USA vs Imperial Rome

[dead0man]

from time to time you'll hear someone argue that the US and the Roman Empire are alike and we are doomed for the same reasons they were.  I'm just not seeing it.  Just from the leadership position, Emperors had WAY more power than POTUSes do, and when it was time to get a new one, it was crap shoot in every way.  There was (often) no orderly power change, many, MANY times there was a years long civil war to find out who was going to lead next and that guy might be (and occasionally was) a mentally ill maniac (yes, we all thought of Trump just now, but forgetaboutthat).  The US has no Praetorian guard equivalent and the military isn't full of foreigners.  Our Congress, ok, that might be where we are close to Rome.  Ours is full of rich old dudes that don't do anything good and like to give their power up to the Big Guy, but at least in theory (and sometimes in practice) we can remove the sh**ttiest of them.


Some other people compare us to the Roman Republic, and maybe that fits better in some ways, but then there is less to "doom" about with that angle (and apparently Trump is Caesar in this one, and I have a hard time accepting that).

[Antonio the Sixth]

There are some interesting parallels, and I think you can tell compelling stories about Rome that meaningfully comment on dynamics in the US today (I have a friend who's currently writing a very compelling story that explores the idea in depth). But at the end of the day, historical parallels are just that: specific comparisons targeted on a narrow dimension of analysis, not some kind of 1:1 blueprint for how history is set to unfold. The idea that you can use them to predict the future is particularly laughable, and everyone who's tried to do that has ended up with an egg on their face.

[Samof94]

The Roman Empire lasted another millennium and ended in the Late Middle Ages. in 1453 That alone makes the comparison make no sense.

[Beet]

The guy Oswald Spengler made a bunch of predictions about what would happen after the year 2000, and so far they all seem to be coming true to me. I mean, I hope he's wrong but this has been a disappointing millennium so far.

[Blue3]

If we have such a slow decline as the Roman Empire, we will be in good shape.

[Agonized-Statism]

More like late nineteenth century Britain, I would think, with a bout of declinism over the rise of imperial competitors, some divisive counterinsurgencies, and inequality bringing attention to the possibility that liberalism is ossified and anachronistic.

[MABA 2020]

The founding fathers certainly tried to model the US off the legacy of Rome

[Frodo]

I think we bear a closer resemblance to imperial Athens when it was head of the Delian League (NATO being the equivalent in our own era).  Rome never bothered with alliances the way Athens and the United States have done, for it was strong enough without them.  I very much doubt we could dominate the entire world without NATO and the wider network of alliances that undergird our imperium, for they enable a wider acceptance that give us our legitimacy as the world superpower.  I don't think we fully appreciate how much we owe our current status to the system of alliances we have steadily built and nurtured around the globe.  

[Upper Canada Tory]

In a way one can argue that the Americans are much smarter and forward-thinking than the Romans, simply because the Americans are very sceptical of the system of government that the Romans allowed to take over - tyranny. The American system of government with its checks and balances is designed (ideally) to prevent that.

One can argue however, that the Roman Republic had this too but lost it due to its political norms breaking down. Many see parallels to this in the US, arguing that many Americans increasingly distrust and disvalue American democracy. Whether or not this is true is not for me to answer as I am not an expert on American public opinion.

Many factors led to the Roman Empire collapsing, some of these shared by the US and others not, while others may evolve over time. However, I think these are less important than the main differences between the US and Rome;

Firstly, liberal democracy is the founding ideology of the US while it not being the founding ideology of Rome (although it can be argued that the Roman monarchy was analogous to the British Empire, but I don't think so).

Secondly, the US' lucky geographic position and intricate network of geopolitical alliances, that of which Imperial Rome simply would not match. Part of Rome's fall was a result of foreign invasions, but the no one can really invade the US.

Thirdly, the US' large amount of sovereign territory and natural resources. in an industrialized world where this is important.

Fourthly, and I think this is the most important aspect, the US' human capital. Rome colonized areas, made the people there live as subjects, and sometimes made them slaves. The US has the most opportunities of any country in human history that everyone has (roughly) equal access to. There are 300 million people in the US who generally have equal rights and opportunities - maybe with some variety in how accessible those opportunities are, but almost anyone can do reasonably well in the US if they try. I think this is the main difference between Rome, because many people cite the level of inequality between the US and Imperial Rome as a common aspect and a warning of potential decline, but forget that the difference is that in the US you can move up the ladder of social stratification, while you really couldn't in Rome.

[Yelnoc]

Some other people compare us to the Roman Republic, and maybe that fits better in some ways, but then there is less to "doom" about with that angle (and apparently Trump is Caesar in this one, and I have a hard time accepting that).

The Republic comparison feels more apt to me. Though I am less sure about the Trump = Caesar analogy. He feels far more like a Marius figure. I am partial to Mike Duncan's take, that the clearest analogy is the Roman Republican after the Punic Wars when the old Republican system began to break down.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

The main reason for the collapse of the Western half of the Roman Empire was that it was a dirt poor empire trying to control an enormous territory.

The reason it was dirt poor was their choice. Roman religion emphasized 'manliness' that meant doing things by personal physical labor. Slave labor was fine too since they were the spoils of victory. But, labor saving technology was seen as weak.

The one exception, ironically, was for war itself.  But, because Rome frowned upon technology for non military purposes, it meant there were no military spinoffs from inventions first made for civilian purposes, and, more importantly, it meant no real economic growth from which it could have developed a military vastly superior to the barbarians.

I believe there is a graphic novel series that shows Rome having developed steam power which was invented as a toy by Hero (or Heron) of Alexandria around the year zero, as an example.

There certainly does seem to be a renewed emphasis in the United States on 'manliness' with Trump (as ridiculous as that really is) and some on the right also seem to disdain technology and modernity (and maybe some on the left too), and these are certainly things to be watchful of, but overall I'd still say these things are fringy at the macro level and I doubt they've impeded any technological progress.

Of course, this is not to say that we should mindlessly go along with all invention or that there isn't a role for 'manliness' at times, the concern is with people who adopt them as an ideology (Tyler Durden for instance.)  

[Blue3]

No government lasts forever. We will decline in some ways, stay strong in others. We will be lucky to last as long as Rome, and have as gradual of a decline instead of any complete collapse. Also, it’s inevitable we will get a new constitution at some point - ours is the second oldest in the world, and the religious reverence to it just isn’t right. Once enough get over that, we will get a new one, and that could be seen as a rebirth into a new nation, and the end of the current one, but time will tell if it will be more positive or negative.

[PSOL]

If the United States is imperial Rome, then it is imperative to dechristianize the country, promote social liberalism, and reduce the number of undocumented immigrants to zero through mass citizenship. Right wing identity politics was what killed the Roman Empire.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

The Roman Empire lasted another millennium and ended in the Late Middle Ages. in 1453 That alone makes the comparison make no sense.

Technically, the Caliphs of the Ottoman Empire claimed the title and authority of Emperor of Constantinople and the Land of the Romans, so a state with a claim to the title and lands of the "Roman Empire" existed until 1918.

[Samof94]

The Roman Empire lasted another millennium and ended in the Late Middle Ages. in 1453 That alone makes the comparison make no sense.

Technically, the Caliphs of the Ottoman Empire claimed the title and authority of Emperor of Constantinople and the Land of the Romans, so a state with a claim to the title and lands of the "Roman Empire" existed until 1918.

Yup, the Habsburgs claimed it too.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Obviously it's not 100%, but I do think there are nontrivial parallels in that you have great powers that through their massive success become soft and complacent and slowly yield ground to upstarts that on paper shouldn't be able to compete with them. We do still have time to avoid the same fate as Western Rome, but that would require us to manifest a unity and a grit that I'm not sure this generation has in it.

[UWS]

The U.S. adopts freedom of religion while meanwhile the Antic Romans persecuted Christians

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Both also have in common that they're very warmongering. The USA has been at war with some nation for most of its existence. In fact i think they might actually have been more at war than the Roman Empire during its entire existence.

This morning, I discovered an interesting statistic, “America Has Been At War 93% of the Time – 222 Out of 239 Years – Since 1776“, i.e. the U.S. has only been at peace for less than 20 years total since its birth

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The U.S. adopts freedom of religion while meanwhile the Antic Romans persecuted Christians

That came in spurts - imperial policy often flipped between a muted tolerance for christianity if it wasn't acting in an openly seditious manner to persecution. The worst persecution came after the 3rd century crisis from Diocletian.