Friday, March 21, 2014
FROM DK'S CURRENT POST
"....Politically, I would argue, the Anglo-American world began traveling down a certain very inspiring path in 1688 or so. Three hundred years is a very long time in the history of any civilization. We still have,. of course, our democratic freedoms and institutions but they are a shadow of what they once were. Our ability to act on behalf of the common good is much reduced. Here, surely, is a threat to our civilization at least as serious as global warming, but one that we are only beginning to understand."
Looking at Grant's books on Roman history, he makes clear that the ancient middle class in the Empire, in the ancient cities primarily, was eliminated, in fits and shocks, in the later empire.
This was accompanied by evasion of responsibility, and contribution as well to the costs of defense/offense, by the ruling class, which retired to what were in effect manors away from the cities, worked by slaves and an increasing number of serfs.
There really was always a tension, between cities and peripheral agricultural areas, but the agricultural element was central to the ancient economy.
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