And if you really want to boil it down to a single reason, the best candidate would be "becoming militarily dependent on hired mercenaries and then not paying them" rather than something more interesting
Another, related view is to look at how many was on the dole. During the late empire, around 20% of the population in Rome was effectively on welfare, getting food from the state.
Instead of drafting these poeple into the empire, Rome recruited foreigners for the army, while the productivity of the domestic population kept going down. Eventually the state, needing to pay both the welfare receipients and the army, ran out of economic capacity to provide for both groups. Stopping the dole was if possible more dangerous short term than not paying the provicial armies, since the proletariat in Rome/Constantinople could riot instantly, and overthrow any emperor.
Wasn't the dole only implemented because land ownership had concentrated to a few extremely wealthy individuals? Only a few generations earlier, during the Second Punic War many landowners had either died or had their farms ruined to deny food to Hannibal, allowing the land to be bought at low prices.
Combined with massive influx of slaves from Gaul and other places making latin farm laborers too expensive.
Still, the effect is the same. A large proletariat with very little income demanding to be fed by the state. With significant political power, based on making up a large percentage of the population in the capital.
The problem with many of those argument is that the source base to draw such wide conclusion is really bad. And while we have some comments on some things in some regions, to make wider conclusions about economics for the empire as a whole is really tricky business.
Is that actually a useful correlation? Subsidized grain was a very prominent feature of the early empire. I'd be surprised if the late empire had a significantly larger proportion on it.
Early on, the dole was just grain. During the late empire, it was replaced by bread, wine, olive oil and pork. So clearly the costs were rising as the empire was approaching its end.
What effect the dole had on the economy seems to be somewhat disputed. Clearly, far-left/marxist academics will want to downplay any effect and liberterian/right wing academics will probably overstate the effect.
Descriptively, it is a fact that inflation started to become a big problem not long after Marcus Aurelius added wine and pork to the dole.
Clearly, there were other factors involved, especially corruption. In fact, I think all factors were contributing to the same net effect, they all reduced the number of people (especially free people) contributing to economically to the economy and specifically the economy of the state.
- Slavery drove down the price of labor, laborers lost their jobs.
- The dole kept the laborers from re-joining the labor market, either as workers or by starting businesses.
- Corruption limited tax income from the upper clases.
- The governement introduced an increasing number of inefficiencies in the economy, by debasing the currency, allowing tax-farming and limiting economic freedoms (for instance, workers were turned into serfs and price controls on goods were introduced). All of which reduced the supply side of the economy.
- A mercenary based military was expensive to maintain, and very unreliable when not paid.
Another way to see the factors above, is that as the population (both upper and lower classes) were granted privileges during good times, these were seen as irrevocable rights by an increasingly entitled populace, while the comprehension of what goods and services were needed to make these benefits possible was lost to most people.
Gradually, the state was running out of money, and had to debase the currency and increase taxes to remain solvent. Both types of actions would only privide temporary relief. The debasement caused inflation, and tax increases led to corruption going up and production going down.
Eventually, the government ran out of ways to continue to pay the mercenaries. At that point, it was too late to convince the idle citizenry to go back to productive work or to serve in the army, as that part of Roman culture had died out.
Eventually, the collapse had to come. As barbarians took control at the borders, the economy collapsed, causing massive unrest in the entitled population. Partisan groups started clashing in the streets. Invasions, civil wars, utilities (such as aquaducts) shutting down and eventually an unstable food supply caused disease, hunger and death. At first, the population was going down slowly, then quickly. Over a few centuries the population of 1 million had become 30000.
In a 1000 years, maybe historians will have the same discussions about Western Civilization's collapse. Was it smog from coal plants, corruption of the leaders, mass migrations or simply the whole population becoming lazy and entitled that caused the collapse?
It's also how the Byzantine Empire went into its downwards trajectory starting with the late 1000s. In fact, it was a little more complicated, as the Empire had to resort to using mercenaries because its theme system had been basically broken into pieces by the Empire oligarchy and by the Church, so Byzantium having to resort to mercenaries in order to defend itself was mostly, by that time, a consequence of said oligarchy and Byzantine Church doing their thing against the small Byzantine tax-payers.
And before someone starts saying that the Roman Empire lived "through" the Byzantine Empire all the way to 1453 I have to say that from my point of view that is only valid until the late 6th-early 7th century, by the end of Heraclius's [1] reign the Byzantine Empire was a thing totally different compared to the Roman Empire.
I can agree that it ceased being the Roman Empire per se, but I don't see it as being that much different from the end of the Roman Kingdom or the Roman Republic. It's still a continuation.
This exactly. The argument about non continuation are nonsense. Yes of course after 500 years it was different. Look at any state with 500 year and it will not be exactly the same.
I don't think this is a good argument. The Byzantine Empire was at a peak around 1000 and the main reasons for it decline after that is not mercenaries but rather that Basil didn't have an heir and his daughters were left in power and had no interest in ruling so that only a few decades later the state was disaster.
Combine that with the rise of a new powerful enemy and you have a disaster on your hands.
New evidence suggest that the Theme system was only barley function for a long time before the decline. In fact, going away from that system is partly why they were so powerful by the year 1000.
> by the end of Heraclius's [1] reign
I don't agree with that at all. If there is any reasonable point to talk about non-continuation it would be 1204.
Regarding Basil II, an empire shouldn't stay in/depend on just one dynasty, or just one exceptional person (even though it helps having such person at the helm), I'd say the rot was there even when Basil II was on the throne but the latter years proved that in the absence of such an exceptional leader there was almost nothing holding it up all together.
I stand by my opinion regarding the Heraclius era. I would have said Justinian, but one can still see traces of the Roman heritage here and there during his reign, but after Danube limes fell in the late 500s it wasn't the "hellenised" Romans battling the Slavs and Avars, but the Byzantines (yes, I know they were calling themselves the Rhōmaîoi).
Back to Heraclius's reign, once the Arabs came on the scene things were totally, totally different. I know people now like to diss on Pirenne for his Mohammed and Charlemagne and for how he insisted on the disruption, in fact the total destruction, of most of Mediterranean trade caused by their advent on the historical scene, but he was, in essence, right, especially when it comes to the "Western" Mediterranean (not sure how I would exactly define "Western" Mediterranean for that period, hence the quotes). Things were never the same after that. Also, the Byzantine Iconoclasm phenomenon wouldn't have happened without the close contacts with the Arabs, and, again, this is of course my own personal pov, Iconoclasm is totally a non-Roman-like phenomenon.
I can see that happening. Thinking about Canada. The other day I calculated it would take 25 hours of work for the minimum wage worker to afford a weekend camping. And I think that's a pretty good indication we're pretty close collapse.
Workers not being paid enough, and out of control inflation is how the soviet system collapsed.
That’s actually a really interesting metric. Cost of living has really shot up in Canada while wages have stagnated. Everyone knows that housing has increased dramatically. This leads to less disposable income obviously. I’m 40 and grew up in Edmonton. Once or twice a year, as a kid and into my late 20s, my family and and/or I did a hotel type vacation in Banff or Jasper once a year, which seemed expensive at the time, and multiple times camping in the Rockies per year, which basically seemed free. My slightly more wealthy friends’ parents had a cabin and boat.
Now if I were to live in Edmonton again, I could probably still camp as if it were free but I appreciate your assessment that a minimum wage worked could not. Because I certainly could as a minimum wage worker back in the day. And I probably would never justify a domestic hotel type weekend or week long trip within Canada.
I'm in NZ, a few years ago a colleague and I would bitch to each other that we are in the top 10% of salary earners in the country, but we felt not that well off. We were worried about affording a house that wasn't a damp, drafty shit hole. But people in our position a generation or two ago were buying boats and beach houses.
I’ll take the devil’s position: Your are not owed by nature a footprint on the ground, or a weekend camping.
Manille (Manila? Capital of Philippines) has 43079 inhabitants per square kilometer (23sqm per person, including agriculture), China tries to do the same.
The key is nature doesn’t owe you democracy, and governments neither. We can store many people vertically if we remove their personality. What I mean is poverty doesn’t make the system itself collapse, it can actually survive pretty far, even thrive while everyone is expunged.
After all, USSR only collapsed in 1991, 69 years after Stalin took power, after killing probably 1/4 of its population in gulags.
I don't know why I'm replying to someone who thinks governments don't owe us democracy but people are allowed to complain when things get worse and I would prefer if previous policy didn't disallow increasing density in Canada. Incidentally I live in Tokyo now and it's now cheaper than Vancouver and the density (which is actually not as high as people think[1]) is a positive, not a negative.
[1] Just for fun, I checked densities. Tokyo 23 wards (the actual city of Tokyo): 14,500/km^2. Downtown Vancouver: 17,000/km^2. Downtown Edmonton: 5,000/km^2
> Workers not being paid enough, and out of control inflation is how the soviet system collapsed.
No its not actually. If anything the Soviet system collapsed because the elites didn't really like it that much. The elites had lost interest in preserving the system. Elites didn't like the party discipline.
There is a reason why Soviet collapsed and China didn't. Just having demonstrations and unhappy population does magically lead to successful overthrows of governments.
Workers going on a mass strike across the Easter Block countries in the "Solidarity" movement in the late 80s is how its generally viewed as being the beginning of the end of the soviet system.
The communist governments were put in a position where there were going to have to massacre their own people openly revolting in massive strikes.
I don't think Chinese government would survive another Tiananmen square incident.
Yes and as many historical topics, it a romantic tail that people like to tell rather then a great analysis of the truth.
> The communist governments were put in a position where there were going to have to massacre their own people openly revolting in massive strikes.
That's what many governments in history did. And that's exactly the point, the reason a state fails is when the elites have not enough reason to defend the current system. When they do, then the army shows up. And in Hungary in 1956 they were willing for example.
I like Francis Spufford's comment: Stalin was a gangster who thought he was a social scientist. Krushchev was a gangster who hoped he was a social scientist. Brezhnev and those who came after him were gangsters who only pretended to be social scientists.
We can add to that, after the failed hardliner coup, the country was run by gangsters who didn't even care to pretend they were anything else.
Based on what/ divided how?
Purchasing a tent, utensils, backpack etc ie starting from scratch, or assuming everything already paid for and just 'real costs' ie food, tent-place (ground rent?)?
Decathlon.fr or .co.uk prices can be pretty cheap, but I'm not sure where the costs start.
Based on Canadian Prices, a working guy would spend. And not even going very far from home.
Gas $100
Beer $50
Cigs $15
Ontario Park Campsite $59/night x 2 = $120
Firewood 2 x $15 = $30
Some basic sausages and food = $50
Total $375
Min Wage $15/hour. Hours of work = 25 hours
Actually it would take more than 25 hours, because most likely that person does not live with Grandma and has shelter / food expenses. So might need to save up for a month, if not months.
This has to be some kind of joke post. Or, you've never been camping. Or, more likely, you're just constructing scenarios to fit your perspective instead of being honest with yourself.
- Cigarettes and beer are a necessary part of camping?
- Not going far from home, but using ~23 liters of gas($50 @ 210/L) just to get there?
- Staying at the most expensive camp site(AA fee schedule) in Ontario?
- Paying for firewood instead of just collecting it?
I agree this is a troll, but I'd like to point out a few things:
> - Not going far from home, but using ~23 liters of gas($50 @ 210/L) just to get there?
Absolutely could see this. I live in the US, but the nearest spot I'd like to go camping is probably a $50 round trip. And I'd like to camp in different places, so we're starting to look at $50 being entirely reasonable if I made a list of places I'd like to camp. Not every trip, but certainly within the realm of possibility.
> - Paying for firewood instead of just collecting it?
For what it's worth, this is not allowed in many parks.
> - Spending $25/person/day on food?
This doesn't sound insane in the context of a trip, even a camping trip. You'll probably buy some special meat to grill, marshmallows to roast, some trail mix and maybe stop for food on the way out or back. $25 isn't really that crazy when you're traveling.
Even spending $50 in one direction on gas isn't insane for a weekend camping trip, a couple hours of highway driving at current prices, but I don't think anyone would consider that "not far from home" as OP stated.
> For what it's worth, this is not allowed in many parks.
Sure, but you don't need to camp in parks. That helps save on the $60/night fee as well.
> You'll probably buy some special meat to grill, marshmallows to roast, some trail mix and maybe stop for food on the way out or back.
According to OP it is just a "basic sausage", not even a special meat. I end up spending about $15/day on food and I just pack what I want with no thought to cost.
I guess my point is...none of what OP described is completely unreasonable for a random person's camping trip. But it is completely unreasonable when using this camping trip as an example as to how a person making minimum wage can't even go camping without saving up for weeks.
To me, this post reminds me exactly of things you see on reddit's antiwork sub, where people say something like "You can't live on minimum wage", and to prove it provide a breakdown of how much it would cost to rent a 2BR apartment downtown, $500/month clothing allowance, $400/mo car lease, things like that. Stuff that I don't even do for myself despite making closer to 7 figures than 5. I've never camped at a AA fee schedule spot, never spent $25/day on food(while camping), never drank $25 of beer per day(while camping), never bought cigarettes, etc...
I see your point. But the flip side is how better off people do these silly calculations how they can penny pinch a 10% cheaper price on something the poor person should buy instead of what they want. What they neglect to consider is the experience of trying to penny pinch. And the decreased value of what they end up getting. I can penny pinch and buy a really crappy loaf of bread for $3.5 or pay $6 for sourdough bread with walnuts. Sure one loaf is much cheaper than the other, but you really do get less for less. Same with campsites. Sure I can penny pinch and get a budget campsite, but it won't be in a provincial park with nature. And I wasn't quoting some exuberant travel experience. Just a simple outing, a place a father my want to take his kid camping and fishing one day. The food prices are very realistic for actual real food. Sure you can do it for 10% cheaper, and 30% less of experience, and eating crappy food. But this is someone's vacation. Shouldn't they at least be able to splurge once in a while.
Which campsite costs $59/night? Looking at Algonquin Provincial Park, a full RV hookup comes out to $53.68/night, the most expensive non-hookup is $47.46/night, and the cheapest one is $42.38/night.
Also, I remember being charged a convenience fee for booking online on top of everything.
Even at these prices I still think a provincial park is the best value for what you get. The park will be your entertainment for a full day, as it most likely has access to water for swimming, or places to hike. Unlike a cheaper private campsite.
Also, I personally had a really crappy experience staying at a private campsite before in Northern Ontario. Got yelled at for starting a fire after 11 pm, and subsequently followed around, including when I went to the bathroom. The campsite was run by mennonites, but it felt like I was on some cult's compound. Cameras everywhere and people walking behind you with walkie talkies.
And it wasn't even that much cheaper and had to pay for showers.
> never drank $25 of beer per day(while camping), never bought cigarettes
A bigger problem with the itemization of cigarettes is that listing them as a camping expense implies that you smoke more while camping than you would otherwise, which makes no sense.
I listed beer and cigarettes, because its a common vice of lower class working people. Less so than it used to be. But $15 dollars is just for one pack in Ontario. So the guy is rationing his cigarette pack over 2 days.
People counting and trying to ration how many individual beers this poor guy gets to have on his one camping trip are proving my point. As if that really changes the equation. Also, I'm not sure if you are aware, but they shrank the size of beers.
I listed beer and cigarettes, because its a common vice of lower class working people. Less so than it used to be. But $15 dollars is just for one pack. So the guy is rationing his cigarettes if that makes you feel better.
Also just tanked up, and it was $130. So a $50 would be less than half a tank of gas in my car. It's about a 2 or 3 hour drive one way, if you live in Toronto and go camping up north and/or get stuck in traffic.
Most of Ontario, at least the populated parts, do not have free camping anywhere near, and other places have no trespassing laws.
Cheaper campsites do exist, but really not by that much. $35 is pretty common, at least it was a few years ago. But do you really want to be stuck by the highway listening to cars going by in your budget campsite. I thought Provisional parks were built for the citizens to enjoy nature. And if you're going to save up for camping trip for so long, I hope you at least go to a good place.
You can't collect firewood anywhere you paid for camping. That has been my experience. I definitely would not try collecting firewood in a provincial park. I've read about someone that collected mushrooms in a local park, and they were fined over 5k.
You're also not allowed to bring wood with you.
Also, I just came back from the grocery store. A bag of cherries, which are in season, btw, were $15/kg. Low quality pork sausages (full of fat) are over $10. Salmon or any fresh fish fillet $25+. Real food, or even "processed corn" food prices are sky rocketing in Canada. If it was me going camping, $50 that would even be that much for Friday Evening, Saturday, and Sunday morning.
For someone from the other side of the planet (former USSR), this list feels very weird. I can't imagine paying for a campsite (nobody here does, you just go wherever you want and take whatever place is available), or firewood (you can always find a dry tree trunk somewhere along the road, or there's a friend of a friend who will bring some from his own house).
So although our minimum wages are absolutely atrocious by your standards (officially it's around $100 per month IIRC, but I haven't heard of anybody making below $200), half of this list doesn't apply, and the other half is cheaper by 5-20 times (a pack of cigs is ~$1 if I'm not mistaken, a liter of gasoline around 50 cents, etc). Considering all of this, we've been chugging along just fine… or not, actually. Braces yourselves, I guess.
I'm in North America and the list still feels very weird.
Going camping at a premium campsite alone (e.g. not splitting the bill with friends) only to consume $50 of beer and $15 of cigarettes is kind of a hilarious definition of camping.
FWIW, there are places where open camping is allowed in the Canada and the United States. The OP was using a specific car-camping site with reserved spots and amenities nearby.
I couldn't disagree more. A lot of working class people smoke, and when they go camping they typically drink beer. Let's say its a divorced dad, taking his son camping and fishing on the one weekend he has custody. A fairly common scenario.
He might not drink the full case, but he would probably bring one. Especially if his friends are campsite near by and they might drop by.
There might be places where you can openly camp in Canada and United States. I lived in BC and those where possible to find. In Ontario not anywhere near cities were people live.
this is for how many people? because camping trip fees are split usually. i assume 50 dollars in beer is not for one person in a weekend... when I was there right before the pandemic the beer didn't cost anywhere near that.
One guy definitely can drink a case over a weekend. I dont think you hanged out with many working people. I think most would not bring a 12 pack, but a full case.
But even if they did. Last I rember there was $10 covinince charge for getting the campsite tickets online, which you would want to do. Because you will not drive out there without knowing you have a spot if you saved up for a camping trip.
IDK. Camping can be very cheap. I went on camping trips all the time as a teenager and I had almost no money. Unless by "camping" you are talking about towing a small mobile home into a paved "campground" with electricity, water, showers and bathrooms.
I vaguely remember a magazine biography of an Italian scientist who lived near the mountains. In the summer, he liked to strike out on Friday afternoon with a hunk of bread and a hunk of cheese, think about scientific problems while he hiked around in the mountains, sleep under his jacket, and come home on Saturday or Sunday. In his location he didn't need any more material wealth to "go camping" than he needed to stay at home.
It might be more the opposite, that only in relatively recent times have people been able to get away for a day or two without doing what we would call "camping." If you were a hunter-gatherer you'd grab a buddy (or not), invent some excuse like checking for game in the next valley, and rough it for a night or two. Now if you fuck off for a weekend you can check into a hotel or an AirBNB.
I think they were called "hunting / gathering" for most of human history.
Heck, non-working pets (e.g. herd guardians, vermin control, etc.) were nearly unknown until relatively recently, because who had the wealth to feed a non-productive mouth?
It's more just what they had to do anytime they traveled longer than a day's distance. I'm sure that happened for pleasure, but a trip specifically to camp seems like something that is more relegated to the modern age where you can get to a destination easily without having to just camp along the way.
If the minimum wage worker had free housing, food, electricity, etc. your calculation would make sense. Generally if you are a minimum wage worker who is working full time, a large component of your disposable income goes into those things (living paycheck to paycheck).
So having a disposable income at all is a luxury, even if it's 10% of your income. Assuming that 10% figure, you can multiply those 3 days by 1/10% = 10 and you get 30 days of working for one weekend of camping. Not really great.
I always thought favoring biological heirs was up there too. The Five Good Emperors were all adopted and some of the absolute worst leaders only got there through luck of birth.
Probably true, but it was so baked into the system that it was hard to escape. Even the five good emperors chose their successors via adoption, so on paper it was still direct inheritance. For Marcus Aurelius to pass over his son would have been a huge break from tradition.
The best attempt to escape this was Diocletian's tetrarchy, but that just led to yet another civil war.
