The Slow Fall of The American Empire
.
Emperor Joe Biden being assassinated in the Roman Senate. History always rhymes!
All Empires follow the same trajectory, although each has its peculiar twists and bumps. The American Empire is gradually crossing the Seneca peak, and it will eventually collapse rapidly, much faster than the ancient Roman Empire. However, it will still take decades before we see the last American Emperor resign his crown to the reborn Federation of the Five Civilized Tribes.
I wrote several comparisons between the Roman Empire and the American Empire during these troubled times. In 2016, for instance, I compared Donald Trump to Emperor Hadrian, noting how both tried to avoid overstretching a declining empire's limited military forces. But, as always, the comparison works in some respects and not in others.
The way I see the comparison today is that Trump is not the equivalent of a Roman Emperor. He lacks the hallmark characteristic of Roman Emperors, which was to be, first of all, military commanders. Rather, Trump is playing the role of the Gracchi brothers in Republican times in Rome, during the 2nd Century BCE. They were not emperors; they were “plebeian tribunes” supposed to represent the people in a state that was, theoretically, still a democratic republic.
The two brothers, Tiberius and Gaius, tried to redistribute public land to landless citizens, limiting the amount of land an individual could own to prevent the concentration of wealth. They tried to reduce the cost of the many military adventures that the Roman State was involved with.
However, their actions were not liked by the Roman Elites (whom we would call today the “Deep State.”) Despite initial support from the populace, Tiberius was killed in 133 BCE by a mob of senators. Gaius tried to continue his brother’s work, but he was forced to order a slave to kill him in 121 BCE, when he was overwhelmed by Senate forces.
The Gracchi Brothers understood the ultimate destiny of the Roman State much earlier than anyone else. Too early, because Rome remained a giant military machine for some two centuries after their death. It was only with the time of Hadrian (ruling from 117 to 138 CE) that the Roman State finally came to terms with the fact that it could not keep fighting everybody and everything forever. But, by that time, it had already devoured itself, it had exhausted its resources, and collapse was unavoidable.
In many ways, Trump is a “Tribune of the People,” even though we call him “populist.” In other words, like the Gracchi, he draws his legitimacy from the will of the people. A consequence is that he needs to do something for the people who support him (whether he’ll be doing the right things is another matter), for instance, stopping the state’s military adventures overseas. That is, obviously, anathema to the elites, who draw their legitimacy from a Divine Power called “Dollar,” which, in turn, they draw from their global military power. They see the people mostly as a nuisance that they can’t yet get rid of (but they are surely working at that).
But they can surely get rid of Trump one way or another, and the attempted assassination of a few days ago is eerily similar to the destiny of the Gracchi brothers. Trump escaped death this time, but whether he will survive for long is another story.
Eventually, it doesn’t matter so much. As Tolstoy is reported to have said, “A King is merely a slave of history.” No matter what the king does or does not do, history is a giant wheel that rolls onward, and if someone is squashed along the path, such is the way the universe works.
When looking for parallels between the Roman Republic and the US Republic, I think the Roman pair that most resembles Biden-Trump is Cicero-Clodius. Cicero was a “novus homo” (non-patrician) defending the cause of the “optimates” (patricians) while Clodius was a patrician representing the plebeians. In the same way, Trump, born into an upper bourgeoisie family and himself a wealthy bussinesman, presents himself as a representative of the hard working people, while Biden, born into a lower-middle class family, is today the embodiment of stablisment.
In reality, neither Trump nor Biden question the American plutocracy, just as neither Cicero nor Clodius questioned the Roman oligarchy.
Finally, it should be noted that the examples Professor Bardi presents, like the ones I present, correspond to the Roman Republic, not the Empire. If the trajectory of the United States were similar to the Roman one, we would expect a civil war in which the winner would become emperor. But history, although it rhymes, doesn't repeat itself. Among other things, the Roman state had no worthy competitors at the time, while the United States certainly does have enemies who can replace it in world leadership.
In his book “...and forgive them their debts”, Michael Hudson explains how Mesopotamian kings used to periodically cancel all their subjects' agrarian debts. The aim was primarily to avoid the steady concentration of lands in the hands of a small group of plutocrats who could threaten the king power. (He even formulate the theory that Jesus was called "king of the Jews" because he somehow advocated for such an ancestral royal right and was killed because it evidently went against the interests of the pro-Roman local elites of the time).
And indeed, further West, it seems the Greeks tried a couple of times but the Romans never adopted the custom. Still, the political history of the Republic was all about the establishment of a plutocratic slave-powered latifundista system at the expense of the small landowner citizenry, and its social and military consequences.
And it's not so different from what's happening today in our so-called democracies.
To the point that Julius Cesar always pretended he was fighting to preserve the Republic. Until his political opponents killed him pretending that was the only option to save it. We know how it ended.