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There are hundreds of reason the roman empire 'fell' (in the west) but pertinent to the thread one of the big ones was the elite grand landholding classes became so wealthy and controlled so much land that they stopped contributing to central government and defence because they, oddly enough, wanted to keep their capital to themselves and had a huge client underclass relying on them and not the state for work and sustenance. They were basically too selfish and short-sighted to keep sustaining standing armies because gently caress you got mine why should I care if Gaius Sextus a few valleys over gets hosed I'm still ok and in fact entering in quite favourable business arrangements with these barbarians (for now).
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May 11, 2016 13:37
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I think you will find that the REAL reason the Roman Empire fell was due to inflation.NLJP posted:Gaius Sextus lol
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May 11, 2016 14:28
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NLJP posted:There are hundreds of reason the roman empire 'fell' (in the west) but pertinent to the thread one of the big ones was the elite grand landholding classes became so wealthy and controlled so much land that they stopped contributing to central government and defence because they, oddly enough, wanted to keep their capital to themselves and had a huge client underclass relying on them and not the state for work and sustenance. Even better, the Roman Empire in the East was highly successful for nearly 800 years (and survived to some extent for 1,000 years) after the fall of the Western Empire because: 1) It had an extremely effective system of taxation, 2) It exercised a grand strategy based on containment of its enemies, non-aggression, and diplomacy through trade, religion, and non-decisive warfare, 3) a large and professional bureaucracy capable of managing a complex state.
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May 11, 2016 14:38
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There's also the fact that one of the main reasons the Republic fell is because more and more wealth became concentrated in the hands of fewer men, impoverishing the lower classes and driving them into the arms of populist demagogues like Clodius Polcher and Caesar, who had no qualms about dismantling the Republic for their own personal gain.
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May 11, 2016 16:08
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MikeCrotch posted:There's also the fact that one of the main reasons the Republic fell is because more and more wealth became concentrated in the hands of fewer men, impoverishing the lower classes and driving them into the arms of populist demagogues like Clodius Polcher and Caesar, who had no qualms about dismantling the Republic for their own personal gain. I'd argue that the failure of the state to subordinate military command to civil authority, particularly after the proletarianization of the legions, was at least as important in destabilizing the Republic.
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May 11, 2016 19:49
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Captain_Maclaine posted:I'd argue that the failure of the state to subordinate military command to civil authority, particularly after the proletarianization of the legions, was at least as important in destabilizing the Republic. Well the Marian reforms proletarianized the legions because fewer citizens met the property qualifications to serve because the rich landowners were accumulating all the wealth while the poor were off fighting to make the rich richer.
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May 11, 2016 20:10
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They go hand in hand. Civilian work being taken over by slave labor, combined with a plunder-based military, means that the only remaining path to wealth is through the military. And so the military gets stuffed to the gills with ambitious men, who then invade new territory for the plunder, which also brings in new slaves to do civilian work, and so on. All the while, power is entrusted more and more into the hands of rich generals, who are surrounded by ambitious men loyal to themselves first and their general second, with the Republic itself a distant third. How can a civilian government possibly keep any kind of check on that? Basically if you want a stable republic, you need to prevent a few hands from amassing too much power, military, economic, or otherwise. Pay your soldiers through the civilian government instead of the generals (and actually pay them, looking at you Long Parliament), redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor (without any one person doing it and getting all the credit and loyalty, looking at you Roman Senate), etc.
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May 11, 2016 20:11
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Also that whole "let's just pay off these guys we've been killing to protect our borders instead of having an army no way that will end badly" thing. But I'm sure that obviously a PMC driven police and armed forces won't at all create the same problem nowadays. No sir.
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May 11, 2016 20:50
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OwlFancier posted:Also that whole "let's just pay off these guys we've been killing to protect our borders instead of having an army no way that will end badly" thing. Why bother to do all that? You can just pay them to run and staff your armies themselves. It's foolproof! 
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May 11, 2016 22:30
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If we can get mises.org writers to fail at playing Caesar, can we give them Attila total war and get them to win as Western Rome? I'm sure that the huns can be made to understand the NAP.
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May 11, 2016 22:42
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OwlFancier posted:If we can get mises.org writers to fail at playing Caesar, can we give them Attila total war and get them to win as Western Rome? Hayek's let's play channel: "why counter strike is bad"
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May 11, 2016 23:08
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Having "grown up" with Lew Rockwell as the god emperor of libertarian thought, since he edits LewRockwell.com and runs the Mises Institute, I occasionally look at LRC to see what's going on with libertarians these days, and holy poo poo is it heavily crazy and racist. Is Lew Rockwell still relevant in libertarian circles, or can I start ignoring him as a kook?
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May 12, 2016 01:47
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Goon Danton posted:They go hand in hand. Civilian work being taken over by slave labor, combined with a plunder-based military, means that the only remaining path to wealth is through the military. And so the military gets stuffed to the gills with ambitious men, who then invade new territory for the plunder, which also brings in new slaves to do civilian work, and so on. All the while, power is entrusted more and more into the hands of rich generals, who are surrounded by ambitious men loyal to themselves first and their general second, with the Republic itself a distant third. How can a civilian government possibly keep any kind of check on that? I think you will find that the issue was fiat currency. Also what is this plunder based military? Everyone knows you can't have warfare without government controlled fiat currency.
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May 12, 2016 01:54
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Golbez posted:Having "grown up" with Lew Rockwell as the god emperor of libertarian thought, since he edits LewRockwell.com and runs the Mises Institute, I occasionally look at LRC to see what's going on with libertarians these days, and holy poo poo is it heavily crazy and racist. I don't see why being relevant in libertarian circles would stop you from ignoring someone as a kook.
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May 12, 2016 02:03
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Caros posted:I think you will find that the issue was fiat currency. Also what is this plunder based military? Everyone knows you can't have warfare without government controlled fiat currency. No no no you see, it's not that war didn't happen before government controlled fiat currency, but that government controlled fiat currency made war profitable. I mean more profitable I mea- 
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May 12, 2016 02:05
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paragon1 posted:I don't see why being relevant in libertarian circles would stop you from ignoring someone as a kook. Seriously. Being relevant in libertarian circles is kind of like being relevant in the birther movement. The more involved you are, the weirder you look.
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May 12, 2016 02:06
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paragon1 posted:I don't see why being relevant in libertarian circles would stop you from ignoring someone as a kook. Well yes, there's that, but I mean using him to tar libertarians in general. Is that unfair, basically. Can I say to my libertarian friends "this is what one of your prime thinkers says" or is that like saying all Republicans are Trump.
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May 12, 2016 02:52
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Hmm, it that case I'm not really sure! Probably yes! It really depends on how deep in the stupid your friends have gotten and what particular kind they've been swimming in. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, for libertarians every major figure is Trump to at least some of them. Probably the only one that isn't is Von Mises and that's mostly because 80% of them won't even know who that is. Edit: I mean, if you're concerned that you're libertarian friends are going to go "That man is a crazy old racist, he doesn't count." (which most libertarians don't really see as a problem anyway!), then just point out the problem with a guy like that being so prominent in the movement in the first place. It says something about Libertarians just like Trump being the nominee says something about people who continue to consider themselves Republicans and who will continue to vote that way. Edit 2: Also what SedanChair said. paragon1 fucked around with this message at 05:10 on May 12, 2016 |
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May 12, 2016 05:05
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Golbez posted:Having "grown up" with Lew Rockwell as the god emperor of libertarian thought, since he edits LewRockwell.com and runs the Mises Institute, I occasionally look at LRC to see what's going on with libertarians these days, and holy poo poo is it heavily crazy and racist. Lew Rockwell literally created modern libertarianism with a typewriter. I don't think they could get clean of him now, even if they wanted to.
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May 12, 2016 05:09
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Plenty of undeniable big names in libertarianism still submit articles to LRC, including Ron Paul and Walter Block. He's not easily dismissed.
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May 12, 2016 17:02
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For those of you not paying attention our lord and savior jrod just vomited a wall of text into the Climate Change thread. No, I didn't bother reading it. I got four lines in before my brain just registered everything he wrote as "I AM INCREDIBLY loving STUPID." Though apparently the basis of his argument on climate change is "climate change hasn't caused any problems yet so why are we worried about it?"
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May 16, 2016 17:51
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ToxicSlurpee posted:For those of you not paying attention our lord and savior jrod just vomited a wall of text into the Climate Change thread. 
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May 16, 2016 18:05
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ToxicSlurpee posted:For those of you not paying attention our lord and savior jrod just vomited a wall of text into the Climate Change thread. I also like the part where he supports clean energy as long as it is more profitable than alternatives.
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May 16, 2016 18:19
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fight me jrode you pussy rear end coward motherfucker
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May 16, 2016 18:22
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I can probably guess but how does he feel about the externalized costs of fossil fuels?
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May 16, 2016 18:22
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OwlFancier posted:I can probably guess but how does he feel about the externalized costs of fossil fuels?
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May 16, 2016 18:23
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theshim posted:Holy poo poo he's back!! It was only a matter of time. And, of course, he's claiming he wants to "inspire discussion" or whatever his bullshit phrase is this time while slapping a wall of text up and declaring that it is 100% right so don't bother arguing. archangelwar posted:I also like the part where he supports clean energy as long as it is more profitable than alternatives. It's typical lolbertarian short-sightedness. Coal is the most profitable right now* so obviously it's the best. As it is the best right now it will always be the best. If you ignore long-term environmental effects, the disastrous effects on sea life, the increased mercury and lead levels in literally everything, and the health costs. You know, other than those minor details that don't matter all that much coal is awesome! ToxicSlurpee fucked around with this message at 18:30 on May 16, 2016 |
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May 16, 2016 18:27
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ToxicSlurpee posted:If you ignore long-term environmental effects, the disastrous effects on sea life, the increased mercury and lead levels in literally everything, and the health costs. You know, other than those minor details that don't matter all that much coal is awesome! 
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May 16, 2016 18:49
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god dammit rodimus get back in here so I can ask you your thoughts on your hero's thoughts on date rape
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May 16, 2016 18:50
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quote:On the other hand, there are some environmentalists who believe that humans are essentially a cancer on the planet and they would be happy to see the human population cut by hundreds of millions if not billions. This sounds like a great launching point to a nuanced, serious discussion.
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May 16, 2016 19:20
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Man, that post is disappointing. When he started in on the imaginary "humans are a cancer" faction I was hoping he'd get into some UN Population Control poo poo, but it's just cato graphs and bloviating. Lame.
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May 16, 2016 19:39
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quote:And there are a third type of environmentalist, which can and frequently do overlap with the first two categories, who are political ideologues whose "Green" veneer is more-or-less a smokescreen to criticize Capitalism. Advocates for free market capitalism essentially won the great debate of the twentieth century. Sure, most people still say we need to have lingering elements of socialism in the form of a "social safety net" and regulations to curb the "excesses" of Capitalism, but hardly anyone in the mainstream would dare to suggest that we need the State to own the means of production and abolish all private property. The fall of the Soviet Union was an important teaching moment for the world, which demonstrated the inherent failure of central planning. This "watermelon" poo poo is always hilarious to me, because they lay out a pretty solid argument against capitalism given the premises (i.e., if capitalism is incompatible with solving an environmental catastrophe that threatens human civilization, too bad for capitalism) and basically take it as given that if that's the conclusion then the premises must be flawed. Not just arguing that the premises are flawed per se, we just know that this is a worthless agenda by the fact that it treats capitalism as inimical to continued human civilization as we know it. eta: lol watermelon GunnerJ fucked around with this message at 13:16 on May 17, 2016 |
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May 16, 2016 19:39
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Goon Danton posted:Man, that post is disappointing. When he started in on the imaginary "humans are a cancer" faction I was hoping he'd get into some Samuel L Jackson in Kingsman poo poo, but it's just cato graphs and bloviating. Lame.
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May 16, 2016 20:18
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Also notable is his continuing inability to explain what capitalism is more efficient at, other than making more stuff into itself
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May 16, 2016 20:22
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This comes up a lot but how does he think modern large corporations work? Does he think all the different departments and employees fight each other for deliveries of stock or something?
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May 16, 2016 20:23
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OwlFancier posted:This comes up a lot but how does he think modern large corporations work? I worked* for Sears! *Note: did not actually work.
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May 16, 2016 20:27
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Stinky_Pete posted:Also notable is his continuing inability to explain what capitalism is more efficient at, other than making more stuff into itself It's just more efficient at everything because the primary motive of capitalism is profit. This means that capitalists are always looking for ways to keep costs down so obviously they're looking to reduce waste. What do you mean this ends in literal slavery?
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May 16, 2016 20:30
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theshim posted:Samuel L Jackson in Kingsman Saving the World from Environmentalist Billionaires: Review of Kingsman: The Secret Service The mises.org review is somehow even dumber than the movie.
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May 16, 2016 20:45
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ToxicSlurpee posted:What do you mean this ends in literal slavery?
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May 16, 2016 20:52
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Goon Danton posted:Saving the World from Environmentalist Billionaires: Review of Kingsman: The Secret Service
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May 16, 2016 20:57
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