The Roman Empire was capitalist
The link above goes to an incredibly rambling article by Richard Carrier. Since I can´t find his book on the subject right now (I have it somewhere in my well-stacked private book collection, well, I think!), I might as well link to said article, for all its worth.
Carrier´s main point is that the Early Roman Empire was "capitalist" and in general much more advanced than modern scholarship have usually given it credit for (until at least the 1990´s). For instance, the Romans had banks, machines, a kind of industries, and a relatively sophisticated science. Nor did aristocrats look down on artisans or money-making enterprises, with the possible exception of some grumpy old men.
Carrier also attacks the idea that the Roman Republic was merely defending itself against other polities and hence ended up having an empire almost by mistake!
Well, that one *is* hard to believe...
The deeper point, not seen so much in this piece, is that Christianity destroyed it all, etc etc. But that´s another show, as they say.
Of course, if you believe in a simplistic historical schema of "progress" or "slave society - feudalism - capitalism - socialism", I suppose the capitalistic character of the Roman Empire is something of a problem.
And if you don´t, you don´t.
No comments:
Post a Comment