UC San Diego history prof's book on fall of Rome's democracy draws parallels to today

[Zorro]

The parallels are striking: Rising income inequality. Partisan gridlock. The erosion of political norms and the loss of faith in public institutions. Angry populist uprisings.

Is America going the way of Rome?

“Mortal Republic,” by UC San Diego history professor Edward Watts, raises the question. The book has been garnering national media attention — The New Yorker, Smithsonian, Time, Vox, the New York Times — since its release in November.

“The lesson we can take away from the Roman example is that a republic doesn’t last unless you protect it,” Watts said in an interview. “It can and will die unless you ensure that it lives and thrives.”

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/entertainment/books/sd-me-rome-history-20190131-story.html

[2naSalit]

1. K&R

[Turbineguy]

2. It's a shame

Trump doesn't read anything longer than a Tweet.

[rampartc]

4. probably a good thing

books like this would give him ideas.

[Aristus]

3. We got there a long time ago.

People seem to think that because Rome had a Senate and called itself a republic that it must have been, in some way, analogous to modern representative democracy.

It wasn't.

Rome wasn't a democracy; it was a plutocratic oligarchy. The Senate wasn't a representative body. Senators didn't cast votes based upon what the people wanted or needed. They cast votes on issues designed to perpetuate the power and wealth of the ruling class.

First of all, a man was not elected to the Senate by an electorate based on the general population; he was appointed to the Senate by an official known as the Censor ('the counter' - who counted the rolls of citizenship and the voting tribes.) A man could only be appointed to the Senate if he came from the right family, and had the qualifying income level. Usually a million sesterces a year derived entirely from the ownership of land. The average Roman citizen had no say at all in whether a man could become a Senator or not.

Voters only voted for candidates who were running to fill office at certain prescribed levels of the civic government; quaestor, praetor, and consul being the most prominent among them. All candidates were already members of the Senate. It's not like a voter could nominate his next-door neighbor. And the Senate arranged the voting 'tribes', as they were called, in such a way that all of the city-dwellers were concentrated into only two tribes, while the rural voters were spread out among ten or eleven tribes. In this way, the more conservative and set-in-their-ways rural voters had more power than the more restive and rambunctious urban voters (sounds a lot like the Electoral College...)

For centuries before the fall of the Republic, wealthy, conservative Senators ran the Republic as they saw fit, their only goal (couched in terms like 'the glory of Rome') was the preservation of their own power. They felt nothing but disdain for the poor working citizens of the city.

[BigmanPigman]

5. Thanks for the added info!

[SunSeeker]

6. That and Rome relied on slave labor. So not exactly analogous to us now. nt