Empires (Like the U.S.) Fall When Corruption Becomes Rampant
Widespread corruption destroys empires.
By way of example, corruption was one of the main causes of the collapse of the Roman Empire:
The Praetorian Guard—the emperor’s personal bodyguards—assassinated and installed new sovereigns at will, and once even auctioned the spot off to the highest bidder [and see this]. The political rot also extended to the Roman Senate, which failed to temper the excesses of the emperors due to its own widespread corruption and incompetence. As the situation worsened, civic pride waned and many Roman citizens lost trust in their leadership.
The Ottoman Empire started its decline when the sale of offices, bribery and corruption became widespread. Indeed:
Most historians point to "degenerate Sultans, incompetent Grand Viziers, debilitated and ill-equipped armies, corrupt officials, avaricious speculators, grasping enemies, and treacherous friends.
The Yuan Empire (led by the Mongols) also collapsed due to corruption:
The decline of the [the Yuan empire] was a result of a number of factors, these being incompetent and rivaling leaders, corruption, revolts, decadence, factional struggles, assassinations, external attacks, and disease.
Toward the end, corruption and the persecution became so severe that Muslim generals joined Han Chinese in rebelling against the Mongols.
Former history professor at the University of Alabama Larry Clayton notes:
The [Roman] republic evolved into an empire and the empire grew corrupt from its own tremendous power. There arose, like mushrooms after a long rain, self-indulgent vices driven by pride and power. An oft quoted observation noted:
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” wrote the English essayist and historian Lord Acton in 1887.
Long after the Roman Empire disappeared, other empires, notably the ones of France, England, and Spain began with the conquest and settlement of the New World. By the end of the nineteenth century, European nations had created economic, military and commercial empires across much of the globe.
Watching the rise and fall of empires is like watching a predictable ballet or opera, or even a Hollywood movie, all with distinct beginnings, middles, and ends, marked by triumph after triumph, crisis after crisis, and then the resolution of it all at the end. The curtain drops. The lights come on. The European empires lasted until the Second World War, and then crashed.
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We come full circle to our question, “why do empires fall?” An empire falls when it becomes so self-important that it loses touch with the values that produced it. They begin to think they are destiny of the world.
There is a glowing sense of power that is irresistible, and those who get to the controls lose touch with the ancient virtues that gave their people their value and worth.
Indeed, an ancient Chinese principle holds that empires collapse when:
Corruption becomes rampant in the imperial court, and the empire begins to enter decline and instability.
(Indeed, Bastiat showed that corruption at the top leads to lawlessness among the people.)
As we've exhaustively documented, corruption is rampant in the the U.S. today.
In addition, widespread corruption leads to runaway inequality. Specifically, one of the biggest causes of runaway inequality is that the big banks are manipulating every market, and committing massive crimes. Fraud disproportionately benefits the big banks, makes boom-bust cycles more severe, and otherwise harms the economy … all of which increase inequality and warp the market. These actions artificially redistribute wealth from honest, hard-working people to a handful of crooks. And corrupt government officials have aided and abetted this.
Runaway inequality - in turn - leads to the fall of empires ... through unrest or revolution.
Indeed, inequality was one of the main reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire … and inequality in America is much worse than in Ancient Rome. In fact, inequality in America today is twice as bad as in ancient Rome , worse than it was in in Tsarist Russia, Gilded Age America, modern Egypt, Tunisia or Yemen, many banana republics in Latin America, and worse than experienced by slaves in 1774 colonial America.
Institutional corruption is also leading to a lack of trust ... which is collapsing the economy.
Indeed, the U.S.A. is following the pattern of ALL past empires as they declined:
- They financialize their economy ... going from manufacturing to speculation
- They incur very high levels of debt
- They overreach in costly military adventures
- They become arrogant and lazy
- They collapse soon after their peak
No wonder the American Empire is starting to collapse ...
(34 votes)
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Human Nature and Ego's wreck the party always
did you not see: "...through unrest or revolution"
?
Yeah George, we get it, ok?
Corruption was rampant in this country since 1776 but in the last 20 years it has went over the top. 1776 = freedom? No....the wealthy wanted to play their own financial game. They whipped the people into a rage telling them they should have freedom which sent king George on his way.
"The [Roman] republic evolved into an empire and the empire grew corrupt from its own tremendous power"
a common misconception
first, the Republic was already an Empire before it evolved into what is called by historians the Principate, and later the Dominate
second, corruption in the Republic, the Principate and the Dominate was endemic but had it's ups and downs
hey, the whole thing clocked a frigging millennium, the same way as the second instancees of it, both the HRE and the Byzantine Empire clocked a frigging millennium each
you can't encapsulate what went well and what went wrong in a few shallow sentences. sorry, it's more complex then that
Empires, then and now, are based on alliances. that's cooperation and often even friendships, as in the Roman concept of Amicitia. Something the British Imperialists knew, but the British historians often forgot
see Imperial Federation
Ghordius - Interesting comment. Isnt it strange Rome and the USA both tilted East? The morphing is what interests me. I am glad you stil come here and postx you have half a brain.
Correct. However, this time around we have almost 8 BILLION people caught up in this global shit-show. The only reason why people like you have time for such mental masterbation is because of the excess calories and excess production of others. Exponential equations and moral hazard are indeed a real motherfucker, so while I do expect the "collapse" of the average quality of life to be slow at first, I expect that it will accelerate much faster than it did back then.
How many were slaves during that period...?
Video illustrating laws of physics
manifesting in a simple collapse:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvcGM6maGGk
Exploding iceberg in Antarctica!
Of course, the globalized systems of electronic monkey money frauds, backed by the threat of force from apes with atomic bombs (which the Anglo-American (Zionist) Empire was the center of), has become trillions of times worse than anything that ever existed before in human history! Although those systems of electronic frauds backed by atomic bombs have become too hyper-complicated for any human beings to fully comprehend or control anymore, the over-simplification is COLLAPSING GRADUALLY, THEN RAPIDLY.
What drives the collapse of an empire is the same as what originally enabled it to be made, namely the ability to back up lies with violence, which contained the seeds of its own destruction, due to that never being able to stop its lies from still being false. As generation after generation passes, we increasingly get the situation that all sociopolitical institutions are dominated by the best available PROFESSIONAL HYPOCRITES.
The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity. - Andre Gide The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions. - Leonardo da Vinci Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true. - DemosthenesRadical - Like your deep thinking but agree with George Washington thatthe concepts which create success for a time are abandoned. Liberty and justice are concepts. While Rome and America practiced them, they thrived. Without that they die. And as Ghordius stated it is not an all or nothing proposition.
Forty percent of the population of the Roman Empire were slaves. We are an oligarchy not an empire.
In America it's 90% slaves. Much worse here.
The idea came from an old business magazine article that stated that when a man goes from rags to riches and hands his empire over to the kids, two thirds of the time the kids blow the family fortune and 99% of the time, if the kids don't blow it then the grand kids do:
I "blame"* rich people for allowing poverty to be so bad. If people could happily survive on the minimum wage then rich people would happily let their loser kids embrace minimum wage jobs and a menial existence. They would happily hand over the family fortune to people who worked hard and would give that fortune the respect it deserves.
But the rich parents are scared of their loser kids being poor, or are simply pissed-off by the idea that daddy's hard work might be all for nought in a few years time, so they use their influence to put their loser kids where they clearly do not wish to be and do not belong, the kids resort to corruption because it is easier and they don't want to give up the good life, and before you know it, a generation or two later and the top of the country is bathing in corruption. If only the loser rich kids (and parents) didn't fear poverty, then they could happily hand over the reins to the competent.
Consider this movie:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114694/
(Tommy Boy)
I hated it. I don't recommend anyone watch it (or at least don't pay to watch it, but then I s'pose you gotta watch it to know what I'm talking about). I couldn't understand why Hollywood would make such a story.
America, the land where anyone can succeed through hard work, makes a story about an idiot who inherits his wealth because he was born into it and the hard-working go-getter would have been pushed back in the gutter if he had not managed to, shall we say in business-school-speak, "build a relationship" with the idiot.
But then I figured that maybe the story was closer to the truth. Perhaps it was a message to the go-getters who think they can get rich with a little hard work and all by themselves - you need to attach yourself to a rich idiot or you're going nowhere.
Obviously there is a tremendous amount of wiggle-room in my "theory". Plenty of rich people out there understand the importance of handing over the right mind-set to the kids, and on the opposite side, plenty of poor people handing over destructive mindsets to their own kids ( and plenty of poor kids learn their way out of poverty due to the "unintended lessons" from their parents).
Just another small part of a bigger picture.
* You can blame poor people for being poor but they are poor because they have no power to be rich, even if it is just a mental deficiency they have.
well, the Roman Populus was a broad oligarchy, too, until it was forced to give the vote and half of the magistrate's seats to the Plebs because of a strike
and it maintained some parts of the character of an oligarcy, but later more based on finances then blood
problem is, if the international relations of a polity require a certain amount of skills, knowledge and capability to travel and meet foreigners and strike deals with them, there is always an "upper class" that can do that and one that can't
someone has to meet the owner of the oil you want to import, or stay home and tell the people that gas will be more costly, at the pump
again: the way a polity is structured is one thing. the exercise of empire, the "forging of broad alliances" a different one
a slave is owned. a serf is bound. either to a place or through contracts
in some cases, through culture, for example the "everybody ought to have a home" that might imply a "everybody ought to have a mortgage", particularly if the quality of your sexual life depends on "making the Joneses green with envy" or at least "keeping up with the Joneses"
a marriage is a (usually voluntary) contract, too, that binds you. a job, the same. in both cases, it's a question of quality of bonds
Great stuff Ghordius, thanks for simplifying.
Thank you.
oh ... the morning GW schtick as arrived ... my ... Pprrruuuressssccshuasss!!!
Luckily george is not a fish, as he'd have to go out and eat another fish for breakfast, then spend all day cogitating dissonantly about that and the problem of eating dinner, and the inevitable self-loathing and nausea to follow. A stone fish sounds about right, some sort of toxic bottom feeder.
Element - You just went full retard.
You're talking about full retard level in a place like zh? Look around, full retard is what this place does the most, matriculation for retards. :D Georges is an adept mate, I only aspire to being able to mimic being that fully-retarded. He's a natural! :D
Although the thesis is sound overall, I take exception to many of your 'exhaustivly documented' instances of corruption. At a 'retail' level, the US is squeeky clean. You can't bribe a cop or a meter maid. You can't pay off the IRS agent to overlook your tax evasion. You don't get held up for a bribe by the customs official. Heck, the offices and positions that are used as 'spoils' are carefully controlled by law and labelled 'political appointees' - explicitly identiftying the people in government with a specific partisan agenda. The people of the US have _no idea_ what actual retail corruption looks like, and should stop whining about bureucrats screwing up or implementing bad policies they're tasked with.
The US is, on the other hand, rife with institutional and systemic corruption. Lobbying and campaign finance are explicit vehicles for legalized bribery and influence peddling. Legalized insider trading in the halls of Congress (they continue to fail to self-regulate) makes millionaires of new legislators - as a backdoor quid pro quo. The Federal Reserve is a creature of, by, and for the TBTF banks - and is independent until the very moment it reaches out and wags Treasury.
But let me emphasize - there is a huge difference between retail corruption and institutional corruption. We got the one, but not the other.
here an example of the "other" which we also got.
https://news.vice.com/article/a-juror-in-the-making-a-murderer-case-beli...
Exactly. The latter, institutional corruption, means a collapse of the system will be a disaster since most depend on it to function and have built no alternatives, whereas the former, retail corruption, leads to a general distrust of the system and hence less dependent on it and even a collapse of the system isn't necessarily a disaster.
Precisely because cops cannot be bribed to ignore laws, that state can become as oppressive as it pleases. On the other hand, if the system that pays the cops and other emergency services collapses, all law and order will simply vanish.
Societies with little retail corruption and enormous systemic corruption will fall the hardest when the systems collapse under the weight of the corruption.
Grace Under Pressure 1984
with a little post-production photo-shop.
glad the reference has traction. :)
I think it's nmewn's fav Rush album ; ) (En Em y wITH In) (part one of Fear).
Distant Early Warning indeed; there's no swimming in the heavy water; and the mercury is rising; Another war - another waste land - And another lost generation...
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"the crash of sticks against skins" - Robert Plant
Neil Peart's 2015 kick drum head : )
Thanks for posting that vid ... I took a 10-minute detour:
Still Rocking … 30 Years Later
You're welcome George Washington, glad you enjoyed it that much!
WOW:
Eugene Levy as Rockin' Mel Slurp circa 1975; June 2015 at Air Canada Center...
"WOW! WOW! Fantastic! That was a little bit of too much huh?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06JZFakM3uc
"because everyone KNoWs, three guys do not a rock band make"!
Since 1974
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nmewn is gonna kill me for threadjacking again ; )
My favorite band of all time. Just wish they did not jack the concert tickets into the statosphere for the last concert. Even nosebleed was unaffordable... for the price should have had an accompanying sherpa and O2 bottles.
Saw them last tour, and read an article that they may never tour again. That may have been it. I hope not!
LOL! All the sherpas were already contracted out for 2015 Tragically Hip tour and the O2 bottles couldn't be found on this continent at any price... and that was before the new two-child policy ; )
Free market bitchez!
I've enjoyed my crappy seats since 1979 so I bought 15 more of them for the family and friends and two platinums for my 83yo Dad. spanned five generations!
and please, don't get me going on that stratosphere stuff ; )
OK
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43878.htm Allow me to add: If it wasn't for "corruption" Humanity would not exist. But then, corruption is what? Disobeying the "Law"? These "Laws" put in place by ignorant politicians with their own agenda of Subjectivity aka to survive and thrive?No. Human or proto-human behaviours are variable and subject to Circumstances that constantly change. The Behaviours of Collectives that are made up of the proto-human have their own set of behaviours and these rout out to the full spectrum of Perversion: An intenstity; there are plenty of examples if one waqnts to look and see; most don't. Sorry to say, the USA has it all, but are not alone; just the most powerful, a state that is weakening rapidly. "Government" is the USA is clearly a menagerie of competing Power Cults all with their own agenda but what is very clear is that the Banking System is harvesting the Humanity aided and abetted by the "economist". Energy always seeks equilibrium, and we are set to be taught the definition of equilibrium; at least the route to it. Ho hum
FWIW, I define corruption as self interest achieved through deceit.
Retail corruption does not exist? The very fact that (un)civil servants make more income than their masters, the people, is a bit of corruption that you don't consider. As well, the people (FSA) are the one's being bribed at the street level to keep the scum in power. If that is not corruption, then what is? Corrupt cops, county employees, building inspectors and the list goes on and on, roam the country plying their corrupt adgendas and reaping power and monatary rewards. Most every lowly govt employee who has any contact with the people are all little dicktators glorying in their situational power over the public. When the masters (public) have to grovel before the servants than corruption has reached its zenith. We are there and you miss the big point. Squeaky clean... my ass.
Fuck all that. The corruption goes right down to the street leval in all branches of the .gov.
When the average cop earns more than the average worker, resentment begins.
When the average cop cannot afford to feed, clothe and house his wife and family, ... lets just say that the honest, good cops take on second jobs, or they quit and find a better paying job with which to feed, clothe and house their wife and family ... Now, hmmmmm, who gets left behind?
When everyone is starving / jobless, and afraid of reds / I mean terrorrists under their beds, ... if you see something, say something ... and why shouldn't you be rewarded for helping the state "find" the latest boogeyman, and protected from that boogeyman taking revenge ... oh shit! Now we have paid informers and secret police ...
See how easy this is? Maths is fun! The only reason it makes your head hurt is because someone else prefers you to stay stupid.
Are you Australian?
Depends on who is asking.
Indeed, lack of Trust, an innate attribute of Humanity, keeps Humananity from the final annihilation. (Get the message?)
Real "economics" are the behaviours of Humanity comprising in majority the proto-human and the small minority of the Human.
The proto-Humans are unorganized, gullible and ignorant and hence the Capital of the Organized Power Cults (aka governments, bankers, politicians, economists, political Parties aka gangs) that act through Collectives, which are life form but not human life and accordingly behave differently.
The Power Cults need the People for the people represent Capital which the Power Cults feed upon. Power needs People but the Human Being do not need government aka Power Cults.
Fear and Cowardice define Humanity today; such is the proto-human, Capital and fodder for the Power Cults, and their behaviours fill the full spectrum of perversity. The Power Cults comprise those organized proto-Humans.
All is as it should be, while all that needs to said, has been said.
Empires fall. The USA has already fallen.
"Say goodnight, Dick. - Good Night Dick."
Denial is pepetual masturbation.
Ho hum
I remember my college history professor telling us that we were studying history so we could watch everybody else repeat it. Sigh........
When the light of Truth is extinguished darkness follows.
When the US implodes, it won't be the same ever again. In fact we won't be one nation but a continent of regions that are their own country like europe.
The USA is totally corrupt - top to bottom.
that giant sucking sound will be lobbyists bearing "gifts" to the corrupt scumbags they service...because this guy wants to make it legal!
Mo. bill defines sex between lobbyists, lawmakers as 'gifts'http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/08/mo-bill-defines-sex-between-lobbyists-law...
I wonder how you wrap that? Wax paper?
I have to wonder if "Empires (Like the U.S.) Fall When Corruption Becomes Rampant" and America is far more corrupt then the Roman empire, why hasn't America fallen yet?
The answer likely is a result of modern advances that have greatly improved the ability of those in power to both deceive and bribe the masses. That and the Hegemony of the Dollar is all that holds us up.
Their ability to buy off and control not only the land lords and local power brokers, but because of modern conveniences like food stamps in the form of an EBT card, convoluted tax codes that punishes competition and reward the compliant, an education system that tows the line, and the ability of the press to reach the entire nation with propaganda, they can Bribe, Extort and Blackmail the entire population...
With the vast majority living week to week and dependent on the job most of them hate and feel trapped in, they can't make a stand without cutting off their only means to feed their children.
The Romans couldn't control the masses directly, they had to rely on Bribed, Extorted and Blackmailed surrogates to control the riff raff. The Orwellian State had not yet arrived.
But now, the true power brokers sit atop the entire planet, not just their little Country. They have the ability to deceive on an unimaginable scale. Now each of us individually to some degree are bribed, extorted and blackmailed into compliance and mediocrity.
stay in line, don't rock the boat, or no more bread and circuses for you or your children!
Through Big Brother's telescreen in nearly every room on the planet, and worse a mini telescreen carried everywhere we go, they can both entertain and deceive the masses on a scale the Romans only dreamed of.
The one thing they lack is better control of wealth and how we spend it. The world wide Hegemony of the Dollar was their latest go at that piece of the puzzle, but it has it's weaknesses, and one of them being cash holds them back. A digital currency is their next step in locking up control of the masses.
America's fall will come when the Dollar falls, and not before!