Constantine (Extra Credit)
Diocletian and Constantine attempted to solve, not only the political and social problems of Rome, but also fundamental economic problems as well. Bruce Bartlett argues that the two did exactly the wrong thing. Please read Bartlett's article How Excessive Government Killed Rome. Do you think Bartlett's criticisms accurate? Why, or why not?
posted by Ancient Art at 11:14 AM
13 Comments:
The article by Bruce Bartlett was centered on how the Roman Empire fell. Concentrating on Diocletian and Constantine, Bartlett saw them as two emperors who could not solve the problems that faced them.
Diocletian's first reform was price control. Instead of stabilizing the economy, it led to more stealing and more deaths. This reform failed and was replaced by a system that the economy was driven by the needs of the military. The people and their possession were surveyed and a census was constantly used to assess taxation. Diocletian's reforms led to people being tied to their lands in a primitive form of serfdom that is seen in later times.
During the reign of Constantine, the policies of Diocletian were still in place. However, more of the tax base was in the provinces. As the people of Rome paid less taxes, they demanded more goods and services to fulfill their needs.
Bartlett's critism is right on the mark. Both emperors tried to address the problem of a inflation and a lack of money to fund the national defense. However, their efforts to remedy the situation would eventually backfire as people would try to evade taxes and other schemes to not pay their fair share. The emperors expanded the government and the citizens responded by trying to avoid paying taxes at all cost.
I read most of the articles form the fall of Caesar to Constantine. The propblems Rome faced, besides bad leadership, was over taxation and too much spending. The genral form of government did not understand economics and sacrifice when it came to taxes and revinue. They just expected money to be there when they needed it and they exhausted their funds and their people. Bartlett is not the only one with these views on criticism.
Given the evidence that Bartlett presents, the indications that Rome's downfall were indeed directly tied to the economic conditions
This type of economic conditions are very similar to what appears to have happened with the downfall of the Soviet Union.
The artificial value of the monetary system, the high and runaway inflation, the lack of income coming in for a huge empire that would be needed for it to run efficiently.
all of those conditions did indeed make for a volitile situation which at it's climax, brought down the world's largest empire ever.
According to Bruce Bartlett, Rome fell because of bad economic policy. Rome was already suffering under heavy taxes and the fact that farmers could not produce enough to make money, terefore being forced to sell their farms and move to the provinces that were slightly more profitable. Diocletian and Constatntine both decided that in order to fix the Roman econmy, theu had to raise taxes. Taxes were so high that even the wealthy in Rome could not pay them which meant that neother could anyone else. Inflation also posed a problem and the economic policy of Diocletian and Constantine helped fuel inflation even more. People were forced to sell and leave their businesses and move somewhere else. Constatine, and maybe even Julian, enacted laws that were to force people to stay on their land, but people left anyway. Only the Roman provinces promised some chance of making money. Constatine did try to restore the currency, but other emperors after him chose debasment for the currency and that too helped the economic downfall of Rome as people horded the money that was not debased and inflation continued to rise. Diocletian tried to collect taxes in the form of actual goods since money was worthless, but despite his efforts of strengthening the economy, the economy continue to fall and Rome fell deeper and deeper into debt, poverty, or economic crises.
I agree with Bartlett that Diocletian and Constantine probably didn't find the best solution for Rome's problems. Both rulers felt that the more that Rome fell apart the more they felt the need to incorporate a government regulating program. One result of this was a severe raise in Roman taxes which actually benefitted the upper class because they found ways to evade the taxes. This tax hike hurt the middle class the most and this was devastating to Rome because the middle class was the backbone of Rome. So Bartlett was correct in his opinion that Diocletian and Constantine did not solve the problems of Rome correctly.
"Despite such efforts, land continued to be abandoned and trade, for the most part, ceased."
The economy did not fail because of Constantine and Deocletian; it failed because the people were not rallied behind it. The laws and decrees would have worked if the emperors had brought the people together in it. Ordering people to do a nasty task doesn't really work as well as rallying the people behind a nasty task.
Bartlett argues that they were responsible, yet he tells us that Rome was near bankruptcy before they came on the scene. The emperors tried to curb the mudslide which was already happening.
I agree with Bartlett on his article about how the Roman Empire fell. I feel that he makes a good argument about taxation and how they should not have moved away from the farmers taxes. The emporers wanted to move to place the taxation on the provinces based on wealth. However, this led to lower taxation rates and higher demands and the farmers could not keep up with such demands. Taxation was used to make emporers wealthy and the Senate couldn't do much to stop it because often time they were too far away. Taxation became outrageously high in order to fund the Empire, but noone could pay them.
"In the provinces, however, the main form of tax was a tithe levied on communities, rather than directly on individuals."
In the search to find money, this taxation of a community killed many citizens. The ability for a republic to demand a tax on you because of your location was and is crazy. They should have found a better system of taxing to free the poor from improper taxation while taking unneeded money form the rich.
After reading this article there are many key factors on why Rome crumbled. First off, just not bein able to get the resources to run the giantic empire. Another was trying to restore currency but it was already to late due to inflation and emperor's before pocketing money. Most of the reforms failed, a few worked but for the most part what the Emperor's tried failed. Both Emperor's tried their best to bring Rome back, but it was just to far gone to bring it back.
Roman people were constantly going through many changes. One minute the taxes are lowered and there is free grain the next minute the taxes are increased and instead of free grain you get cheap grain. It is hard for a country to grow and expand if taxes and food laws are being changed all the time. I believe if the rulers cared about the country as a hole instead of them-selves these problems would not be as big of a deal.
To me Bartlett has an agenda here. I read this with my political eye because of the way he presents his arguments. He quotes liberally from people Oretel who is using terminology from the 1930's.
("a repulse of the tendencies towards State capitalism and State socialism which might have come to fruition")
I just think he is trying to make an argument for laissez faire markets.
I believe Rome collapsed because they over extended what they could run efficiently. The grew to big and crumbled from the outside wich sapped the middile and destroy the empire.
I would have to agree with Bartlett and why the Roman Empire fell. After reading the article one could say that the empire could have fallen because, of all the inconsistancies that were happening to the empire during this time.One of the inconsistancies which happened was the inflation with the curency. The other problem they had was the fact they had to feed people throught the vast empire.
I have mixed feelings about the article by Bruce Bartlett. Although I do believe that the way Diocletian and Constantine tried to regiment the economy may have contributed to the fall of Rome, I think a bigger reason was the move to Constantinople. I do agree with the idea that the tax policies of the Roman emperors were a bit misled and should have been done differently. Basically I think that Bartlett is right in his theory of why Rome fell but it wasn't just what he said, there were more contributing factors.
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