Inflation And The Fall Of Rome

 

Why did the Western Roman Empire fall? Moral degeneracy, decline of martial spirit in it's ruling quondam officer class, barbarous invasion, declining birthrates? Perhaps all that and more, not least financial.

From the 3rd century A.D. until the 5th, Rome was plagued by inflation, brought on by: A massive increase in military and bureaucratic spending, increasingly worthless issues of fiat currency, crushing taxation, attempted price controls, and the disappearance of middle class landowners, the Decurion class. The latter were essentially taxed into oblivion and walked away from their land, which was swallowed up by an increasingly wealthy few.

Sound familiar? Check out Joseph Peden's compelling and clear must read Mises Institute address. It's not long and here's his conclusion:

By justice he meant a just system of taxation. Salvian tells us, and I don’t think he’s exaggerating, that one of the reasons why the Roman state collapsed in the 5th century was that the Roman people, the mass of the population, had but one wish after being captured by the barbarians: to never again fall under the rule of the Roman bureaucracy.

In other words, the Roman state was the enemy; the barbarians were the liberators. And this undoubtedly was due to the inflation of the 3rd century. While the state had solved the monetary problem for its own constituents, it had failed to solve it for the masses. Rome continued to use an oppressive system of taxation in order to fill the coffers of the ruling bureaucrats and soldiers. Thank you. [applause]

History may not repeat but it does appear to rhyme, don't you think?

Ave,

LSP

PS. "Barbarians were the liberators" -- see the swift collapse of the Eastern Empire to the Moslem war bands. The Koranic tax was less burdensome than the Imperial one. Saying that, let's have Constantinople back.