Fall of the Roman Empire and How It Relates to America Today - Research Paper Example

The Collapse of the Roman Empire Task: Table of Contents Executive summary……………………………………………………………………………3 Introduction ………………………...…………………………………………………..….....4 Theories on the fall of Rome………………………………………………………………….5 How the fall of the Roman Empire relates to America today………………………………...8 Conclusion................................................................................................................................11 References……………………………………………………………………………………12 The Collapse of the Roman Empire Executive summary Its own ineffectual governance (Gibbon, 2008) failed Rome. Perilous factors such as corruption, fraud, over taxation, extortion, embezzlement and overspending on wars were the initiators of the eventual decline and collapse of the Roman Empire. In the case of America, it is almost following suit and inheriting the vices from the Rome Empire of the past era (Murphy, 2007). Having the same problems of corruption, fraud and overspending on the military among others the American government is inevitably subject to failure anytime. The depreciating dollar value and the appreciating debts are hazards to the economy of America lest a quick rectification takes course. To fight this imminent fall, the Americans ought to swing into action and defy the ill-governing principles and take their economy back to normal. Introduction The fall of the Roman Empire is its gradual societal breakdown. Many scholars have come up with numerous theories, aiming to describe the causality of its gradual collapse. Most of these theories base their focus on the military, political, social and economic disintegrations, in tandem with foreign intrusions and usurpers from amongst the empire occupants (Murphy, 2007). The gradual decline has culminated through a period of 4 centuries. Numerous vile events, which had happened in the entire Roman Empire history, have worsened its decline process. These gradual changes can better be termed as complex transformations. Rome went through detrimental transformations in the administration, which profoundly implicated the entire regime negatively. A critical stage arrived where Rome was no longer a suitable or effective administrative centre for the Emperor to administer fro. Consequently, Rome had several emperors administered rule effectively. The eastern emperor launched a gothic war, which was extremely perilous. It affected the eastern domain militarily and caused considerable harm to Italy. Due to these wars during the seventh century, Rome and other Italian municipalities collapsed to their detriment to an extent that Roman citizens completely vacated it. The Persian intrusion of the eastern empire, during the seventh century, further weakened the Roman Empire perilously. Progressively after the Persian invasion, Egyptian Muslim warlords waged heavy wars on the eastern empire (Bury & Gibbon, 2004). This major blow detrimentally hampered and curtailed much Mediterranean trade, in which Europe participated, Following thereafter was an epoch of dominance by the eastern empire, which were periods of cultural blossom and recovery. However, its size was comparably smaller to its size during the classical regime (Gibbon, 2008). Being a regional power, it was located in Greece and Anatolia. Researchers and scholars refer to the eastern empire as the Byzantine Empire. However, to date, some researchers hypothesize that Rome rather adapted than fell. Theories on the fall of Rome When the Roman Empire came to power, there was no Christianity religion. However, during the sovereignty of the second Emperor, Jesus faced treasonous charges and the Emperor doomed him to execution. This led to his disciples’ persistence to procure more followers and win Imperial support. It took them a few centuries to obtain the power to win Imperial support (Murphy, 2007). They thus obtained support and reverence from the Emperor until they took over. Christianity, in this case, led to free market capitalism, a practice connected to Christians’ values, which softened the force of the government on the poor. This weakened its grasp on power to control the economy and uplifted the poor social class to involve in direct governance. This practice further led to eventual breakdown of the economy as the empire was out of influential command to its subjects. Additionally, Christian spiritual faith and allegiances did not concur with the working of the Empire (Bury & Gibbon, 2004). Thus, suppression of the powers of the empire by Christianity principles and rubric enslaved the emperors and rulers from permanent control of the economy and the monarchy. This led to the fall of the Roman Empire. During the sovereignty of Emperor Augustine, the Rome Empire welcomed with full support, barbarians and vandals. In an effort to divert all the resources from its citizens as well as acquire completely full and undisputed control over the Romans, the Empire opted to import and employ barbarians from outside Rome. These people secured employment as revenue and tax suppliers and worked for the government for quite a long period. Despite the fact that the Empire fulfilled its scheme of squeezing all resources from the people, the barbarians vandalized the property of the government and stole a big deal of government resources from the treasury. The Rome Empire also lost a large territory, especially that of Carthaginian Africa to the vandals. Loss of resources required to run the Empire as well as territory for military use lamed the Empire from effective administration and weakened it economically, because the vandals had stolen immense funds. Economic factors are a chief reason cause of the decline of Rome. Inflation was a major causative factor of inflation in Rome. Inflation led to increase in the price of commodities and decrease in the value of Roman denarii by over 200% (Bury & Gibbon, 2004). Therefore, the Empire could no longer trade effective with the other European countries. This critically affected their economy. Having such an economy tradeoff, the Roman government could not support itself and rise again from the breakdown, since, previous barbarians had also played a big role in weakening the economy. Additionally, other economy related factors led to the fall of Rome (Murphy, 2007). Factors such as poor management of funds, hoarding and embezzlement of funds in expensive circuses also contributed profoundly in the economy breakdown and further decline. There was a major paradigm division of the Roman Empire due to bad governance. The Empire split into two different parts: The Greek and the Latin Rome (Gibbon, 2008). These two different portions differed from each other and could not join hands any longer and offer governance as one. This dichotomy in leadership and economy driving led to one being poorer due to ills related to money laundering and hoarding and mismanagement of resources. Use of heavy tax imposition to extort money from the citizens and poor military, due to meager resources to fund for its running and many other malpractices by the empire resulted into a sharp declination in the economy of the Latin Rome (Heather, 2005). On the other side, the superior Rome had more financial resources, adept emperors, good governance, a larger military body and a vast population. Therefore, the two finally split and went on separate ways, leading to the failure in trading since formerly; the combination of the two Rome parts had more resources to enhance trade. This division led to innumerable tradeoffs that extended to eventual decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Extremely irresponsible military spending is another causative factor for the decline of the Roman Empire. The Empire allocated the military more resources, using public funds that should have developed the entire nation. The government irresponsibly squandered lots of money on military infrastructure, ammunition, training camps and many other expenses at the expense of more vital societal upgrading projects such as public housing, construction and maintenance of more high quality roads and aqueducts. Extensive expenditure of money on the military for the protection of the Empire borders from barbarian invasions was a major economic drain on the government treasury (Bury & Gibbon, 2004). Additionally, the government spent more money on the Christian church. This hampered enough resources to go into the management, governance and development of the Roman Empire. Thus, completely desperate Romans lost hope in defending their territories and resulted in recruiting soldiers from common unemployed masses, which proved to be both expensive and ineffective. Due to the acute shortage of resources, the Emperor had to press for increase in tax imposition, which further resulted into inflation. Resulting from numerous blows on the Roman economy and the government, the final blow to the Roman Empire was the attack and overthrowing of the last Emperor of Rome, Augustulus Romulus, from power. The Germanic Chieftain, Ocacer, was responsible for the pathetic condition of the infrastructure of the Empire. The roads, bridges and aqueducts were poor and unattended to; the farms remained untilled and depraved, Piracy and banditry extremely hampered and undermined transport: hence, ineffective trade and cities were in bad condition (Gibbon, 2008). As a result, they could not survive without the agricultural produce and eventually, the flourishing businesses and trade crashed down with immense quandaries falling on the Rome treasury. The pantry funds could no longer effectively run the nation and as a repercussion, Rome collapsed. How the plunge of the Roman Empire relates to America today Scholars postulate that the Roman Empire declined and fell due to corrupt governance. Its own leaders, who were misusing their own positions for financial gains, apparently bankrupted it. They achieved this by imposition of high taxes to the citizens. Surprisingly enough, the same drama is happening in the United States of America (Murphy, 2007). This occurred due to the same vile practices once practiced by the Roman Empires of the time before its fall. To give complete evidence regarding the possible fall of America, it is imperative stating the aspects of ill governance portrayed lately. There have been trade deficits and budget deficits that leave the USA with immense debts, which occurred to the Roman Empire, before its demise. Thus, if the debts do not subside in advance, the current economic catastrophe could result into eventual collapse of the USA. Another perilous issue that led to the collapse was initiation of free market capitalism, influenced by the Christians. This led to giving freedom to local corporations to trade with little or no supervision by the government. This profoundly affected the Roman economy and led to importation of commodities from foreign countries, incurring a huge trade debt deficit. Similarly, the same incident repeated in the USA. The local corporations, and not the people, have obtained enough profit to satiate their greed for immense profits for themselves. This has resulted into low wages to the common workforce, hence the living standards going up. To counter this perilous effect, borrowing begins from the microcosm: the family and advances up to the highest levels of the federal government, which further procures money from other countries. The issue that brings about immense trade and debt deficits that is likely to lead to the fall of the USA (Poor, 2009). Regarding the militaries of the two nations, several critical similarities occur. The Roman Empire was the worlds’ greatest superpower of its time. It spent numerous resources on its military for protection of its borders from invasion (Gibbon, 2008). It therefore had an immense budget of all time in those in that era. The Roman Empire, having spent more resources on the military and less on the development and governance of the Empire, a great rate of degradation was set up. This led to deterioration in infrastructure as well as increase in incurred debt from other nations in a bit to expand its military body. Similarly, at present times, the USA is undisputedly powerful. Additionally, the federal government spends a very humongous budget in the management of the military. It is the biggest budget of all time. Therefore, having this kind of approach in expanding the military bases, ammunition and arsenal among others the nation has incurred huge debt deficits that have proved too extortionate. If the American government does not normalize this situation, it might fall. The fall also occurred due to an abrupt change in the taxing systems on its citizens. In such a society, we had the poor people and the rich people including the senators and those who were governing Rome. The over taxation killed the affluence of the bourgeoisie and demoralized the lower class from working harder and et money that ended up to the hands of the rich and the governors. The government heavily taxed the poor than the rich (Murphy, 2007). Due to such an extortionate tax system, the government had no enough money. Barbarians notwithstanding also spent money wastefully in the doles and the circuses, the military and theft. This led to incurrence of debts that were extremely huge. The government bankrupted and declined. In America, a system of tax, payroll tax taxes the underprivileged and well-off at the same level ground (Heather, 2005). This leads to affluence of the senators and the moguls, who continue to enjoy their large sums of money. The government does not, have adequate money as large capital reinforcement comes from the rich. Incurring deficits, the government resolves to borrow money from abroad and manage its huge military and the federal government activities. This leads to bankruptcy and gradual proliferation of the treasury economy (Poor, 2009). This ends up in an imminent fall. The Roman Empire welcomed a huge number of barbarians and vandals into the Empire. These people procured employment in the government to act as tax distributors as well as military personnel. This increased the rate of expenditure of the governments’ funds in paying the barbarians and vandals. Additionally, these immigrants spent huge amounts of money from the governments’’ proliferated budget. These people laundered huge amounts of resources from the government. This resulted into the proliferation of the treasury and eventual decline of Rome (Murphy, 2007). Similarly, the same predicament is facing the American government. Having allowed high rates of immigrations, this implicates more stress on the governments’ budget in catering for the needs of these people. This is because the rates of immigration exceedingly overplay the rates of assimilation of the available resources. Therefore, there may be an imminent downfall of the America, just like the Roman Empire, if corrective measures do not take course. Conclusion The Roman Empire concentrated so much on the conquering of more nations and expanding their territorial extent than on the welfare of its people (Heather, 2005). Due to the lack of foresight, the government diverted all attention from the societal development and governance to reimburse the military and higher more mercenary to protect their territory. As apparently, this demanded for vast capital reinforcement from the treasury to pay the soldier, build their infrastructure and ammunition and unnecessary entertainment. Having squandered the money, the government incurred debts and was vulnerable to invasions by the barbarians who eventually overthrew the last of the Emperors. This pronounced the end of Rome. America has spent a lot of their earned income in maintaining then military operations all over the world. This is an imminent hazard being upset as the government intervenes in operations all over the world. This large capital requirement is quite huge (Poor, 2009). The government also creates enmity and can be subject to attacks. Eventually having spent all money on war, America is likely to fall. References Bury, J. & Gibbon, E. (2004). The Decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Maryland: Wildside Press LLC. Gibbon, E. (2008). The History of the Decline and fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 4. New York: Cosimo, Inc. Heather, P. (2005). The fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians. New York: Oxford University Press. Murphy, C. (2007). Are We Rome? The fall of an Empire and the Fate of America. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Poor, H. (2009). Money And Its Laws: Embracing A History Of Monetary Theories, And A History Of The Currencies Of The United States. New Jersey: The Law book Exchange, Ltd. Winkler, M. (2009). The fall of the Roman Empire: film and history. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. Read More