Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Review of Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 88 posts

Re: Review of Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny

#61

Post by hannasanarion »

wisdomoftheages wrote: post #55
hannasanarion wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't call them "democratic norms" or "progressives and reactionaries", sure, but that's what they were. These are descriptive terms, not proper nouns. "democratic norms" are behaviors in the public sphere that are expected under the assumption that politicians are interested in the good of everyone and that the popular will has political meaning. "progressives" are politicians who want to improve society throu…

Leaving aside the historiographical issue of how projecting modern descriptive terms onto the past fundamentally distorts our understanding of how people back then conceived of their society, I'm afraid you're laboring under some extreme misapprehensions about the nature of the late Republican government. That Republican Rome was governed by an aristocratic land-owning oligarchy for pretty much its entire existence i…

Can you name a historical society where there wasn't any manner of "aristocratic ruling class"?

It is a historical constant that rich people are more likely to find themselves in office. Campaigning takes time and effort and you don't get paid for it, so you pretty much have to have some wealth stashed up before you can run for office. That was true then as it is true now.

That doesn't mean that there has never been a democratic government in all of history. No matter how wealthy you are, in order to get those jobs, you have to convince people to vote for you.

Re: Review of Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny

#62

Post by pesmhey »

wisdomoftheages wrote: post #52
hannasanarion wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More importantly, they were the first to bypass the democratic norms of the republic in order to get their agendas passed (by skipping senatorial approval for their bill, and censuring a tribune for vetoing it), and their opponents violated even more norms in order to halt their agendas (by passing an emergency decree calling for their deaths). The saga of the Gracchi is when the cracks in the Republican order first…

To refer to "democratic norms" or "progressives and reactionaries" is an anachronistic stretch to say the least. A more accurate summation is that the Gracchi championed land reform for the poor (specifically, redistributing land illegally acquired smallholders by members of the senatorial oligarchy) in the service of their own political ambitions, and in doing so they repeatedly violated the norms of the governing o…

The story of the fall of the Roman Republic is not so much a story of the decay of democratic or governing institutions as we know them as it is the story of a ruling oligarchy that gradually loses the ability to discipline its own members and keep them united in a common policy.

The sky isn’t so much blue as it is light that has a wavelength around 450-495 nm.

I understand that a historian would take great offense to the anachronism you’ve pointed out, but I still can’t help but to think that we’re describing the same thing with different words. Yes yes, words matter, but, there’s some underlying truth about when groups of apes stop being able to govern themselves that comes out, no matter the words.

Re: Review of Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny

#63

Post by Bartweiss »

hannasanarion wrote: post #16
nkingsy wrote: post #12

The economist has been freaking out about norms destruction since day 1 of the trump whitehouse. This “book review” seems like just another chance to sound their favorite alarm. Not that they’re wrong, but the people (at least almost half of them) voted for someone who promised to break these norms. As far as I’m concerned, we signed a contract for 4 years of bull in china shop. Smart people need to be focusing on he…

The thing about norms is that, once they're broken, it's very hard to un-break them. It is in every politician's best interest to obstruct their opponents, prevent their opponents from voting, destroy ballots, jail their enemies on made-up charges, halt investigations into themselves, pack the court that will oversee their cases with allies, etc. "Democratic norms" are a gentlemen's agreement to not use these highly…

> "Democratic norms" are a gentlemen's agreement to not use these highly effective tactics against each other

This, more than any one election outcome, is what scares me most about our present moment. We've certainly seen malicious and undemocratic practice in the past and survived. Presidents from Nixon to Jackson have been utterly ruthless to opponents, and while Trump criticizes the press with particular zeal, he seems to achieved less actual influence than a lot of predecessors. (GWB, Nixon, and FDR all come to mind as having more actual influence over the press.)

What's more alarming is that it looks like our actual infrastructure doesn't work right and it simply took ~200 years for some of the cracks to show (or develop). The filibuster went from a rare protest or blackball to a motivator for bipartisanship to a minority veto, and then it went away. "Advise and consent" becomes a way for the legislative branch to cripple the others. Failure to appoint (and recess appointments to back it up) lets the executive cripple the judiciary and bypass the legislative. The only legal check on the executive is reserved to an increasingly partisan Congress, under rules of impeachment and pardon which have never been put to a full test. And all of that is before we touch on any of the more controversial representation, districting, and voting rights issues.

I'm not predicting national doom like some people have, but I'm definitely worried about a situation that alternates between paralytic divided governments run on recess appointments and executive orders, and united governments openly favoring their constituents in the absence of real minority-party or judicial checks.

(As for the nuclear metaphor, I can't help noticing that it seems to be about attack, rather than armament - in which case the dying part happens regardless of reciprocation...)

Re: Review of Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny

#64

Post by hannasanarion »

geogra4 wrote: post #59
hannasanarion wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reading of the fall of the Republic long pre-dates Trump. The final years of the Republic were characterized by fights over citizenship for the Italians, consolidation of land in the hands of a small number of slave-owning oligarchs, meaning that more and more people were unemployed and ineligible for political advancement, and politicians breaking the political rules to push their agenda (kick out the guy vetoi…

>The final years of the Republic were characterized by fights over citizenship for the Italians, consolidation of land in the hands of a small number of slave-owning oligarchs, meaning that more and more people were unemployed and ineligible for political advancement, and politicians breaking the political rules to push their agenda (kick out the guy vetoing my popular bill) or halt someone else's (kill the guy who p…

The more you look the more parallels you see. Unpopular military quagmires in far-off places for no purpose but the enrichment of the leaders, dislocation of traditional ways of life, increasing political polarization, the privatization of the military, rampant corruption, endemic racism and xenophobia, battles over access to citizenship and voting rights, and a set of elites so obsessed with their own privileges that they refused to reform the system in time to save it. All taking place a few decades after a decisive victory in a long cold war, leaving Rome hegemon of the world.

I recommend checking out The Storm Before The Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic by Mike Duncan. It illustrates the process from "hey, the rules don't technically say bills have to start in the upper house..." to all-out civil war, step by step.

Re: Review of Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny

#65

Post by safgasCVS »

hannasanarion wrote: post #21
safgasCVS wrote: post #20

I really enjoyed Dan Carlin’s ‘Celtic holocaust’ that went at length into the character and motivations of Julius Caesar. What I mostly appreciate in listening to Carlin is his ability to sympathize with the people living through the moment but being respectful not to bias his reading of history so it doesnt reflect modern wishes and thinking. It’s in this vein I criticize the book as it sounds like it’s applying mod…

That reading of the fall of the Republic long pre-dates Trump. The final years of the Republic were characterized by fights over citizenship for the Italians, consolidation of land in the hands of a small number of slave-owning oligarchs, meaning that more and more people were unemployed and ineligible for political advancement, and politicians breaking the political rules to push their agenda (kick out the guy vetoi…

Ah thank you for the correction!

Re: Review of Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny

#66

Post by safgasCVS »

loudmax wrote: post #30
safgasCVS wrote: post #20

I really enjoyed Dan Carlin’s ‘Celtic holocaust’ that went at length into the character and motivations of Julius Caesar. What I mostly appreciate in listening to Carlin is his ability to sympathize with the people living through the moment but being respectful not to bias his reading of history so it doesnt reflect modern wishes and thinking. It’s in this vein I criticize the book as it sounds like it’s applying mod…

Dan Carlin's "Death Throes of the Republic" series goes way into the fall of the Roman Republic. It's $10 if you buy directly from his site and absolutely worth it. Along the same lines, fans of Mike Duncan's "History of Rome" podcast should consider purchasing his book "The Storm Before the Storm." It covers this period with nuance and depth.

Thanks for the recommendations - I just bought both!

Re: Review of Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny

#67

Post by pesmhey »

swift532 wrote: post #36
all2 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the question is not if, but when the us will be under single person rule and what shape will it take. The question will remain if as long as the right to bear arms remains a right. No tyranny can survive an armed and angry population. The problem that follows that, though, is something the French faced during their revolutionary years. We could be in for a bloodbath if we don't move correctly.

I might be reaching a bit, but I'd think that, with current technology, psyops etc., it should not be that hard to defeat any rebellion before it ever starts - whether by neutralizing (not "kill" in the USA, but deincentivize, defame or frame) potential leaders or stopping public discourse from ever reaching that stage.

And if it really got bad, you’re not winning against fighter jets and tanks with whatever guns you’ve been allowed to amass. The 2nd amendment is weird, and the political fighting about it even weirder. In 1776, you could reasonably expect to possess the same weaponry as a government. In 2018, you’d need to have advanced military technology. For all the hoopla about the 2nd amendment these days, it’s painfully naive to believe it makes any bit of sense in the context of modern warfare.

Re: Review of Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny

#68

Post by hannasanarion »

dv_dt wrote: post #56
hannasanarion wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More importantly, they were the first to bypass the democratic norms of the republic in order to get their agendas passed (by skipping senatorial approval for their bill, and censuring a tribune for vetoing it), and their opponents violated even more norms in order to halt their agendas (by passing an emergency decree calling for their deaths). The saga of the Gracchi is when the cracks in the Republican order first…

How should history account for the economic unrest allowing the Gracchi to come to power? It seems that if the overall economic system were not functioning to distribute prosperity widely enough then some sort of chaos would ensue - is it the norm breaking, could the economic instability be a stronger contributing cause? Would the norm breaking even be possible without the lack of access to economic opportunity?

Definitely. In times of peace, prosperity, and contentment, people would be much more harsh on those who want to overturn the liberal democratic order.

When people are feeling desperate, and it's become clear that the system is not working, it's easy for populists to come in and promise to fix all the problems if only you'll let them do away with that pesky free press, and take votes away from those frustrating opposition people, and get rid of the annoying rules about making profit while in office.

Re: Review of Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny

#69

Post by hannasanarion »

dv_dt wrote: post #44
e40 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This implies that once a political norm is broken, it will forever be broken. That does not bode well for our current political situation in the US.

That ignores that the norms came to be norms in the first place.

The norms are generally established at the same time as the constitution is; ie, after a revolution or other major political event. I'm not a historian, but I can't think of an example of democratic norms being re-established peacefully after being violated.

Re: Review of Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny

#70

Post by hannasanarion »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #60
munk-a wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, so why has citizen's united been allowed to stand. If the 2nd amendment will magically save us all some day... why is it waiting? I am more cynical and think that the 2nd amendment does protect against sudden tyranny but slow insidious tyranny is quite able to work around it. On the other hand, I'm pretty hopeful that the first amendment will be able to get us out of our terrible situation.

Because (despite what you seem to think) Citizens United did not create a tyranny. And it seems ironic that you oppose Citizens United, but favor the First Amendment. If Citizens United had been decided the other direction, that would have been a blow against the First Amendment.

Citizens United would not have been a blow to the First, that's silly. The right of free speech does not necessarily include the right to unlimited corporate political campaign spending. Our country ran just fine and the people were plenty free before the age of super-PACs.
Post reply on HN