Notes on “The Collapse of Complex Societies” (J. Tainter) • Collapse of Western Roman Empire. • Early conquests were selffinancing – provinces looted of surpluses, Romans didnt have to pay taxes, tributory system; ended with Octavians conquest of Egypt. Augustus stopped policy of expansion (continued under Principate, to Diocletian) and concentrated on maintaining stable army, restoring prosperity. • End of geographic expansion → drop in windfalls of conquests; shortages of revenue already under Augustus, introduced 5% unpopular tax on inheritances and legacies (for military retirement). Major expenses were army (pay, rations, fodder), civil service, state employees (e.g. later workers in Imperial arms factories), public works, postal, education, public dole. Revenue stagnated, but concrete benefits in form of Pax Romana, commerce, public works. • Agriculture accounted for 90% of economy; trade and industry not important due to prohibitive expense of landbased transport (less costly to ship grain across entire Mediterranean than cart it 120km) – hence key role of Egypt to feeding the Empire (but famines in landlocked places were impossible to relieve). Only long distance trade was in luxury goods. • Empire supported expenses, but not crises. Little borrowing. Costs rose – Roman revenues from 500,000 sesterces in middle of Augustus reign to 1,200,000 to 1,500,000 under Vespasian; very little budget planning, taxes at fixed rates and hard to raise quickly; from Nero in 64AD, Emperors began debasing the currency (silver denarius) – first from 91.8% under Nero (5468), went to 80% under Antoninus Pius (138161) and 58.3% under Septimius Severus (193211) – see graph. Trajans conquests unprofitable; Hadrian retrenched; Antininus Pius spent wisely; Marcus plague / Germanic wars depleted all previous surplus. Military growth – from 25 legions under Augustus, to 30 under Vespasian, to 33 legions at end of Severan dynasty in 235 (PS. check size of Roman military). Soldiers pay increased from 225 denarii under Augustus to 300 under Domitian and to 750 denarii in 235 at end of Severus Alexander – Matting “The expenses of government were steadily increasing out of proportion to any increase in receipts and the State was moving steadily in the direction of bankruptcy”. Roman dole increased, including oil under Septimius Severus. Massive inflation; bands of military deserters by Severans (180235). • 235284 was unparalled crisis. Foreign / civil wars, barbarian incursions, devastion of provinces, growing bureaucracy and army, financial exingencies, more taxes, currency debasement, inflation – MacMullen, “So extensive and complex was the unraveling of the empires power to defend itself, it strained every power of comprehension”. Literacy / science fell (as did detailed records, censuses, etc) to be replaced by “increase in mysticism, and knowledge by revelation” as well as “increased propaganda about patriotism, ancient Roman values, and superiority over the barbarians”. Emperors ruled for months at a time / usurpers, regicides. Emperors rule required support of the military, so needed legitimization and money; in 260s, 270s subsidized food and Egyptian cities added to the dole. Periods of regional independence and revolts; lawlessness and banditry; brigands, Bagaudae. Government costs rose for dole, cities, army, storage / roads / palaces; despite more spending, civil services declined and buildings fell into disrepair → further taxes and currency debasement. • Inflation: hurt fixed incomes (government); currency debasement → State needed forced labor (Aurelians consciption of craft associations to build walls around Rome) and economy in kind (form of supplies directly used by the military / government, or in bullion). Barbarian incursions, esp 248268; rural plight; Roman armies sapped by inflation and reduced to pillage themselves. Abandonment of frontier provinces. Wall and fortresses. • Plague 166180 depopulation, no recovery due to invasions, inflation and instability; further plague 250270. Commerce declined. Aurelian reformed coinage, reattached lost provinces and repeled barbarians (270275); order obligatory farming of land by drafting nearby villages and towns into agricultural forces. Further chaos, then sweeping, stopgap reforms under Diocletian (284305). • New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine had larger, more complex, organized government with bigger, more powerful military forces; more taxes, conscription and regulation; coercive, omnipresent, organization subduing invidual interests and “levied all resources to one overarching goal: the survival of the state” (PS. Russia! 3rd Rome). • 1: Army at 300,000 under Severans; 400,000 under start of Diocletian; 500,000600,000 under Diocletian and Constantine; 650,000 at end of 4th C. Diocletian built networks of strategic roads and fortresses along frontiers; Constantine focused more on central, mobile striking force with more cavalry. Better quality as most now professionals, rather than civilians with commissions. (NATO, Russia today, etc). • 2: Admin. Under Diocletian, Tetrarchy of separate Emperors with subordinates called Caesars. More bureaucracy, smaller provincial units (to dissuade revolt), state military factories, state transport, segmented and specialized bureaucracy. Continued dole and public works; and Constantinople. Constantine embraced Christianity for legitimization; Emperor divinesanctioned, focus on symbols of power (diadem, mantle, scepter, orb) not personality, to disguise increased authoritarianism of Imperium now called Dominate. • Salaries for bureaucrats remained lower than in 2nd C, even accounting for new practice of payments in kind; not big burden. Military spending is heavy burden, esp with shift to cavalry. Taxes and very high inflation continued increasing (Diocletian – innovation of gearing tax rates to estimated expenditure), despite price controls (301 Edict on Prices – set them too low, rigged in favor of creditors and the government). Population remained depressed after plagues and chaos of 2nd, 3rd centuries → supporting more military / bureaucrats. Agricultural labor scarce so landowners (still influential) bribed vagabonds to enlist instead. Height requirements lowered, barbarians enlisted, by late 4th C even slaves enlisted. In 315 Constantine ordered assistance to poor children and orphans in attempt to reverse demographic trend (PS. Modern Europe, Russia). • Trends. Conscription, and soldiers sons frozen into fathers occupations as well as amongst civil servants, government factories. Distinction between private and public blurred as State directed persons into occupations and levied their output. As very wealth had by now fled towns to country villas or obtained exemptions, this burden fell mostly on middle income segment. Agricultural labor tied to soil – serfdom, tenants bound to large estates / colonate, a boon to large land owners in time of labor shortage. Abandonment of arable land and concern about it. • Why abandonment? Expls – soil exhaustion, labor deficiency, barbarian raids (not satisfactory as Nile soil renewed annaually by Nile but declined as elsewhere). Taxes → high before Dominate, doubled from 324 to 364. Flat, unresponsive rates and rigid; not progressive penalizing poor and large families; wealthy bribed to get their land underassessed and passed on costs → peasants have no reserves, so if shock like droughts, barbarians or locusts, they borrow or starve → dispossession by creditors, tenancy, serfdom → had to sell crops for taxes → farmers suffered first from famine and flocked to cities for relief (PS. Hence movement controls?). • Very high taxes; unvarying taxes however poor the harvest; couldnt meet taxes → jail, old children into slavery, left the land; no large families → farm abandonment and concentration in richer areas. Appropriation of landed endowments of cities. Regid control of individuals and their output – each citizen / guild / locality expected to produce essentials for imperial survival. It survived a cost of abandonment of land, declining agricultural yields, depopulation of country and impoverishment of city. Different occupations fought for personnel, so military declined until barbarians were relied upon entirely to staff the army – Attila defeated in Gaul in 451 by federation of local Germanic kingdoms. • Taxes continued to be crushing – especialy in the West; forced to increase them despite knowing that they would be devastating. After 395 agricultural breakdown in the West. Records indivate both rich and poor apathetic or sympathetic to barbarians (378, Balkan miners en masse went over to Visigoths); govt forced to make up grain deficits in frontier provinces. RM Adams: “By the fifth century, men were ready to abandon civilization itself in order to escape the fearful load of taxes”. Dwindling tax revenues, barbarians more successful – in 439 Vandals took Carthage, supplying grain to Rome → breakdown in civil services). After Valentinian III (455), Roman Army dwindled to nothing – only Italians and barbarians; couldnt pay them, refused settlement in Italy, so they mutinied, elected Odoacer King and deposed Romulus Augustus, last Western Emperor, in 476. • Assessment of Roman collapse. (PS. Like Civilization game). Roman conquests highly successful and selffinancing – from middle of 3rd C BC. Yet high marginal return not sustained – Persia too powerful (Trajans successes abandoned by Hadrian) and poor regions (Germans). Furthermore, logistics and transport power seabased (mare nostrum) and impotent beyond the capital and Mediterranean regions. Under Augustus size capped: Claudius Britain and Dacia Trajan conquest didnt pay for themselves. Third, for one time transfer of accumulated surpluses costs of administrating, garrisoning and defending permanently incurred – Spain and Macedonia took more than gave. Under Principate • From Augustus, Empire faces fiscal problems at times of stress surges – response was selling capita, debasing currency (deferring costs) and raising taxes. Devastating effects on support populations to support expanded bureaucracy and army. By 4th and 5th C, Empire sustained itself by consuming its capital resources – land (barbarians, depopulation) and people (demographics) → “Where under the Principate the strategy had been to tax the future to pay for the present, the Dominate paid for the present by undermining the futures ability to pay taxes”. Marginal returns, decreasing average, terminally hurt by stress surges, some overtaxed peasantry welcomed barbarians – the end as people fight over shrinking economic pie. Replacement by them → (venerated Rome, tried to carry on few traditions for few decades), lower admin / military costs, Africa prosperity improved under the Vandals until Justinians reconquest. West weaker, poorer, more vulnerable than the East. Govt attempts at renewal, growth (aid to children), reclaim abandoned land, etc, unsuccessful → dark age in complexity, art, etc. (PS. Digital dark age; comparisons to late USSR, current USA, North Korea (lots of coercion; transition to feudalism).
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 20:24:19 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015