Were Romans socialists? High taxes for welfare, Caesar leaving money for every citizen of Rome after he died, free water from aqueducts.
>>1064940
>state do tthing for me does that make socialist??????????
>>1064960
A huge socialist principle is distribution of wealth to the lower classes. That's what the Romans did.
>>1064940
Weren't most of the citizens of Rome jobless and living on state handouts? What time period might this have been accurate?
>>1064964
wealth =/= money
>>1064940
No they weren't you stupid yank
There are more social systems beyond socialism and capitalism, and not everything in the past was either socialist or capitalist.
Their economy was one of patronage, poor people would solicit the rich and work for them/vote for them and in exchange the rich would help them out, sort of like a mafia family.
In fact the entire Roman state was run like the mafia is today, just a bit more orderly.
The emperor was just an especially powerful Godfather
>>1064940
No, no wealth was given to the lower classes
Everything was done for the sole purpose of keeping the mob placid or for political gain.
>>1064940
It'd be pretty sweet if people would stop casually using anachronistic terms like socialism to explain what was a necessity of the state to prevent either mass famine or mass revolt, or both.
They did not give a single ounce of care for fighting poverty, every "social" program they had was what was deemed necessary to prolong what they thought would turn into a class uprising.
>>1064940
Bismarck was anti-socialist
He introduced welfare measures to keep socialists from gaining popularity
He incorporated socialist ideas, but Germany didn't become socialist
I like the fact that professional Roman legionaries were also military and civil architects and carpenters during winters
modern age jarheads are useless most of the time
>>1065021
This.
You can't understate the importance of patronage. Any gifts from the aristocracy were "gifts". There was almost always a quid pro quo.
>>1064940
Yes
>>1065098
Modern militaries still do a lot of that stuff. I know the Canadian military at least utilizes its engineer corps, and I doubt the US is different.
>>1064940
I don't think you know what socialism is.
>>1064964
They didn't have a political concept of socialism. They just tried to do what they thought would work. They had lots of hungry poor people who couldn't afford their own food, what else are they going to do but have a grain welfare?
>>1064940
>welfare and infrastructure are socialist
Holy shit read a book
>>1065114
He can't, the library is a service provided by the government so its socialist
>>1065104
You have to take in account though that even when the rich giving money to the poor is almost some sort of charity, the poor were far more equal with the rich than in today's society. If they didn't have power at all chances are the rich would care nothing about general welfare, just like in today's society.
When the rich are hyper-powerful they tend to try to appear more “human" in order to deny the importance that power inequality has in political decision making. It's just rational.
>>1064940
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IO_Ldn2H4o
Caesar was a proto-socialist of sorts.
Early Roman Republic, the one that really built the empire was proto-socialist.
>The vertical integration of the Roman Republic’s social strata is striking. In his book War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires, Turchin tells this anecdote:
>“Roman historians of the later age stressed the modest way of life, even poverty of the leading citizens. For example, when Cincinnatus was summoned to be dictator, while working at the plow, he reportedly exclaimed, ‘My land will not be sown this year and so we shall run the risk of not having enough to eat!'”
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/10/when-the-aristocracy-leaves-the-commoners-in-the-dust-the-empire-is-doomed.html
However as the power of the Senatorial class grew, they concentrated wealth power for themselves. Caesar and Gracchus brothers tried to fix this, bt were murdered by the senators.
Later, the empire became unhealthy in body and mind, the plantasion system favoured by the rich destroyed the soils, the general population was so poor they could not reproduce and barbarians needed to be imported to replace them.
>>1064940
>socialism = welfare
ebin simbly ebin :DDDD
>>1065124
Americans unronically believe this
>>1065397
Pic somewhat related.
I just wanted to use it.
>>1065397
Jokes on you, I posted that ironically and I'm an American
>>1065464
Sad thing is that there are actually people in the us who believe things just as nonsensical as what you said
>>1065470
It works both ways though
People so conservative that they demonize the internet for allowing the exchange of ideas
And people so liberal that they demonize the internet for allowing the exchange of ideas
Democracy is dead and the people killed it
>>1065476
Yeah well, internal violence and sectarianism kills democravy.
Although being a liberal in the traditional meaning of the word and being intolerant is just a contradiction in terms.
>>1065050
>socialism to explain what was a necessity of the state to prevent either mass famine or mass revolt, or both.
Free market would fix it without government intervention.
>>1065108
All of them have engineer corps and universities(at least - almost all). In fact engineering studies in military colleges tend to be top tier.
>>1065483
Words change in meaning
Faggot no longer means "bundle of wood" to the average person, and on this site it doesnt even mean "homosexual.
You faggot.
>>1065492
Only if every externality is internalized, namely: only creating a totalitarian system (not necessarily a state) in which everything is regulated.
>>1065501
The word liberal got only demonized in the us after heavy idiotization of the population. In europe for instance liberal still means «someone who holds liberal values». Radical shit, huh?
>>1065492
Free market was the reason they needed food handouts to begin with.
>>1065515
Nope. It was government intervention that caused it.
>>1065114
Government spending on anything other than national defense, domestic security or a system of courts is basically socialist.
>>1065517
Nope. It was internal inconsistencies between government intervention and free markets, which led to internal conflagration and predominance of personal or group interests above the common good.
>>1064940
You do realize the richest men in Rome typically had a huge number of "clients" who were dependent on them for money and land right? Private ownership was a big deal in Rome so no, socialism never existed then in the Roman Empire.
>>1065519
t. libertarian
>>1065519
>national defense
largely ineffective when compared to regional militias as evidenced by Vietnam war
>domestic security
bring me my pinkertons
>courts
private courts can also work, they'll also be less bribable because if they'd be bribed they'd get outcompeted by other private courts
fuck you statist cunt
>>1065523
Nope. It was caused by the state demanding from farmers to supply their troops with food instead of letting free market economy fix the problem - supplying the food was good interest when not enforced by the state to be sold for 10% of its price(the competition would cause it to cost 5% of its price though, the 5% went for administrative spendings of course)
in this way farmers got impoverished and starved. then the government decided they should give them foodstamps to fix what they've fucked up, instead of letting it fix itself and ended up in welfare state
sounds familiar?
>>1065519
this better be bait
>>1065519
>giving free education to people to involve them in democracy.
>socialism
You do know that public education was a thing waaay before socialism was even a thing, right?
>>1065538
>largely ineffective when compared to regional militias as evidenced by Vietnam war
>one war in one country is proof
>bring me my pinkertons
>yfw the public gets lazy, and private security loses business
>yfw Russia comes in, and flattens the place
>private courts can also work, they'll also be less bribable because if they'd be bribed they'd get outcompeted by other private courts
JUST FUCK MY JUSTICE UP
>fuck you statist cunt
I can't tell if this is b8 or a 12-year old
>>1065544
If it wasn't for state education our society would be much better-educated as it would encourage competition between more numerous private schools
>>1065538
You are just describing inconsistencies between free markets and state regulation. Neither free markets lead to inevitable freedom nor does incompetent government intervention.
>>1065555
Yeah, predominantly religious or big business funded schools...
>>1065556
today centrism, tomorrow stalinism.
>>1065559
Yeah yeah...
>>1065558
>tips fedora
>tips welfare check
there's nothing wrong with religious schools they tend to have the highest standards
big business funded schools would also encourage more useful skills rather than libruls arts as well
>>1065555
Also: you do realize that the internet, which is the greatest educative tool in the whole history of mankind was a public iniciative in the first place? Yes, it was a military intelligence network when it began, but without government spending we wouldn't have things as youtube video tutorials, khan academy, free books at a clic of distance and so on...
It was a sort of proto-Fascism.
>>1065558
tbf a lot of socialists argue education was better in the us before public schooling. Many have pointed out that public schooling was originally developed by fascists, literal fascists, as an indoctrination tool.
It is not without merit. Schools are obedience training and produce dull-minded people. Before schooling the US had a very cultures and literate working class with a sophiticated understanding of the world, and a militant labour movement fighting for their rights. Now /pol/ is relatively sophisticated in comparison to the general population.
>>1065577
Ah, stereotypes and miscaracterization. The last resort of someone without arguments.
>>1065595
That's actually very interesting, but it's just what happened in the us, namely a particular case in a specific context. In other places of the world public education has actually moderated political discourse and integrated people from different cultures into the ways of democratic life.
Also you have to remember that public libraries for instance have exactly the same ends and effects of providing free public education, just for a narrower, more intelevtual sector of the population.
>>1065104
>Any gifts from the aristocracy were "gifts". There was almost always a quid pro quo
Private investment into infrastructure was a huge thing for the aristocracy though, especially monumental architecture. Grandiose generosity was a great way to climb the social ladder
I am not saying that private education has not a good role to play in society though, it's just that it usually doesn't uphold democratic or republican (in the traditional sense of the words) values, for obvious reasons: every business, and therefore big money financed schools, has an agenda which will, eventually, contradict either democracy, common good or both.
>>1065653
>When education is left to the free market, you'll be left with a generation of retards who believe in conspiracies
yeah, look at all the retards that get churned out from Gordonston and Harrow
fucking mong
>>1064940
>Caesar left money to the people
The vast majority went to Octavian and Antony is a fucking liar.
And none of that is state ownership of means of production, so no.
>>1064940
>High taxes for welfare
Taxes were high to pay for the army. The corn dole was a budget afterthought, and in fact the hardest part was organizing it, not paying for it.
>>1064940
>A society with literal slaves
>Where you were literally a second class citizen if you weren't Roman.
>Which was ruled by a plutocracy that makes the oligarchs of today look like kittens in comparison
>Which required that you pledge loyalty to the emperor, many times under threat of execution.
Maybe some Stalinist bastardized version of Socialism.
>>1065656
Absolutely irrelevant, and you just proved my point. Those are schools in a "statist" society, where the STATE requires them to have a certain minimum curriculum. Naturally, they're gonna be high-quality.
But in your ooga booga fantasy, the vast majority of schools would be garbage or straight up psycho since they have no standards to follow.
>>1065714
Not only this, but what the Roman state provided what wasn't welfare, it was just food aid so that you didn't starve en masse. Roman society was in no way egalitarian, people didn't own the means of production and this was in fact a huge problem late in the republic where all the farms would be bought up and monopolized by plantations. You were expected to serve in the military, you didn't recieve things for "free", you were expected to pay for it through service to Rome.
Roman society inspired fascism much more than it did socialism, especially in Italy. Hell, the term "fascism" refers to the Roman symbol.
>>1065551
When he grows up he's going to be a libertarian
>>1065653
>When education is left to the free market, you'll be left with paying 500% the price for tuition and having teachers write textbooks to sell to their students, making the students think capitalism is evil and everyone needs to feel the bern
fixed
>>1065814
topkek
On a related note, the textbooks that come out of Texas are a good glimpse of what would happen with no state control. Except 10x worse.
>>1065800
No, the age minimum to become libertarian is 10.
And the age median is probably 11.
>>1065828
Libertarianism looked appealing based on theory, then I thought about it and saw that it was as practical as socialism
it had more fascism than socialism
It was a state driven economy, social classes enforced by the state, the policies of the first caesars were keynesian tier, created a lot of jobs in infrastructure and war.
thats some of the paralels i can find related to you question op.
Oh and warrior units cult, victory cult, populism and civilised vs barbarian are things we got to see in the 20 century
>>1065878
Except Fascism as an ideology rejected both Marxist Class Conflict. and the concept of a class based society too, the only difference being that in regards to class Fascism didn't seek to purge the Bourgeoisie through revolution.
The Keynesianism is correct for the most part, though it's fairly easy to argue that Nazi Germany functioned on a bastardisation of Keynesian economics, since funelling more and more into the miktiary would not produce a long term economic benefit, compared to investing in infrastructure or industry.
>>1065913
>Keynesianism is correct for the most part
Keynesian economics has been BTFO for a while now.
>>1065875
It's basically a codeword for “let's hand everything to big corporations under the pretext of protecting the interests of the people!!!!!!"
>>1065927
I was referring to it being correct to link it to fssicms, not judging the concept itself. Shoo shoo Friedman
>>1065929
Basically, what socialism does now
>international corporations have uprooted the sovereignty of democracies
>"Let's hand all of our well-being to the government!"
>>1065969
What you are describing is authoritarian socialism, not libertarian or democratic socialism, in which private businesses are not only tolerated, but encouraged, as long as they limit themselves to do their job.
>>1065969
You're using a blanket term for a whole lot of variation.
>>1064940
They were the total opposite. They had no concept of welfare. High taxes were for funding the army and handing out bribes to the army to stop them executing the current emperor. Caesar left money to every citizen for political purposes. Aqueducts were not hooked to everybody's homes or anything like that. Pre-Christian Rome had no concept of charity at all, the poor, downtrodden, elderly and disabled were to be mocked. The grain dole was specifically to stop the urban populace of Rome from rioting, and it wasn't even given to the very poorest who were left to starve. The annona was given to Roman citizens only.
>>1065098
Gonna be funny the next time your city floods and you're begging them to pick you up in a helicopter.
>>1066675
>Pre-Christian Rome had no concept of charity at all, the poor, downtrodden, elderly and disabled were to be mocked.
I feel like this is just propaganda, where is your source?
>>1066675
Uh, none of that is correct. Philanthropy was considered a core value of the Roman republic.
>>1066702
>I feel like this is just propaganda, where is your source?
Sunday school. They actually covered a lot of history.
>>1066702
Some shit I read in my old uni library a few years back. They were pretty authoritative but I honestly can't remember much about them. They talked a lot about Roman attitudes, alimony by the emperors such as Trajan where a couple of children would have their education paid for the estate of the emperor.
I'm not pro-Christian, it's just as Christianity became more powerful as a force in the empire Roman culture became more preoccupied with what we now see as charitable giving to the poor instead of for example, giving employment to them through building projects.
>>1066713
You're misconstruing the sort of stuff the Roman elite did in the Late Republic as about helping the poor. It never was, at all. Bread and circuses was never for the actual needy.
>>1066749
>Sunday school. They actually covered a lot of history.
Do you actually expect a Sunday school to give you an impartial account of pre-christian Rome?
>>1066765
>You're misconstruing the sort of stuff the Roman elite did in the Late Republic as about helping the poor. It never was, at all. Bread and circuses was never for the actual needy.
Not just the late republic. "Philanthropos" is a classical Greek concept the Romans adopted, that being charitable to the needy showed greatness of spirit and helped bind society together. And yes of COURSE it was often done just for show, what is that supposed to prove?
If anything Rome was some sort of proto-facist state, in fact many of the ideologies on facism derive from Roman politics
welfare =/= socialism
>>1065773
I considered a theory.
After the Punic Wars many soldiers who returned were left without their farms, as they had been left unattended and debts accumulated so they were forced to sell them to the patricians, whom would create the latifondia in which slaves worked the land instead of free farmers. This caused many romans to migrate towards the cities, where they'd live in insulae (the latin term for poor people's condos, but also for slums) jobless unless they joined the military and gained money through looting until the marian reform and military payment were introduced.
Think about it, the Punic Wars, the flux of slaves from these wars and many more and the creation of patrician-controlled latifondia were creating a social class of warriors. The lower class who'd work the soil would be the slaves, the nobility would be the hierarchy leading the state in an olygarchic fashion, those romans who were already in the middle class would still be merchants and artisans and this mob of unemployed farmers would become the professional fighting arm of the roman olygarchy.
Olygarchy, think about this word. In what other society do you have a nobility in full control of the state, a warrior-citizen class and a soil-working slave class? But of course, in Sparta!
Rome was basically the cultural lab in which spartan society was going to be experimented and applied to an italic people, but with a few variants. It almost resembles the events of the 1st industrial revolution in the UK,, where the creation of the "enclosures" forced hordes of farmers to enter the cities and form the proletarian worker class in factories.
A similar scenario can also be seen in the middle ages with the oratores, laboratores and bellatores but that's a different context and application so we should probably ignore it I guess.
>>1064940
Are you some fucking web-warrior that are trying to make a meme picture stating the point the greatest empire ever was socialist? If so. Just stop.
>>1065131
Oh my god you can literally feel the Frankfurt school in this one. What is with these new methods of trying to impose new political ideas on old fucking Empires.
Socialism is above all about the people owning both influence in terms of power and industrial output.
The Roman senate must have been one of the biggest conservative "institutions" to have ever been
>>1066917
Turchin is a biologist stydying societies.
You are an idiot. Marxist history is a real thing. Just because it comes to conclusions you don't like does not make it not useful.
>>1064940
See the Romans knew their shit.
They fed the masses bread and circuses.
Which Libertarians fail to realize when they think they can throw the masses of poor under the bus with no reprecutions.
See... When the poor are hungry or bored, they will do things like steal, loot, and riot and even overthrow the current government.
You have to give out welfare to the poor or you will end up with a French revolution.
The Romans knew this and that's why they fed the poor and gave them entertainment.
Overall it wasn't a big drain on GDP and they could focus on their conquests and keeping good public order.
Libertarians could learn a thing or two about the Romans.
Socialism was one of the reasons of Roman Empire decline.
>>1068257
>Excessive civilization caused the Roman civilization to collapse
>>1068257
No. The abolishment of slavery and lack of new slaves ruined the Roman economy.
Basically, when you have slaves (or robots) economics doesn't play by the same rules as we think in modern times.
You have labor that works for free as long as you feed it and beat it.
Once you free the slaves, you lost your economy.
>>1066681
Most of the time, fuck knuckle. They're a bunch of hyper-aggressive retards who think that being paid to shoot sandniggers makes them better than me, but when they actually help people they're tolerable.
>>1068277
Most soldiers are better educated than their peers you neet
>>1068275
Also years of civil war and not understanding how inflation works.
>>1068257
>Tiredness of life
Well that hasn't killed 4chan yet so
>>1065538
>largely ineffective when compared to regional militias as evidenced by Vietnam war
Holy fuck, no.
The fucking roman empire itself is plenty of proof that regional militias get shit all over.
So were alexanders fucking conquests, given that he used a state-organized force with a professional and semi professional core to shit all over an empire that essentially did nothing but hire private mercenaries and levy local militias to fight.
And then there's the successors themselves, who went full professional and shit all over local forces for centuries.
>>1068243
Historical materialism is a fucking joke
>Guys Societies progress from slave states, to fuedalism, to capitalism in a linear fashion.
>Except for when slavery existed in Capitalist England, that doesn't count
Marx = mostly retarded
>>1065021
>Their economy was one of patronage, poor people would solicit the rich and work for them/vote for them and in exchange the rich would help them out, sort of like a mafia family.
isn't this where the essence of fascism comes from?
>>1068508
You actually don't have any idea about what you are talking about. Pretty sure you got your 'knowledge' from a /pol/ youtube.
>>1065125
> the poor were far more equal with the rich than in today's society
Lol no. Roman wealth inequality was extraordinary. You had to be rich to be a Senator, and the tribunes were mostly a joke; in times of Empire, the only mobs that ever had real political power were the Demes in Constantinople.
Wasn't the free grain dole was only in the capitol city (Rome/Milan/Constantinople)? Maybe some other cities had it if the aristocracy of that city was nice. If you were a peasant you were fucked, though.
I know our democracy is thin but it's still slightly relevant. You have more power than some Gaulish peasant.
>>1065538
Also, are you fucking kidding me?
>Nope. It was caused by the state demanding from farmers to supply their troops with food instead of letting free market economy fix the problem - supplying the food was good interest when not enforced by the state to be sold for 10% of its price(the competition would cause it to cost 5% of its price though, the 5% went for administrative spendings of course)
No, you stupid fuck. The issue literally came directly from the rich buying all the land to run massive cash crop plantations. Thsi reduced the available military pool, and created a lot of poor, landless fucks who migrated to cities and caused problems because they had no income and no food. This is absolute, undisputed, historic fact, and the Romans repeatedly tried ot solve this exact fucking issue.
>>1065773
People on food aid weren't expected to serve.
Essentially, you were either levied-legion literally means levied-according to your wealth, and if you didn't have enough wealth to arm yourself properly, you did not fight.
Once you get to the point of the dirt poor being ALLOWED to serve, the armies start being made of volunteers, and they preferred rural recruits anyway.
>>1066675
>The annona was given to Roman citizens only.
...Every roman in the city or a recognized colony, and after the social war, everyone in italty was a citizen by law.
Eventually extended to the entire fucking empire.
>Pre-Christian Rome had no concept of charity at all,
Prove it, fucktard.
>>1066681
National guard does that. Active duty forces do jack shit stateside.
>>1066765
>Bread and circuses was never for the actual needy.
ASide from the people that would literally fucking starve without it, sure.
Wait, no.
Those are the needy.
>>1066889
>until the marian reform and military payment were introduced.
Soldiers were drawing pay a long fucking time before that.
>IT WUZ A PLAN
No, the romans regarded that whole situation as a massive fuckup.
>>1065556
>Neither free markets lead to inevitable freedom
nobody suggested that a free market automatically ensures freedom. it's just that one is necessary for the other
>>1068533
Quality shitpost my friend, do you have any facts?
Contents [hide]
1 Private property
2 The stages of history
2.1 Primitive communism
2.2 Slave society
2.3 Feudalism
2.4 Capitalism
2.5 Socialism
2.6 Communism
3 Cohen's interpretation of Marx
4 See also
5 References
Well I've read Capital, intro to the Grundrisse and 1844 manuscripts. Here's the wiki overview of historical materialism if you need to catch up
Continued, this is the worst thread I've seen on this board yet.
>>1066889
>Think about it, the Punic Wars, the flux of slaves from these wars
The amount of slaves taken in these wars wa snot particularly significant.
Most of the people on the losing side were killed outright, exponentially the Carthaginians.
Scipio avoided enslaving the iberians and instead just killed the cathaginians he could get his hands on.
>Think about it, the Punic Wars, the flux of slaves from these wars and many more and the creation of patrician-controlled latifondia were creating a social class of warriors. The lower class who'd work the soil would be the slaves, the nobility would be the hierarchy leading the state in an olygarchic fashion, those romans who were already in the middle class would still be merchants and artisans and this mob of unemployed farmers would become the professional fighting arm of the roman olygarchy.
Landless poor were not eligible for military service at this time.
>Olygarchy, think about this word. In what other society do you have a nobility in full control of the state, a warrior-citizen class and a soil-working slave class? But of course, in Sparta!
Except the rich were the warriors in sparta, along with the middle class, and the poor were despised and the strongest of them culled.
Your theory is shit and so are you.
>>1068256
Poor person here:
I can't wait to eat the libertarians.
>>1065595
Hah speak for yourself, I left public school knowing Calculus, Physics, and basic Circuits. I got a pretty ok education in world, US, and European history as well.
Yeah it took Uni to learn an actual profession but public school was a good start.
>>1066702
I didn't write >>1066675, but Mike Duncan tells a similar narrative in History of Rome, and he's pretty well sourced typically. The grain dole was only for Rome. Why would Rome distribute grain to the places they just conquered? Where do you think the grain was coming from most of the time? Do you think the people in the Etruscan League/Sicily/Gaul/Egypt got free welfare after Rome conquered them?
I don't know if the poor/elderly were "mocked", though.
>>1064940
>Were [premodern state] [followers of a modern institution?]
>102 replies
Kill yourselves.
>>1068547
I'm with you, this thread is complete and utter garbage.
>>1065125
Nigger, Crassus owned a fortune in slaves and property nearly equivalent to the entire treasury of the Empire. We're talking potential trillions in today's money in slaves and other assets.
Meanwhile most Romans didn't even get paid regularly enough to survive.
Wealth inequality under the Roman Empire is utterly incomparable to anything you see today. Take what you see in places like Brazil and crank it up 100 times, that's the comparative level of opulence you're dealing with.
>>1064964
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FekLGGOZBuY
>>1068588
You obviously did not learn thinking.
>>1065108
He's saying that Legionaries of the day were trained in everything like carpentry, leather working, smiting, anything that the legion needed.
It's kind of amazing how much they were trained in really, on top of full gear marches, drills, and battles.
appeasement of the mob =/= socialism
or maybe it does :^)
>>1065004
>[citation needed]
>>1065112
Duh let them starve like the useless weaklings they are
t. Iibertarian
>>1065083
He was a social democrat. Except for the democrat.
>>1065555
lol this was the reality for hundreds of years in europe and those countries only got dumber. it's cheaper to just have one school in one place
>>1064940
I'll ignore your aberrant anachronism, to try to give a broad view.
In the times of the Republic, the Roman state leaned strictly basic functions of administration, law and defense. In later years, however, mainly due to the dissatisfaction of many with the division of the conquered lands, it began to appear space for populist politicians (basically free shit). First, the Gracchi, after a portion of the Senate, half a dozen fiery stooges, and Caesar, who managed a wide popularity, and skillfully used it to implode each institutional protection that the Republic had. His successors - in almost one thousand and five hundred years following - rarely hesitated to establish costly policies to maintain the support of the masses, or to buy the support of the army.
The Annona, inflation, price freeze, universal citizenship, state control over branches of production, tax exemption charts (like Venice), trade concessions, none of it came free.
>>1070332
They aren't useless though, they were needed to help fuel to Roman war machine as potential recruits. Imperial Rome was about as far away from a libertarian society as you can get.
