Maybe this chapter concludes ironically?
General Fronto, who had been a bit disturbed and momentarily uneasy at the prospect of many slaves becoming wage workers, reflects that the Emperor Marcus Aurelius is:
"...popular. With most of the upper classes...
"And with the masses, too, for what little that latter was worth." (p. 95)
This makes Fronto optimistic:
"Fronto smiled at the future, his own and the Empire's.
"Roma aeterna victrix! he thought. Imperium sine fine! Next...Parthia. After that...who knows?" (ibid.)
Who knows indeed? Sf readers think of interplanetary expansion and colonization. But another prospect is implicit. If masses of industrial workers wield their economic power in a struggle for social and political power, then the masses are worth more than a "little" and Fronto might frown at the future of Empire...
I can read this implication in the text but cannot be sure that it is the author's intention!
21 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Of course not, Atorius has no use for nonsense like socialism, what his very long-term goal was a free-enterprise economy and a stable constitutional monarchy ruling a world unified by Rome. Also, most people are not going to care beans about "economic power."
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
You have misunderstood. I did not mean that Artorius aimed at socialism. (Can we manage without the "nonsense, please?) I meant that a large industrial working class HAS economic power and can exercise that power by collectively withdrawing its labour and eventually possibly taking control of the productive process itself.
The dynamics of economic competition and the conflicts of interest within a set of economic relationships CAN drive large numbers of people in this direction whether or not they "care beans" about economic power. As just one example, Iranian oil workers overthrew the Shah before their movement was regrettably hijacked by Muslim clerics.
Sure, Artorius wants free enterprise and a constitutional monarchy. Within that system, if he succeeds, there will be strikes and the kinds of conflicts that I describe here. To think otherwise is "nonsense" - except that I hope that we can agree not to continue using such terms?
Paul.
"
Kaor, Paul!
But I have no use for something as failed as socialism.
And I dislike this crude politicizing of everything about economics. Just let people make their living as best they can or seek wealth as best they (legally) can.
Humans being what we are, quarrelsome and strife prone, of course there's going to be disagreements and strikes in the future of the very different Rome Artorius is helping to bring about. I hope he has given some thought to this and implement means of minimizing that.
Disagree, about the Shah. He fell from power because he was a dying man unwilling to do whatever it took to stay in power. That is not the case with the current regime--because the theocracy was ruthless enough to crush all opposition to it--so far.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I have replied to all this before. Why do you have to keep saying it? I have replied endlessly about meanings of "socialism" and how often it has been tried. I am not going to do it again. What is the point?
Human beings are defined by the fact that they have cooperatively changed their environment with hands and brains and have changed themselves into rational, linguistic organisms in the process so that nothing in us is unchanging as our different kinds of social formations and historical periods show. We are not inherently quarrelsome and strife prone. That is just one aspect. Imagine if we really did quarrel and engage in strife with neighbours and within the family all the time! That does not make sense. And would not work. When I see a stranger or even someone that I dislike unconscious on the street, I call an ambulance.
Disagree about the Shah. It was workers' action that overthrew him. I do not support the present regime or your idea that Trump should bomb the country flat which (I think) even he sees as pointless or he would probably be doing it.
You apparently find some value in all this repetition about "failed socialism," "Disagree..." etc. I do not.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
It goes both ways, you keep "repeating" as well. Am I supposed to keep quiet when you say things I believe to be wrong?
Inadequate, what you said about human beings. We are all of us Fallen, flawed, imperfect, prone to strife and violence. That does not mean we are incapable of "cooperation," only that cooperation is going to be imperfect and will take bad as well as good forms.
Disagree about the Shah. Nor do I share this mysticism about those "workers." They were/are just as flawed/imperfect/fallible as everybody else.
Wrong, that is exactly what the US should do, BREAK the theocracy. The fanatical ayatollahs in Tehran will respect only force.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
It does not go both ways. This becomes childish! All that I did this time was to note the implication that a mass working class could grow in the divergent timeline and that therefore Fronto's view of the masses as of little worth might turn out to have been ironic: a subtle possible implication in the text. That was all. You misinterpreted me as thinking that Artorius intended the possible political implications of that outcome that I outlined. I know very well that Artorius could not possibly have had any such intention. And you took the opportunity to describe socialism as "nonsense." And you said further down that you "have no use for something as failed as socialism." But I was not advocating "socialism," in any sense of that word, on this occasion. But you revived the argument anyway and without acknowledging any of the many replies that I had given on many past occasions. (Don't agree, just acknowledge.) Do you genuinely not remember what has been said on the many past occasions?
You seem to have a problem with the fact that someone out here disagrees with you. If that is the case, then I am not your only problem! Neither your nor my nor anyone else's views are those of all mankind. We have to accept that, indeed rejoice in it, not say "nonsense" every time you think, wrongly in this case, that something called "socialism" is being advocated.
If I DO say something that you disagree with, then please do not reply word for word as you have done before which can only result in me counter-replying word for word as I have done before. How many times have we done this now?
I have to reply to each point in turn so it might take a few comments to get through it all but I hope that we can then wrap this up somehow instead of just go on in the same words forever.
Paul.
The Roman Empire in the 160's CE had about 14% of its population urbanized -- which was a record not matched until the 19th century. But big cities then had negative population growth.
Sean,
I am now replying to the rest of your comment and we have been through it all before!
The evidence is that we have not Fallen from a sinless state but have evolved and risen from animality. Your view is not just inadequate but factually wrong. You keep saying that we are flawed, imperfect, prone to strife and violence. I have given innumerable replies to this. How long do you want us to keep doing this?
Disagree about the Shah. (Can we stop just saying "Disagree"?) If the Iranian working class, crucially including the oil workers, did not overthrow him, then who did?
I am not "mystical" about workers! How on Earth did "mysticism" come into it? Industrial workers are collectively organized by their work process. They have the economic power to strike, to cut off the source of profit. They have the additional power to re-occupy their work places and to reorganize their own productive activities for cooperative social need instead of for competitive private profit. This is a material, not a mystical, fact about workers.
WRONG. It is morally wrong to bombard a country, its infrastructure and its population, and you would condemn it as monstrous if your political opponents (Maoists, jihadists etc) did it.
Surely this exchange is being conducted in way over the top terms? IF it is to continue, would it not be more appropriate by email instead of in the combox of a blog?
Paul.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: And the Antonine Plague of our history severely affected the population of the Empire. Fewer laborers for agriculture and fewer recruits for the legions. Which made the struggle with the Marcomanni even harder for Marcus Aurelius.
Paul: Deadlock and impasse. We will have to agree to end this discussion.
Ad astra! Sean
BTW, Romans (both aristos and merchants) were profit-oriented. There was an arc of investing in land by successful merchants because that was the safest form of holding, but limited-liability corporations will change that.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Good! I'm all for as much variety in economics and finance as possible. I have stock investments both in and out of an IRA.
Ad astra! Sean
Limited-liability corporations are important because they reduce the -risk- of investments substantially -- you can take more chances when you're only liable for the extent of your investment, not all your property.
It's an inspired concept, though it also has a negative side. But it makes it possible to mobilize capital that would otherwise be spent bidding up the price of land.
Josephus and his relatives discuss this.
Of course, you still have to judge where to put your money if you don't want to lose your investment.
What the Americans are doing is essentially removing the "blocking factors" that limited the Roman Empire's economic expansion, which reached its peak about that time (the 160's CE).
Reducing prices (for cloth and then metals, in the first instance) and reducing transport costs (by better ships and harness and canals) amplify the potential for specialization, and that's an important factor. So do things like introducing windmills, and more uses for watermills.
The Roman Empire had a degree of urbanization and specialization (mass-production of pottery, for example) that was not reached again until the 18th century, because it had an enormous free-trade area, but it was bumping up against the physical constraints by Marcus Aurelius' time.
Not to mention that urbanization and free travel increased the likelihood of plagues.
Introducing quarantine decreases that, of course.
In the later 18th century, those stopped a lot of plagues in Europe, and it's better-informed in Artorius' Rome.
BTW, so does introducing the scientific method.
The Greeks came -close- to that, but didn't quite make it, probably for worldview reasons.
When it was introduced, it hit Europe with the strength of a revelation among intellectuals, and 'spun off' into more invention among artisans and so forth.
For example, steam engines were mostly developed by artisans and businessmen, but they depended on two centuries of research into atmospheric pressure. Which had been prompted by pure scientific curiosity.
That's reinforced in Artorius' Rome by putting telescopes and microscopes and better math in people's hands. That piles up evidence.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Correct, investing in limited liability companies minimizes my risk of loss to whatever I put into them. A modest loss is tolerable but if a firm I invested in succeeds it might pay off far more than what I put into it. And so on for all the other technological/economic innovations introduced by Artorius.
The Greeks never achieved a true science, I agree, due to unsatisfactory world views. I recall Galen's schadenfreude over how heliocentric astronomy was deeply upsetting to the fine- spun woolly minded theorizers in Athens and Alexandria!
Ad astra! Sean
I think I mentioned riots in Athens and Alexandria when heliocentric astronomy was introduced, with irrefutable proof via telescopes.
The Plague of Galen does kill a significant number of people -- half a million. But it doesn't kill a quarter to a third of the Roman Empire's population, as it did in our history.
And it ravages Parthia.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
You did, re those riots in Athens/Alexandria! Galen didn't like the narrow-minded pedants of those cities, so he took a somewhat regrettably malicious pleasure in their discomfiture. (Laughs)
Half a million dying of smallpox was horrendous, but vastly better than 25 percent to one third of the entire population of the Empire perishing like that.
Parthia was not so lucky, as you said. The smallpox plague must have been esp. bad in Mesopotamia, densely populated as it was.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: Yeah, before the discovery of germs, dense populations were an invitation to bad plagues. There was a 'natural limit' on how high populations could get.
From the Iron Age, for example, the population of England ranged between 1.5 million and 4-5 million, until the 18th century, when the limit got blown off by innovations in agriculture.
But big cities were population sinks until the 19th-century innovations in sewage disposal and fresh water supply.
Practical people (as opposed to theorists) had always known that sewage was dangerous, and that fresh water was good for you.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
England/Wales reached one of those highs in population by the 1340's--only to be devastated by the bubonic plague arriving there by 1348. As much as 40% of the population died of the Plague by 1351.
It took really bad cholera outbreaks and the Great Stink to finally force the UK to get serious about modernizing sewage/water managing. Then London finally started no longer being such a death trap.
Absolutely, what you said about water.
Ad astra! Sean
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