To illustrate what might have happened if Senatorial wealth had not depressed the economy: if free yeomen farmers worked on their own land, they would have been many times as productive. Dramatic increases in productivity have been demonstrated over and over again when land reform has given farmers their own land to work ; much of the vacant land could have been farmed by them. Further, if the Senators' gold had been taxed away from them, and if the government had spent it wisely (a condition that probably could not have been met, given the high level of corruption in the Imperial government, a result of its autocratic form), that gold would have energized markets, since it would have been spent as wages for more military and for road and harbor reconstruction, for example. The combination of a revived infrastructure and greater security, with more money in circulation, could have revived the Imperial economy.
But of course the modern selfish class gains their wealth through a broader array of sources. Didn't Bill Gates create the wealth of Microsoft; didn't the Waltons create the wealth of Walmart? They didn't subtract wealth from others, did they? The answers to these questions are at very least ambiguous.
Wealth in the modern era tends to accumulate, just as it did in the Fifth Century, but it is based on more than land and gold; it is based on concentration, on control of organizational corporate structures more than it is based on manufacturing, on controlling corporations that have global reach. Did Gates create the software industry and therefore his own huge holdings (somewhere between $50 and $100 billion, depending on the market)? Computer mavens would argue that he took advantage of IBM's monopoly (since lost) and ripped off operating systems and applications programs from other computer designers. In other words, his fortune is in large part due to monopoly power--again reducing the amount of wealth in the economy by hiking prices for goods and thereby restricting supply.
Walton founded Walmart, creating the largest retail company in the world, but it is a company that depends on selling goods from China and other low-wage countries, thereby driving out better paid competition. It also depends on paying its retail workers the lowest wages possible, breaking up all attempts at union organizing, and even counseling its employees on how to apply for Medicaid, because its own health insurance program is unaffordable for nearly half of them. This means that taxpayers subsidize Walmart's low wages. Walmart does provide lower-cost consumer goods than would otherwise be available, but it drives out other retail stores, drives down the prevailing wage, and contributes to the rising cost of public services like Medicaid. It is no accident that there are three Waltons who are among the wealthiest people on the planet, but they got there at the expense of every one of us; they are prime examplars of the selfish class.
A good case can be made that the wealth accumulated by the Waltons really diminishes the wealth of everyone else, since it comes from exploiting both US workers and the Chinese and other foreign workers, and destroying local environments thereby reducing the amount of wealth available to all those people. Do Walmart's lower prices compensate for that loss? Considering the billions held by the Walton family alone, that doesn't seem likely. Further, Walmart is now seen as the new corporate model to be emulated, while General Motors, which paid decent wages and benefits to a highly unionized workforce, is perceived as a corporate dinosaur.
But how did we get here? How did this conservative offensive get so far? Again, how the Roman Senatorial class gained its wealth and power is instructive.
Up until Diocletian (284-305) the Senatorial aristocracy, or many of its members, were participants in the scramble for the Imperial purple. They had actually lost most power when Julius Caesar became Dictator, and for a long period of the Empire after Octavian named himself Augustus. At that point, too, the common people lost what little power they had held under the Republic, but the Senators had been reduced to a rubber-stamp and audience for the Emperors. Until Diocletian, the Emperor had almost unlimited power. All decisions, ultimately, had to be made by him personally, even if he was insane or incompetent. The only remedy, if he was completely out of his mind, like Caligula, was for the troops to overthrow him and raise a replacement "to the purple."
Once succession struggles became endemic, however, members of the Senate became active participants as they had been before Julius Caesar. During the chaotic third century, many Senators lost everything when they ended up on the losing side. Since this happened over and over again, there was much circulation of the elite. After Diocletian put an end to the civil wars and chaos of the third century, he banned Senators from careers in the military, the direct route to power. At the time this was probably seen as a political defeat for the whole Senatorial class, but Diocletian also created a bureaucratic state; it was to control most government functions from that time onward.
Ironically, the Senatorial class was the best connected and the best educated, so naturally it took over the top of the bureaucracy as its own. It was more in control of government than it had been when the Emperor was absolute ruler. As a class, it was also no longer competing for succession to the diadem, so mobility into the elite slowed drastically in the fourth and fifth centuries. Senatorial families inherited from other Senatorial families and their fortunes accumulated. Civilian and military concerns were separated completely by the middle of the Fourth Century: Senators were not allowed to go into military service, or even to bear arms. Their powers as praetorian prefects, vicarii and other civilian officials did not include power over the military. Nevertheless, one of the major responsibilities of civilian bureaucrats was to see that the military was adequately supplied. They had to administer the tax system, theoretically overseen by the fisc or treasury. In the latter part of the fourth and into the fifth century Senators increasingly confined themselves to public offices closer to home than Ravenna, such as serving as governors of provinces where they held large properties.
Despite their retreat from public office, socially the Senators continued to be the dominant class. Almost all of the documents of the era reflect the styles, biases and interests of the Senators. They enjoyed the greatest esteem and deference in Roman society; they were like a combination of Hollywood star and CEO of a large corporation today. They also had legal privileges that common people did not, since they were honesti with titles like illustres, clarissimus and spectabilis setting them apart from the common herd. Even if they committed crimes they were not executed in the horrible ways reserved for common citizens, the humili; if they were condemned to death, they still had one privilege--to be beheaded, rather than tortured. The worst punishment, to them, was to lose their class, to be reduced to a humiliore and to be jailed "not now first degraded to plebian rank, but restored to it as his own."
Like influential people today (Corporate CEO's, heads of large banks, scions of wealthy families), members of the most important Senatorial families could meet with the highest officials whenever necessary, and could easily overawe them--they were old family, cultivated, prestigious, and had an aura about them that even the most powerful official might defer to. More importantly, everyone knew who they were, and that they were untouchable unless they dabbled in palace intrigue. Think of someone like Donald Trump, today, or David Rockefeller yesterday, the kind of person who could travel to Washington for a day, and meet with department heads, Senators and Congressmen just because of who they are.
Another source of wealth, or rather a reason why it tended to accumulate in larger and larger fortunes, was the Senators' practice of tax avoidance. The elite were notorious for avoiding taxes not only for themselves, but on behalf of all their dependents, as the quote by Emperor Majorian demonstrates: "This is the method of powerful persons, whose agents in the provinces disregard the payment of taxes, while ... they arrogantly keep to their estates." That meant that their large estates were effectively removed from the tax rolls. Tax avoidance allowed Senators to keep all their accumulated wealth--except for any they might choose to "invest" in a public office and the games it would entail. As pointed out in The Logic of a Selfish Class, , their investment in office was a highly lucrative enterprise. Some of them may have used high office to collect "taxes" for their own profit, but most didn't need to go to such corrupt extremes; they could use the position for their own interests, without being so blatant. Office gave them an inside track on government contracts--supplying the military, for example--on land deals, and dealing with legal problems. Just like the Bechtels and Halliburtons of today.
Their tax avoidance had other consequences, too. Since they protected their dependents from paying taxes (letting the share-cropper survive and earning more for the landlord), many independent peasants appealed to the large landowner for protection, when they faced ruin if they paid their taxes. The peasants' difficulties had become extreme in the fourth and fifth centuries, such as in having their seed corn and breeding stock seized for taxes, so that, facing starvation, they would have no alternative to selling their daughter into slavery, or appealing for help from the nearby large landowner. Since the landowner had available land to work, this often seemed a better choice. But to throw himself on the mercy of the landlord meant that the peasant or municipal gentleman was giving up an independent existence and an honorable social class. The small landowner would give up being a honestiore, and become a humiliore, literally one of the humble, serving classes. In fact, to work on the landlord's land they became serfs, or servae terrae, slaves of the land, whether they were peasants beforehand, or even decurions, that is people from the urban middle class.
The decurions were a special case. They had some land, and some wealth, as respectable members of local municipalities, but they were often assigned the thankless task of collecting local taxes. The task was an onerous one because so much of the property was becoming exempt (in fact, if not legally). As a consequence of the shrinking tax base the rate of taxation became heavier and heavier on those unprotected by the Senators, and if the decurion/tax collector could not meet the quota set by the fisc then he (and his family) had to make up the difference out of his own pocket. So, decurions, too, sought refuge on the Senators' estates, despite the prospect of losing their social status. It was either that, or they could escape to the hills to become bandits.
So, tax avoidance added to Senatorial wealth in the sense that they kept "their own money," as George Bush might say, but tax avoidance also drew a ready labor force to them, since the estate owner offered the refugees protection from paying taxes, as well. The new coloni often brought additional land with them, too, especially if they were former decurions of the middle class, thereby increasing the Senator's holdings. This was a common occurrence. The appropriateness of labeling the Senators the selfish class, is borne out by the fact that their offer of protection also required their clients to become serfs.
The effect on the Empire was disastrous because the selfish class withdrew more and more land and resources from the government's revenue base, despite the fact that barbarian incursions were continually getting worse, and more threatening. In other words, the tax base was shrinking, but the government's needs were growing--just to defend its territories. The effect upon the Senators, however, was the opposite: their landholdings grew and the number of people under their control grew as well.
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