Roman economy

[Schrödinger's Cat]

How did the Roman Empire's economy operate, comparatively? I realize that most people still labored on farms, but from what I've read there was still an active market full of petit-bourgeoisie merchants. Would it be wrong to say that the Roman economy could have progressed into capitalism had there been more stability?

On the subject of superstructures, why did some Greek city-states enjoy democracy so long ago?

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Not at all. There is one concern that Citizen Zero said in regards to a similar remark of mine regarding the skipping of feudal production (in an OI thread on historical modes of production): in Asia (Asiatic mode(s) of production), the centralized state heavily taxed the merchants, so they couldn't become bourgeois. I think the key to a Roman transition to capitalism is the state's attitude towards the merchant class.

[Dimentio]

The Roman Republic did not have permanent taxation, and was quite dynamic. What prevented an industrialisation, despite the fact that the Romans knew about concrete, water-power and steam-power, was:

1: The lack of a banking system.

2: The very cheap source of labor which large-scale slavery provided the Romans with. One third of the population of that state were slaves. No initial industrialisation could have competed with that in cost efficiency.

It is true that the taxes did increase over time, but it was first during Septimus Severus when taxes started to be a burden to the merchants.

[Red_or_Dead]

One thing that has to be considered here is also that the Roman economy relied heavily on slave labour.


On the subject of superstructures, why did some Greek city-states enjoy democracy so long ago?


Democracy... On a very primitive level. Women and slaves were not allowed to vote. Add the fact that those city states that had a somewhat democratic system (Athens is the only one I can think of right now) were really small. It really cannot be compared to modern bourgeois democracies.

[Dimentio]

One thing that has to be considered here is also that the Roman economy relied heavily on slave labour.



Democracy... On a very primitive level. Women and slaves were not allowed to vote. Add the fact that those city states that had a somewhat democratic system (Athens is the only one I can think of right now) were really small. It really cannot be compared to modern bourgeois democracies.

Athens had 400.000 inhabitants, amongst which 25.000 were full citizens.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Couldn't the Romans have employed something similar to the gulags? :confused:

[Dimentio]

^^^ Couldn't the Romans have employed something similar to the gulags? :confused:

What reason had they to do that?

Although they actually - at least under the imperial time - moved tens of thousands of laborers across the empire to build roads, aqueducts and public buildings.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Sure they had reason: Couldn't they industrialize gulag-style to build up a military-industrial complex to conquer the Germanic "barbarians" up north and the Parthian Persians in the east?

[Dimentio]

^^^ Sure they had reason: Couldn't they industrialize gulag-style to build up a military-industrial complex to conquer the Germanic "barbarians" up north and the Parthian Persians in the east?

The Roman Emperors, with the exception of Trajan, held it as a policy to maintain the borders of the Roman Empire established under Augustus with only minor corrections (like the conquest of Britain in 43-67 AD). That was so the empire would'nt be unmanageable.

I do not think they understood the concept of industrialisation, although there was a lot of economic planning going on in the empire, especially concerning urbanisation.

[Zurdito]

I think you are underestimating the extent to which feudalism was progressive and necessary at the time. The Roman Empire represented the interests of the slave owning class, who were a parasite on the farmers, whom they taxed ever more to feed the masses, and upon whom they became ever more dependent. At the same time there was, partly due to this process, ever increasing centralisastion of wealth in the countryside. So you had a genuinely rising sector of the economy, based on the latifundia and rising out of the conquered lands of the Empire, which was in order to build the basis of a new stage of development needed to throw off the parasitical Roman Empire.

In the later days of the Roman Empire, the countryside was being taxed into bankrupcy, and there was no real incentive for the latifundistas to improve technology or increase production, ebcause they weren't seeing the benefit. This class needed to become the dominant class in order to set up its own form of government subservient to its own class interests. Only this way would they have the incentive to improve the means of production in the countryside to such an extent that humanity would be able to progress beyond parasitism on the countryside. Furthermore as an expansive class in their own right, they could go out and conquer foreign territories, ensuring a further influx of wealth from abroad as well as from the domestic peasantry.

All of this contributed to sufficient accumulation of wealth in the feudal Kingdoms for it to be possible for first towns and then agricultural cities to grow up not as parasites on the countryside, but as the next productive step on from a feudalistic economic system whose ruling class was providing no new outlets for the wealth it was accumulating: a class which had abolished itself.

Therefore the bourgeoisie under feudalism were able to build an urban economy based on an agricultural economy which had abolished any need for the city to be dependent on it. To do this, the latifundia of Roma needed to become the basis for a new ruling class, which needed their own "nations": only this way would they have the incentive to improve production to such an extent.

Interestingly btw:




The largest social group that antiquity had attained was the tribe and the union of kindred tribes; among the barbarians grouping was based on alliances of families and among the townfounding Greeks and Italians of the polis, which consisted of one or more kindred tribes. Philip and Alexander gave the Hellenic peninsula political unity but that did not lead to the formation of a Greek nation. Nations became possible only through the downfall of Roman world domination. This domination had put an end once for all to the smaller unions; military might, Roman jurisdiction and the tax-collecting machinery completely dissolved the traditional inner organization.

Engels, "On the Early History of Christianity"

The Roman slave owning ruling class on the other hand presented an impossible obstacle to an equivalent "rise of the bourgeoisie" as was found in feudal Europe. The Roman bourgeoisie was based in the cities and was dependent for its survival on the ability of the Roman Empire to feed itself through parasitism on the countryside. It was dependent on an urban project that itself was usnustianable. It was reactionary. It couldn't form an alliance with the countryside because there was not enough wealth there at the time looking for other outlets, due to it being forced to maintain Rome.


Well that was my 2 pence anyway, I would appreciate corrections actually because this is still a highly underdeveloped area of my knowledge. :s

[Faux Real]

The Roman Republic did not have permanent taxation, and was quite dynamic. What prevented an industrialisation, despite the fact that the Romans knew about concrete, water-power and steam-power, was:

1: The lack of a banking system.

2: The very cheap source of labor which large-scale slavery provided the Romans with. One third of the population of that state were slaves. No initial industrialisation could have competed with that in cost efficiency.

It is true that the taxes did increase over time, but it was first during Septimus Severus when taxes started to be a burden to the merchants.Not to mention the final two centuries stagnant economic/social productivity and civil war/political infighting/external incursions by the Visigoth tribes.

I don't see how slave labor prevents industrialization, it would be beneficial to it, no? Providing cheap raw materials, reinforcing the existing agricultural economy and so on. It certainly wasn't a moral question either; so why is it impossible (or near improbable) for the use of slave labor to lead an industrial revolution?