If you want to be poor, fight for independence

[Lexicus]

Er... it very much did treat the provinces as a place to be robbed. It was just terribly effective at massacring any rebels! Eventually the empire got so big that they had to expand citizenship in order to stabilize it. But the extractive mode could and did last for a long time.

The secret to Rome's success, such as it was, was not an equitable model of state-building, but allowing elites in the conquered territories to get in on the process of robbery.

 

[Cutlass]

Specifically what period are you referring to here? I would argue that by the definition you advance in that post there was never a time when Rome worked; its imperial project was always about looting the peripheral territories.

Rome made the conquered territory Roman. This was pretty damned successful. It wasn't just a territory ruled by foreigners.

 

[innonimatu]

The disadvantages since roughly 1920 of adding that "foreign territory" to your own "territory" are big for the existing imperial citizens, because those new citizens will have in principle the same rights as the citizens of the motherland.

The voting rights of new citizens will change the balance of power and money distribution in the mother country + added territory and likely much of the traditional culture.

Would be nice if it were universally true, and it was one of the reasons for the more recent decolonizations. But try asking the Palestinians about rights...
The issue of equal rights still has to be forced.

I like it when you're on fire. great post, too.

I have my days of higher-than-usual indignation

 

[Hrothbern]

Would be nice if it were universally true, and it was one of the reasons for the more recent decolonizations. But try asking the Palestinians about rights...
The issue of equal rights still has to be forced.

Israel is a roque nation protected by the US.
As long as the Middle East is important for fossil energy things are unlikely to change

 

[Hygro]

The secret to Rome's success, such as it was, was not an equitable model of state-building, but allowing elites in the conquered territories to get in on the process of robbery.

20 years of infantry service earned you land, which made you effectively a lord as you had complete life and death legal power over everyone (family, slaves) in your household. There's a motivated volunteer conquest force. There's also an infinite need to acquire new land.

 

[Lexicus]

20 years of infantry service earned you land, which made you effectively a lord as you had complete life and death legal power over everyone (family, slaves) in your household. There's a motivated volunteer conquest force. There's also an infinite need to acquire new land.

In theory, sure, in practice warlords had to fight a civil war and destroy the Roman constitution to accomplish this.

Rome made the conquered territory Roman. This was pretty damned successful. It wasn't just a territory ruled by foreigners.

This is sort of a circular argument...

 

[H4run]

The key difference between modern imperialism (ie, that "round" of imperialism and colonization which is defined by the late-19th century "Scramble for Africa") and "old" imperialism is that for almost all of human history imperialism was defined by exercising control over trade flows. The Roman Empire and other empires before manipulated exchange to benefit the "core" territory (in Rome's case, the urbs of Rome itself and later the whole territory of Italy). In the early modern period this was defined by the mercantilist obsession with maintaining trade surpluses and building up specie. This mercantilist obsession was briefly superseded by a more idealist concern with "free trade" which fell away as distributional struggles emerged out of the general slowing-down of economic growth during the successive economic crises of the late 19th century. The colonial empires emerged as notionally autonomous blocs, with each metropole striving to use its colonial territories as the means of achieving autarky and strategic independence.

At any rate what occurred in the latest round of classic imperialism was that empire ceased to be defined merely by trade flows and began to be defined also by investment flows. This observation was first made by Charles Conant in 1900 (well before either the revolutionary Lenin or the social democrat Hobson) in The United States in the Orient: the Nature of an Economic Problem. That book contains a number of interesting tables that demonstrate the explosive growth of international investment in the last decades of the 19th century, and explains this growth in investment flows in terms of the growth of surplus capital in the metropolitan territories.

Interestingly, other work has been done far more recently demonstrating that measured as a percentage of GDP today's "globalization" still fails to match the 19th-century one in magnitude. Useful corrective for those who characterize modern globalization as irreversible or as representing some kind of unprecedented change.

I'm not disagree that both imperialism and colonialism are methods to exercise control over territory in order to enrich the core government. However I believe the methods is difference; in colonialism they send settlers to settle a colony in foreign territory, or like trading camp (ugh I don't know how to say it in English) like the Portuguese trading settlement in Maluku islands for instance, and acts as an independent entity that maintain their relation with their core country by allegiance. While imperalism it is about the core power itself taking control of foreign territory through sovereignty. In colonialism war between core country do affected the relation between colonies and vice versa, but they were more like a proxy of the core than the core itself, however attacking the imperium's annexed territory means a disturbance to the core itself. The Colonialist will kept the local and natives ruler (priyayi or like many Javanese Keraton in Indonesia) and limits their sovereignty in order to maintain control, in return they use them as a proxy to cover their lack of manpower or uses it to severed the diplomacy bond between the controlled and not yet controlled territory. Obviously they are not benefit directly from the tax, but they do control trades, farms, plantation, labor (force labor aka slave) and all of those stuff. It is like comparing the Ottoman and Europe after the age of discovery, one had territory the other have sphere of influence.

Well it is really hard for me to explain, this is obviously not my subject however I just want to state what I believe I know about this issue. Not saying that you are wrong, but saying it is still somewhat two different animal.

 

[zazazuzu]

Rome was successful for so long due primarily to economics and governance. Yes, a well put together military will achieve great things for you on a battlefield, but the only things that will give you a long lasting empire will be sound economics and governance.Those boring things that nobody ever hears about, because, well, they're boring.

 

[Lexicus]

Rome was successful for so long due primarily to economics and governance. Yes, a well put together military will achieve great things for you on a battlefield, but the only things that will give you a long lasting empire will be sound economics and governance.Those boring things that nobody ever hears about, because, well, they're boring.

What exactly do you mean by "sound economics and governance"??

 

[zazazuzu]

What exactly do you mean by "sound economics and governance"??

Competence.

 

[Lexicus]

Okay, so you're claiming that the Romans were successful because they were competent? Don't you think that's a bit of a circular claim?

 

[zazazuzu]

Okay, so you're claiming that the Romans were successful because they were competent? Don't you think that's a bit of a circular claim?

No, because it's self evident.

 

[Lexicus]

No, because it's self evident.

Most tautologies are

 

[Broken_Erika]

THe romans were successful because they were competent, until they stopped being competent and stopped being successful.(the western half at first)

 

[Hygro]

Well that's their first mistake.

 

[Ajidica]

So, what is it that the OP thinks the colonies should have done in the face of systemic political, social, and economic oppression? Live without the rights he takes for granted because, hey, Britain build some railroads?

 

[Cutlass]

So, what is it that the OP thinks the colonies should have done in the face of systemic political, social, and economic oppression? Live without the rights he takes for granted because, hey, Britain build some railroads?

Well Ferguson probably thinks that the peasants should be grateful to the be the peasants of such benevolent overlords. This is Conservative Thought 101.

 

[zazazuzu]

If you want to be independent, fight for independence.

 

[Imaus]

Hell, what do we define as successful? Pax Romana which arose after nearly a century of political decline and strongmanship/near warlordism? Then the crisis of the third century, the string of emperors, bashing against Parthia/Sassania again and again, the Gallic and Palymran Empires, the decay of the West due to disease, depopulation, economic struggles, a rise of brigandage, the tying of the Proto-Serf Coloni to the land to serve the Villas and Nobilies/Patricians, the Germanic/Iranic breakaway 'vassal kingdoms'? A fallback from Germania and Dacia after what - two hundred years? When Rome left Britain, the Britons immediately emerged with little presence of Romanization left over, because the Romans treated Britain like a frontier zone than a core part of the Empire. When they left Spain, the Vascones rose up almost immediately. When they left North Africa, the Romano-Moors popped up. Strong Roman presence was in Gaul, Spain, and Italy; I can say little for the Balkans as they were one of the hardest hit areas of the Western Decay from 400 onwards, depopulated and repopulated massively.

The East suffered even more of a languishing death, though from 650 to 1000; they had a pretty good Golden Age. Even the Justinian Era before that was marred by high tax, internal problems, frequent wars, mistrust, and broke after his death. Then after that it was turbulent, until the Kommenians, which fell to the Crusades, then a last spark by the Palaiologos, drawn out for almost a hundred years of being a veritable city-state until 1453, a few successors for a while after, until gone by ...1470, wholly?

I mean, sure, apropos for lasting that long, but it was one hell of a ride that doesn't scream so much success, rather, resiliency and stubbornness.

 

[Cheetah]

But are any state or nation or empire in the world much different? France had a bloody revolution merely 230 years ago, followed by great wars, Germany and the Holy Roman Empire has waxed and waned, England was invaded in 1087, fought wars and exchanged kings with the Scots, invaded Ireland in waves, had a revolution, and were invaded again within 600 years; China has been an on-again, off-again empire for millennia; and the US is a mere 250 years old.

All in all the Romans seems reasonably successful.

As for the Balkans, I'd like to point out the existence of Romania and their language.