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The United States is Falling Apart and the World is Taking Notice (www.counterpunch.org)
submitted 2 years ago by [M] to c/progressivepolitics@lemmy.world
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In three weeks, Donald Trump has imploded whatever positive image the United States might have had internationally.

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[–] 74 points 2 years ago (3 children)

It's a rather complex topic, but the short answer isn't barbarian invasion.

The simplest correct answer is the Roman elite became less interest in preserving the Roman state and more interested in increasing their own personal wealth and influence.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago*

    What's wild is that "being Roman" persisted a lot longer than the tax system and patronage networks that had collapsed. It wasn't until a large portion of the people who thought of themselves as "Roman" were invaded by the Eastern Roman Empire that the Roman identity was broken up, to be replaced by the regional identities that people rallied around to defend themselves.

    I feel like if the ERE's leaders had taken a different approach, they could have stitched the Western Empire back together, but they broke it.

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  • [+] -8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Also people stopped having enough kids

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    That’s potentially a global problem. It’s not specific to the US as long as we keep making ourselves an attractive destination for immigrants and keep welcoming them ……….. crap

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    define "enough kids" for me please.

    do you mean enough kids that their parents can't feed them off their own little farm, and the kids had to be sent to the cities as slave / poor workers, so that the machines can keep churning for the sake of profit?

    edit: sorry but i'm pissed and angry now. "not enough kids" like what? not enough kids to make sausage of them? not enough kids to burn them in the kettle of capitalism? not enough kids to flood the labor market with undervalued workers?

    i tell you what, it's capitalist propaganda that "people should have more kids", because they think it makes the wages fall. what it actually does is create poverty, mass unemployment, working poor, and civil unrest. may the empire be intoxicated by its own poison. may the corporations fall due to the civil unrest that they helped create.

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