I don’t see many lefties talk about pre-modern history outside of colonialism so I am curious as to how Marxists view it.

The fall of the Roman Empire wasn’t one singular event but a series of events spanning from what I can tell starts at Third Century Crisis to its final climax at Constinantinople in 1453.

    • Absolute
      8·
      5 months ago

      Parenti’s book is excellent and I think feeds well into the theories that Hudson has about this topic, though I havent delved into his books specifically on it yet.

      I think the main gist of it though is that the rise of Greek/Roman society marked the end of pro-debtor economic practices such as debt jubilees and regular land reform. Someone smarter and more well read than me should correct if I’m wrong but I believe he tries to detail a common thread of pro-creditor policy becoming dominate to the point of ruin in western society. The Roman Empire did not fall due to any specific events but rather the accumulation of economic mismanagement in service to the ruling classes that rotted the very core of the superstructure of these societies, to which there are obvious parallels to today.

      • davelEnglish
        6·
        5 months ago

        Right, Hudson covered the transition away from debt jubilees in his pre-Roman-era book, …and forgive them their debts: Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption — From Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year

        Clean Slate debt cancellations (the Jubilee Year), used in Babylonia since Hammurabi’s dynasty, first appear in the Bible in Leviticus 25. Jesus’s first sermon announced that he had come to proclaim it. This message – more than other religious claims – is what threatened his enemies, and why he was put to death.

        This interpretation has been all but expunged from our contemporary understanding of the phrase, “…and forgive them their debts,” in The Lord’s Prayer. It has been changed to “…and forgive them their trespasses (or sins),” depending on the particular Christian tradition that influenced the translation from the Greek opheilēma/opheiletēs (debts/debtors). On the contrary, debt repayment has become sanctified and mystified as a way of moralizing claims on borrowers, allowing creditor elites and oligarchs the leverage to take over societies and privatize their public assets, especially in hard times.

        Historically, no monarchy or government has survived takeover by creditor elites and oligarchs (viz: Rome). In a time of increasing economic and political polarization, and a global economy deeper in debt than at the height of the 2008 financial crisis, …and forgive them their debts shows what individuals, governments, and societies can learn from the ancient past for restoring economic and social stability today.