around the year 401 CE…

   4 June 2007, 2:09 pm

8. DeAnander:

   And here’s a meditation on the Praetorian Guard and its modern equivalents… high-paid mercenaries from Blackwater and similar outfits. Landless soldiery with no skills other than successful skirmishing…

   The 30 Years’ War was made particularly hideous by the roving bands of “freelance” soldiery (ronin) wandering the landscape, looting and raping as they went, loyal to no one but their own “brothers in arms”. When the State loses control of its armed forces it loses its monopoly on violence and ceases to be an organised State… cf Baghdad or Afghanistan today.

   4 June 2007, 4:57 pm

9. Charles:

   Historians, ecologists, catastrophists, demographers, anthropologists and philosophers have interpreted many ends of the world; the thing is to change it so that we avoid the fire next time.

   5 June 2007, 12:40 pm

10. Mikado:

    re: “When the State loses control of its armed forces it loses its monopoly on violence and ceases to be an organised State… cf Baghdad or Afghanistan today.”

    cf US too! Not thinking of Rome here, though at http://www.friesian.com/decdenc2.htm I read:

    “The Emperor Heraclius [610 CE] has long been thought to have introduced the innovation of granting small farms to individual soldiers, on the condition of military service, created a system that would ensure not only a supply of military men but also create incentives for productivity on the part of these men who stood to derive all the benefit from their own labor.”

    Ah, “productivity” indeed… In an imploding empire domestically there are police forces on a rather loose tether (LAPD, etc); continuing infusions of undercared-for vets whose skill sets are mismatched with living wage jobs in a shrinking economy; minutemen and other vigilante interest groups–that is, groups who can rationalize violence on ideological grounds while pursuing quite material ends.

    Globally Blackwater & Titan and other avatars financed at first by states and corporations, but eventually, as their power grows and the power of states dwindles, will begin to locate their own funding and reasons for being.

    (The above URL (mostly about language) also talks about the collapse of the cash economy and the resurgence of a mostly barter economy.)

    I’m sure there are contingency plans for the use of Blackwater and Titan at home, too.

    5 June 2007, 1:51 pm

11. DeAnander:

    The Rise [Renaissance] of the Corporate Mercenary Army
    

    As he scurried out the door in 2004, Paul Bremer - the first US viceroy to Iraq - issued Order 17, which exempted all mercenaries operating in the country from having to obey the law. He in effect gave these men a licence to kill - and they are using it, every day.

    […]

    The US right has a slew of reasons to privatise the US military so rapidly. The most obvious is simple corruption. It funnels money to companies in which they have a huge stake, and who in turn donate a fortune to the Republican Party. This is justified in public by a market fundamentalist conviction that governments can never run anything properly, so their functions must always be sold off.

    But this is a secondary motive. The main limit on an aggressive US foreign policy today is the limited number of US citizens who are prepared to kill and die for it. Mercenaries solve the problem: just buy troops in. The public is far less likely to protest against a war if the victims are hardened Colombians in it for the cash, rather than their cousin from Wisconsin who signed up out of patriotism. In mercenary wars, all citizens are asked to give is money, not blood. The Cheney model of mercenary warfare being tried out in Iraq is, in fact, a way of making possible his vision of a 21st century in which wars for resources will be “necessary” on a “regular basis”.

    We have been here before. In his Discourses, Niccolo Machiavelli describes how, in its dying days, the Roman Empire was no longer able to inspire a large citizen-militia, and increasingly bought armies of willing foreigners. The result was dissolution, decadence and imperial collapse. What would the world look like if Cheney’s vision of privatised armies prevailed in this century? There would be far more wars, far less checked by the rules of war built up after the nightmare of the 1940s: in other words, more Iraqs.

    History also points towards a longer-term danger. Where governments depend on private armies, they become increasingly their servants, physically incapable of standing up to them. In the 14th century, corporations determined the fate of the Hundred Years War, and in lulls in the fighting would burn down towns that refused to pay for their protection. The French sovereign was powerless to stop them, because his own forces were too feeble.

    Little more than a century ago, the East India Company ignored the explicit orders of the British government and attacked Portuguese garrisons in India, solely to boost its own profit margins. The Empire relied on private militias, until they slipped off the leash. Phillip Bobbit, a former advisor to presidents Nixon and Reagan, warns in his book The Shield of Achilles that as we dissolve back into private armies, we are setting ourselves up for a repeat of this corporate dominance over government.

    Dick Cheney effectively believes in rule by corporations, rather than rule by the state, so for him, this is a comforting vision. […]

    5 June 2007, 4:43 pm

12. DeAnander:

    My off-the-cuff interpretation of the above excerpt…

    5 June 2007, 4:45 pm

13. TomL:

    The first few chapters of Thomas Cahill’s How the Irish Saved Civilization is a stark picture of the fall of the Roman Empire. It is hard to think of a better introduction into the subject. In essence, the wealthy made themselves exempt from taxes which were needed to defend the empire, and the rest of the population were so oppressed and ground down by the curiales, the tax collecting class, that when the barbarians crossed the Rhine and overwhelmed the Roman legions, nobody gave a damn. Cahill certainly was aware of contemporary developments when he wrote the book.

    8 June 2007, 11:07 pm

14. Legume Sam:

    The first few chapters of Thomas Cahill’s How the Irish Saved Civilization is a stark picture of the fall of the Roman Empire. It is hard to think of a better introduction into the subject. In essence, the wealthy made themselves exempt from taxes which were needed to defend the empire, and the rest of the population were so oppressed and ground down by the curiales, the tax collecting class, that when the barbarians crossed the Rhine and overwhelmed the Roman legions, nobody gave a damn.

    Thr Vandals, Alans, and Sueves who crossed over in 406/407 (or 405/406 if you believe Michael Kulikowski) faced a Roman border guard that had been seriously depleted in 402 because Stilicho wanted to use them to fight Alaric. Historians still don’t know why Stilicho didn’t confront the invaders; nor do they know why Stilicho didn’t crush Alaric and his army in 402.

    The general public was, by law, unarmed until the Emperor Valentinian III permitted it; but by then it was too late. There was some amount of armed public resistance to the invasions, but not enough.

    As for the public being ground down by the tax collectors, historians are sure this happened; but it might have been caused by the invasions themselves, which removed large portions of the Empire from tax collection and thus increased the burden on those who remained.

    9 June 2007, 5:03 pm

15. r graves:

    a couple sources from rob young’s enlightening “green cities” class:

    Ecology in Ancient Civilizations by J. Donald Hughes

    Topsoil and Civilization by Carter and Dale

    also just noticed this one on amazon:
    A Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations by Clive Ponting

    13 June 2007, 5:47 pm

16. DeAnander:

    @r graves: Ponting is a classic, and eminently readable. highly recommended.

    13 June 2007, 8:07 pm

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