The last secession was in 287 BC. Why were there not secessions after it? The reason has to do with the growth of the Roman Empire. Rome’s conquests really went into overdrive after that and they conquered many kingdoms. Along with those conquests, there came a lot of slaves. This totally changed the dynamics. After a while, the wealthy depended not on their poor fellow Romans to farm or make goods, but on slaves. Now it did not matter if the plebes didn’t not show up.
I fear that globalization may have served the same function in the United States. The wealthy don’t depend on their poor fellow Americans to provide goods for them and work for them. They depend on good produced oversees and even for domestic production on immigrant labor(look at who gets employed in fame labor or domestic help). They have an alternative to their fellow poor Americans.
Now, a strike in the US has a good chance of resulting not in long term employee benefits like it did before, but in the plant being moved oversees.
Unfortunately, this has bad consequences. When the relatively peaceful secession was no longer an option, Rome devolved into outright violence in the Roman Revolutions which saw demagogues and authoritarians mobilize the disaffected poor to kill their enemies and establish their power. When it all ended with the ascension of Augustus in AD 31, Rome was a republic in name only, but in reality a military dictatorship. And the people were generally happy with it because it brought peace after decades of violence and bloodshed.
I hope our democracies can find a better solution to the issues of wealth inequality, before this story happens to us too.
> After a while, the wealthy depended not on their poor fellow Romans to farm or make goods, but on slaves. Now it did not matter if the plebes didn’t not show up.
Also small landholders and artisans in Italy could not compete with large latifundia [1] and manufactures using 'free' slave labour and cheap grain from Egypt and cheap financing (gold from conquests). The Roman conquest had been financed by the state but the spoils benefitted mostly wealthy citizens (tax farming in provinces).
But plebs still had voting rights and every year there were held elections on Mars Fields and keeping the apperances of democracy was important for Roman Republic (also during the what we know as Imperial period). So the giveway of food and coin and entertainment to citizens had became a new norm.[2]
>The last secession was in 287 BC. Why were there not secessions after it?
The wikipedia article concludes that the final law
"eliminated the political disparity between the two classes" so I am asking(not contradicting you because I don't have the knowledge) if your conclusion is based on something solid or just your own guess? I am not convinced about your agument.
Secessio plebis could be compared to XVIII century emancipation of middle class. It was a struggle between hereditary wealthy (aristocracy) vs acquired wealth of middle classses. Like American revolution and similiar emancipation in England and Europe.
Both sides were relativly wealthy people but birth rights were giving them unequal status.
So not really a conflict between rich and poor. But of course populist side claimed tactical class solidarity with city's poor people. Later on bipartisan system of optimates and populari stayed for years but the division lost its practical meaning.
I am not sure if you added any more information then in the article, nothing that would help me believe that slavery is the thing that ended secessio plebis.
> nothing that would help me believe that slavery is the thing that ended secessio plebis.
It's like saying that steam machine and industrial revolution bancrupted landowning class and abolished serfdom in Eastern Europe in XIX century.. It is perhaps true but it is also complex, multidimensional dynamics.
This is a tempting explanation, but other developed countries still have powerful labour movements and the ability to take collective action, despite a similar level of dependence on Chinese imports. I'm thinking particularly of France with both the gilets jaunes movenent and its frequent strikes, though it's true that those are more common in service industries and the public sector than in manufacturing.
For better or worse, Americans have long identified more with businessmen and less with the working poor than their counterparts in the rest of the West. At least back to the 1920s and the quip about "temporarily embarrassed millionaires".
Was the French yellow vest movement really a labor movement? Their grievances were more about government taxes and economic policies rather than wages and working conditions. Many of the protesters weren't employees but rather farmers and small business owners.
Also worth mentioning was the consolidation of small free-held farms into large estates held by senators and run by slaves.
This consolidation was partially driven by war debts; Roman citizens accrued debts during the wars of conquest, while the generals won the spoils with which they could purchase the land of indebted citizen farmers. It was also driven by economies of scale; the larger estates were more efficient, had lower costs of operation, and had the market contacts to grow the crops that generated the best profit when shipped.
Of course this means Italy basically stopped making food when senators could sell oil at higher margins, and began to depend on Sicily and Egypt to produce the grain for Rome, with the latter eventually becoming the personal property of the emperor. This would cause serious problems later, but the senators profiting neither knew nor cared.
> Nexum was a debt bondage contract in the early Roman Republic. Within the Roman legal system, it was a form of mancipatio. Though the terms of the contract would vary, essentially a free man pledged himself as a bond slave (nexus) as surety for a loan. He might also hand over his son as collateral. Although the bondsman might be subjected to humiliation and abuse, as a legal citizen he was supposed to be exempt from corporal punishment. Nexum was abolished by the Lex Poetelia Papiria in 326 BC, in part to prevent abuses to the physical integrity of citizens who had fallen into debt bondage.[26]
>This would cause serious problems later, but the senators profiting neither knew nor cared. //
Strikes me that this is about comparative level of development. As long as large inequalities exist then richer countries can feed off the labour of less developed countries. When those countries develop sufficiently they can't be [ab]used in that way.
This is a big issue in UK at the moment as we've kicked out loud of foreign workers, and now have harvest locally produced food, in part because farmers won't pay wages at UK subsistence levels.
> and began to depend on Sicily and Egypt to produce the grain for Rome
Later in the fourth century there were lots of shenanigans around securing the grain supply for the capital which in that period had shifted to north africa. I don't think we can rule out soil degradation as the reason for the shifts in the productive regions across ancient history, like how Paestum turned into a swamp due to soil erosion.
I agree. The service industry seems like the last bastion of connection between the haves and have-nots. However, the more we automate the more control we transfer away from unions and society generally.
> I hope our democracies can find a better solution to the issues of wealth inequality, before this story happens to us too.
Do you see any chance for revolution in United States? People are too meek, too intimidated and cleverly divided by ruling class in my opinion. And people with mortgage do not do revolutions.
Christopher Hitchens called America "the last revolution that stands a chance." So I certainly hope so. The problem is the same systems that are weakening us have extended tendrils across the world, so there is no where to run to. I think it will be interesting to see if the human spirit is able to rise up against the already partially here but ever increasing technetronic dystopia.
There's also the viciousness with which strikes are broken in the USA. We are no longer in the era of Pinkertons [0], exactly, but Reagan still fired the air traffic controllers [1].
Striking by government employees was made illegal with good reason. If you're willing to strike you must be willing to do so under the real risk of being fired. It's a scorched earth tactic entirely equivalent to your employer withholding your pay without you having broken the contract.
Let me fix that for you: If you're willing to strike, you must be willing to do so under the real risk of being murdered [0]. If you're new to this history, the Coal Wars [1] are a good starting point.
Don't you have the concept of legal and illegal strikes? In most European countries striking is alive and well, but not for willy-nilly reasons. There exist a specific framework for strikes.
Right, the strike mentioned by the post above mine was illegal. But additionally striking is ultimately a negotiation tactic. Scheduled legal strikes are like demonstrations in which workers make a show of their bargaining power to the employer, but prolonged strikes which cause massive losses of revenue for the business are a scorched earth negotiation tactic and those engaging it should expect a proportionate response.
I mean, you will probably have to FORCE the employer to do something, so yeah, surprise - people do actual strikes that hurt the employers' profits,and that's the only reason anything gets done. "Scheduled legal strikes that are like demonstrations of bargaining power" only hold their meaning if you are ready to follow with a real strike if not taken seriously. Else, it's just begging the employer to show a kind heart.
Well, a big part of not most of the plebs in the city of Rome literally lived off handouts from their patrons. They also got free grain from Egypt. They definitely benefited from the conquests and willingly participated in them for the spoils of war.
I'm not saying you are not right, but it is a too broad generalization to be useful, especially as the imperial expansion phase took more time than the entire history of the US.
This exists in modern American history as well under the term ‘solidarity’. For example, in the 50s if the teachers union went on strike, so did bus drivers. It made labor movements strong.
We’re far from that type of world now. If you take the recent issues at Amazon, we had an isolated case of solidarity with one tech engineer backing up warehouse workers. That won’t get it done.
The general public, in it’s vastness, ironically, vastly underestimates it’s power. All it takes is for us to stop going to movies, restaurants, flights, etc , and suddenly we are not powerless against any industry.
The rest of Amazon does not backup the warehouse workers. It is something to think about, we all play a part. Lack of solidarity is one of the most disheartening developments of our present.
I have a sense part of that is the "Oh Dearism" - we just watch sad news each day and it makes us think all that can be done is say "oh dear" - reflected in this short video by Adam Curtis - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8moePxHpvok (also featuring Charlie Brooker, creator of Black Mirror)
Just for your interest inspired by the "secessio plebis" there was an initiative (failed) against Mussolini's government in 1924, after the killing of Giacomo Matteotti:
It’s worth noting that we’re talking about very early days here— Rome was still just a regional power on the Italian peninsula, not the Mediterranean-spanning empire we think of today. Also bear in mind that most of these reported incidents happened before 387 BC, when Rome was sacked and most historical records were destroyed. Events before this date are often more legend than fact.
Roman culture changed a great deal over its thousand-year span, but most of those (that we know of) came under the later empire, as foreign cultures got folded in. To later-day romans, this period is one they looked back at as the “brave days of old”, when all men were honourable, honest, hardworking, patriotic, that old refrain. Needless to say, history from this period tended to get embellished.
The reason for so few successions is likely because it was a nuclear option. Getting an entire city of (very poor) middle and lower class citizens to close up shop and camp out on a hillside in solidarity is a massive undertaking, and even then it probably only worked because of Rome’s militaristic nature and then-lack of a professional army— when the citizens march off, well, that’s all your legions. Let’s hope the Etruscans don’t notice.
A final thing to note is that these successions were usually resolved with landmark constitutional changes. These were huge concessions, like the creation of the powerful office of tribune, or the outlandish idea of requiring of Rome’s laws to be written down publicly (the horror!). Successions were a Big Deal.
HN would be pretty cluttered if everyone thanked everyone else for their contributions but I saw your account is only 3 hours old, so (1) thank you and also (2) Welcome!
Rome was probably one of the most conservative societies that existed. Even when they did changes, they tried to cloak it in tradition. Part of why Augustus was so successful was that he pretended that he was restoring the Republic and he took no new titles for himself and “consulted” the Senate on everything.
It just takes the plebes a few generations to get riled up and protest. Boiling frogs and all that.
And there are loads of books on Roman culture - interesting reading of you have the time - and the empire was vastly different across the whole area of influence.
Edward Gibbon does not concern himself much with the republican era, when the secessio plebis occurred. As his title foretells, he concerns himself mostly with the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (not its rise). Thus he begins after the five good emperors, i.e. Commodus, as a pinpoint from whence the decline begins in earnest.
He reflects on earlier terrible emperors, like Nero and Caligula, and contends that even though terrible, they were nowhere near as terrible as Commodus, nor did their behaviour have lasting influence on later emperors, hence the five good emperors following them.
Gibbon suffers in perspective from the era he was writing in, late Renaissance Enlightenment era, where blaming the church was a recurring theme. He lays heavily blame on Christianity for the collapse of the Roman Empire, and downplays the church's official perspective on the persecution of Christians before the Empire became Christian.
While I can heavily recommend his work, I also strongly advise people to view Gibbon through the lens of when he was writing. Gibbon's usage of original sources and footnotes makes him a founder of modern historical sciences. And in that regard, his work is incredible. But as another commenter said, we have learnt a lot about ancient Rome since the 1770s.
Caesar’s dynasty had so many bad apples in it. I can see how one could bucket them into ‘psychologically rotten’ (even by Roman standards) and call it a day.
This is a myth[1]. Not being true doesn't make the idea wrong, but it is not a metaphor rooted in reality.
>While some 19th-century experiments suggested that the underlying premise is true if the heating is sufficiently gradual, according to contemporary biologists the premise is false: a frog that is gradually heated will jump out.
I have not read it, but I believe that whilst a seminal work that modern scholars draw a great deal from, it is neither the entry point for the casual reader, nor is it the latest thinking on many parts.
Can I recommend 'SPQR' by the wonderful Mary Beard as a better entry point.
I actually did not like SPQR, though I concede it may be a better introduction to someone who otherwise knows nothing. I found it too informed by 21st century perspectives, too set on telling me what to think, and uninteresting for that reason.
But, I know the subject material better than the average reader, and there is no single older work I can think of that covers the same time period. Gibbon's Decline and Fall is really much broader than Rome: he covers the Empire all the way to shortly after 1453, and not just Rome as such, but the broader theater of Europe and the East. But it does not cover the Republic or the early Empire. Gibbon surely is guilty of some anti-religious bias (which he confines, for the most part, to a single chapter), and there are a few things we have learned through later archeological research - but not much that would be of interest to a general reader - and a few things he did just get plain wrong. But as a whole, the work still stands tremendously, and for a non-academic historian, there's nothing wrong with it - except that in this case, you're not getting the whole history of Rome.
I actually think its a great read for a casual reader, as long as they're looking for a history of the time period specified. It is long, not dry at all, and the style is very refreshing. But for the earlier history of Rome, I'd do what Gibbon did for his work: go to the primary sources. Read Livy, Plutarch, Caesar, and the like. Read the Romans as they presented themselves, without anyone else interpreting it for you, or putting any kind of lens in front of you. To be sure, all the Roman writers had biases too, and where history gets hazy, they are sometimes much more eager than a modern writer would be to plunge into myth - though they are usually willing to say so, and often present interpretations of what they think actually happened. To be sure, there will be a lot of things we never know, things there can never be any evidence for aside from stories. But if nothing else, it adds color.
I've also found that modern academics are far too skeptical for my taste, and too ready to take absence of evidence as evidence of absence; generally too ready to deem myth as having no basis in reality whatever, improbable stories as impossible, unlikely ones as highly improbable, and even entirely plausible ones as exaggerated or unlikely, if any historian has lately, in need of making a career and publishing papers, an axe to grind against it. Half of any modern academic history nowadays seems dedicated to sneering at the gullibility of earlier historians. To be fair, maybe this isn't a new trend, only an old one refined to new heights - I recall a passage in Decline and Fall where contemporary writers were shocked at the numbers involved in the Goth migration, and suddenly realized that maybe accounts of army size in the Persian War weren't so crazy after all.
I don't know. Maybe the best thing for someone unfamiliar altogether with it all is to read SPQR, then, if they are still interested, read Gibbon and the more popular and accessible primary sources.
Agreed on all accounts, especially the importance of reading historical books from the past (I.e. books on history that were written 50-100-300 years ago). Modern culture, including academia, is permeated by a particular type of thinking, one that is extremely shallow and historically ignorant in terms of the history of thought, or ways of thinking. The past is indeed a foreign country, but we (Western) moderns don’t seem to understand this when discussing previous times and civilizations.
Roman culture was initially just Greek culture, and Greek culture would remain a heavy influence on Rome throughout its existence. Hence why we refer to it as Greco-Roman in a historical context.
These "general strikes" are but one way that the conflict between the plebeian and patrician classes manifested itself. A central pillar in Roman society, it persisted long into the imperial era, but since by the time of Augustus, the powers of the Senate and the Tribunes (which still existed) were evaporated, the conflicts weren't as dramatic as the republican ones.
You can counter-argue your static culture question with since the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the rise of capitalism in the 18th century, Western Europe maintained the same economical structure (i.e. feudalism); was European culture pretty static for a very long time?
History is a lot more complicated than that. If one only focuses on one aspect, then similar events may crop up occasionally, making one think people did not change much over long time spans. But sometimes re-introducing old protests can be a way of honouring one's ancestors as well as inspiration for a solution to one's new conflict.
> Roman culture was initially just Greek culture, and Greek culture would remain a heavy influence on Rome throughout its existence. Hence why we refer to it as Greco-Roman in a historical context.
This is about as accurate as describing the culture of the Abbasid Caliphate as Persian. They were Arabs whose high culture was deeply informed by Persian culture, not Persians. In the same way the Romans were not Greeks, any more than the Carthaginians and other Phoenicians were. Their language was different. Their political culture was somewhat outside of the Greek mainstream. They were more liberal in regards to women’s social role than the Greeks. Their cultural production was pitiful compared to the Greeks’.
The Romans stand in a similar relation to the Greeks as the English to the Romance speaking Western Christian world. Nothing about them makes sense without reference to the other but they’re very different.
While a statement in the brief that certainly leaves a lot of details omitted, you are of course correct; as the main gist is the same as yours; their cultural production was pitiful. Romans admired the Greeks when it came to culture, and adopted as much as they could. Incorporating other culture's gods into their own pantheon was a common occurrence for Romans, they were not afraid of other cultures.
There is still some historical debate over whether the Romans who founded Rome were actually Greeks (which they were according to their own legend), that simply adopted the local language from the local Latins, and then conquered them. Or whether they were their own unique tribe in central Italy, and not a foreign invader. I am honestly not sure what the historical consensus is these days.
Kind of embarrassing that I confused Trojans with Greeks for a brief moment there. Since the Roman legend of descending from Trojans is about making them distinct from the Greeks, yet having a prestigious origin story. Not sure whether it is actually true.
A similar popular revolt to these secessii plebies took place in Industrial Revolution - era England in the years before 1832. The districts -- called boroughs -- were laid out according to agrarian-culture history instead of population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Act_1832
The United States presently has a similar imbalance of political power between states with large cities and more rural states.
These sorts of imbalances can lead to instability.
Until a vaccine is found for the virus, I think states will next begin limiting interstate travel. Or at least forcing a two-week quarantine on incoming visitors, like what Hawaii has done.
These states, or cluster of adjacent states, can effectively become their own operating government.
If the next door state has the virus running rampant, because they did a terrible job with their quarantine, then so be it. They will get travel restrictions from freely entering.
The interesting thing is, this scenario puts these cluster of states into positions of independence. The only thing missing, is to declare their own currency. At which point, the federation government will declare war.
Maybe it's just me, but generally I would expect a higher level of competence from the leaders of our public and private institutions, than "throw bodies and money at the fire" would imply. If there had been any sort of long term planning or disaster preparedness, we wouldn't be forced to choose between our personal wellbeing and the continued operation of our economy. Unfortunately, that long term thinking fell outside the scope of next quarter's earnings. The fact of the matter is, the emperor has no clothes.
> generally I would expect a higher level of competence from the leaders of our public...institutions
Speaking from the American perspective, I think people broadly assume a level of competence in elected leaders but either aren't able or simply don't care to seek out and identify leaders who meet the standard. There are a lot of factors in play here - time, attention span, media, political polarization, etc - but at the core it feels like there are huge numbers of voters today who simply don't appreciate how hard it actually is to do these jobs well.
There's a quote from the West Wing that sums this up pretty nicely:
"Yeah, but a funny thing happened when the White House got demystified. The impression was left that anybody could do it."
> there are huge numbers of voters today who simply don't appreciate how hard it actually is to do these jobs well.
I would put it a bit differently: there are huge numbers of voters today who simply don't appreciate that nobody can do these jobs well. Not with the expectations voters currently have of them. The solution is to lower expectations: stop demanding that the government solve all problems, and limit it to the few proper functions that it can actually perform decently.
> limit it to the few proper functions that it can actually perform decently.
I have many thoughts on this subject and HN isn't really the best venue in which to articulate them, so let me just say this: in democracies, people tend to get all the government they deserve.
An engaged electorate which values competent administration, interrogates candidates on their qualifications, and votes according to merit will probably get a highly effective - though perhaps mildly sociopathic - government.
An apathetic electorate which dismisses qualifications, abhors nuance, demands ideological purity, and votes (or doesn't!) emotionally, well...
> An engaged electorate which values competent administration, interrogates candidates on their qualifications, and votes according to merit will probably get a highly effective - though perhaps mildly sociopathic - government.
Can you give any actual historical examples of this state of affairs?
> Depends on your definition of "high functioning" and "democracies", I guess.
Well, let's take Denmark for example.
They typically record more than 80% participation in elections; they score 9.22 out of 10 in The Economist's democracy index (7th globally); they score 1.87 out of 2.5 on the World Bank's government effectiveness index (also 7th); and the population consistently views their government favorably and reports high levels of satisfaction in their personal lives.
I'm not really sure that there's any other more closely fitting definition of a "high functioning democracy" than one in which the population is repeatedly shown to be prosperous, happy, and broadly engaged.
None of those organizations (or even state governments for that matter) have a large amount of resources, either through direct taxation or money printing. I'm all for advocating decentralization, but it's only a solution if DC stops sucking most of the resources upwards and squandering them.
> If there had been any sort of long term planning or disaster preparedness.
Any politician that would have said "hey, we need to prepare for a global pandemic" would have been a laughing stock. Bill Gates knew (see ted talk), the rest of us didn't.
I think the only teacher we accept is a pandemic itself. Therefore I'm very happy it's Covid19 and not something worse.
Let's hope we learned our lesson and are prepared next time.
Sure, but let's be honest here: nobody cared. I know I didn't care, and my neighbors and friends didn't care. And we are the ones voting for people to govern our country.
Nobody cares until shit hits the fan.
And the above theory complies with practice. If you look at the countries that were able to properly handle Covid19, they had similar cases before. The people over there were already wearing masks. Not because they are smarter, but they were just always closes to the action.
I know myself (=male ;)): I don't learn from somebody telling me something. I learn by hitting my head against the wall, and then say "hey this person was right, let's avoid doing that". The rest of the world seems to have the same strategy.
Just my observation.
But you are right that other people looked into it, but I just have the impression that most of us really didn't care (including myself)
>But you are right that other people looked into it, but I just have the impression that most of us really didn't care (including myself)
I'm with you about not caring enough about pandemics before. But this is where bureaucracy can shine: hire somebody whose entire job is to care about a niche thing. They usually don't need a huge budget to get a good foundational plan set up: one person, a computer, a phone, and proper security clearance.
One of the problems with the current administration isn't that they value some things less, but they have a drive to undo their predecessors' work.
In the case of Trump, my impression is he purposefully set out to undo anything Obama had done as some sort of weird, childish, vendetta. That aside, in general though I think these things happen because rulers are looking to reduce taxation for the rich, and things like "pandemic response team" are pretty well hidden from public view, and can usually blagged ("we kept 10 million face masks as an emergency reserve" fading to mention that's a day's worth, say, or that they were out of date, or not the right type of mask).
It's not just the politicians though: the private sector deserves just as much of the blame. Watching this unfold from inside BigCorp has been truly eye opening. In a company of 100k people, nobody thought about preparedness or risk management. Instead, BigCorp bought its own stock on margin, and now it has to throw thousands of human beings at a worsening viral pandemic in order to generate cashflow. People are going to die so that the company can stay in business.
I have to say, my opinion of Elon Musk has lowered as a result of how he's handling this situation. If he can't get things sorted here on Earth with regards to a pandemic response, how is it going to work out in 10 years when he has a Mars colony to govern? Is there even any plan for how a Mars society is going to proceed in these conditions?
I guess its time to dust off the ol' Zubrin material and catch up with where things are these days, vis a vis the human factors of a Mars colony, but the seriously feudal rants of Musk lately are disheartening to say the least ..
I don't know if you are running your own business, but it's just so hard to take into account all kinds of possible risks. It's just impossible to work like that. Most of the time you gamble which resources to put where. Else you end up in analysis paralysis.
We're talking about very large businesses. Risk analysts should have been anticipating a pandemic given the several near-misses (Ebola, SARS, MERS, H1N1, ...) that we've had recently. If you're a large business that risk is going to be significant enough to consider.
When I took family holiday insurance in early January, I had to check that pandemics were covered, and they were specifically mentioned. So I'd expect them to be a general part of risk analysis.
A pandemic that's covered by insurance is a massive risk for an insurance company, so it's always going to be a paragraph in business insurance, I'd expect. Which should raise the question, "as this can't be insured against, for us, what's our contingency".
> I think the only teacher we accept is a pandemic itself.
It does seem that way.
> Therefore I'm very happy it's Covid19 and not something worse.
That's a truism, I suppose. But it's perhaps too early to conclude that it won't become much worse.
> Let's hope we learned our lesson and are prepared next time.
Sure. But the requisite changes might be more than people will accept. Such as traveler quarantines, and other restrictions on international air travel.
In 2005 President George W. Bush clearly stated that we needed to prepare for a global pandemic. No one laughed at him for that.
There are some strains of avian flu that cause a ~50% fatality rate in humans. Those aren't very transmissible between humans, but a mutation could change that.
I don't know why anyone expects competence from public elected officials who just collectively represent our own stupidity since they're elected by the general population.
I fear that globalization may have served the same function in the United States. The wealthy don’t depend on their poor fellow Americans to provide goods for them and work for them. They depend on good produced oversees and even for domestic production on immigrant labor(look at who gets employed in fame labor or domestic help). They have an alternative to their fellow poor Americans.
Now, a strike in the US has a good chance of resulting not in long term employee benefits like it did before, but in the plant being moved oversees.
Unfortunately, this has bad consequences. When the relatively peaceful secession was no longer an option, Rome devolved into outright violence in the Roman Revolutions which saw demagogues and authoritarians mobilize the disaffected poor to kill their enemies and establish their power. When it all ended with the ascension of Augustus in AD 31, Rome was a republic in name only, but in reality a military dictatorship. And the people were generally happy with it because it brought peace after decades of violence and bloodshed.
I hope our democracies can find a better solution to the issues of wealth inequality, before this story happens to us too.