7 Revealing Ways America is Collapsing as Rome Did
Here are signs that are too disturbing to ignore
Historians, philosophers, and many great thinkers across time have compared the United States to the Ancient Roman Empire. And for good reason since America has implemented many of Rome’s customs and traditions.
America’s forefathers used the Roman Republic as a template for their new government. Many people mistakenly think that we live in a Democracy — that’s not true — we live in a Republic, courtesy of the Romans.
Another Roman footprint in our society lies in the architecture of existing governmental buildings. We see those Roman columns in virtually every American city.
America and Rome Correlations
I became enamored with Roman History about a decade ago and devoured every piece of content I could find about the Roman Empire.
Along the way, I couldn’t help but notice the familiarity between the Romans and the American Empire of today. While Americans are not the Imperialists that the Romans were (at least not directly), their societies are exhibiting many of the same signs.
Wealth Gap
Did you know that the wealth gap in American today is over twice what it was in Ancient Rome?
As of 2017, the top 1% of the richest Americans control almost 40% of America’s total wealth. In Ancient Rome, the top 1% controlled only 16% of the country’s total wealth¹.
Do not be deceived. The Ancient Romans were more than upset by this wealth gap.
Overpaid Athletes
We Americans have watched the salaries of professional athletes go through the roof over the past few decades. The wealth spent on our sports is beyond significant. It is truly a sign that our priorities are badly skewed.
Even our “amateur” college sports generate a ridiculous amount of cash. Universities claim to be solely devoted to educating their students, yet their sports coaches have salaries that are ten times bigger than any of their professors.
Romans were sports fanatics. While their sports were bloodier than ours, their passion was strong enough to justify the building of massive stadiums like the colosseum. There are hundreds of these stadiums in America today.
The highest-paid athlete in Rome was a chariot racer named Gaius Appuleius Diocles. In today’s dollars, he earned an astonishing $15 billion during his career². Diocles earned more than Rome’s richest aristocrats.
These first two examples of American and Roman correlation were just appetizers.
Let us now examine the 7 major signs that America may be collapsing as Ancient Rome did.
1) Cheap Foreign Labor
During its peak, Rome used foreign slaves to build their massive infrastructure³. While this practice boosted Roman profits, it took away jobs from Roman citizens who then became more dependent on the government.
This is not much different than how American companies have used cheap foreign labor⁴. While these laborers are not officially “slaves”, they earn very low wages. This practice allows companies to enjoy huge profit margins. These labor pools are known as “sweatshops”.
2) Controlling People by Debt
When Rome got sacked by the Gauls, their military budget went through the roof. Taxes were raised considerably and Romans were overwhelmed with debt. The poorest Romans went bankrupt and begged the government for debt forgiveness.
How does this scenario not correlate to the massive Federal debt that the US government has amassed over the past few decades? And isn’t there a huge political movement right now to forgive student loans?
Astonishingly, Roman citizens were willing to give up their right to vote for more freebies from the government⁵. To see this happen in America today is not that far-fetched.
3) Printing Money Does Not Save Economies
The Roman Emperor Nero began devaluing Roman coins by using less silver. This would allow him to create even more Roman coins.
Unfortunately, Nero set a horrible precedent as many of the Roman Emperors that followed did the very same thing. Over time, inflation became rampant in Roman society and their currency became worthless⁶.
Financial experts claim that the United States is doing the exact same thing by selling a massive amount of treasury bonds to the Chinese⁷. This is increasing the American debt which will eventually crush the economy.
4) Underestimating Barbarians
One of the biggest ironies of the mighty Roman Army is the number of times they got hammered by barbarian armies. The Romans had no difficulty defeating the most advanced armies on Earth, but the barbarians gave them all kinds of problems.
The Gauls and the Visigoths are prime examples of this. Both of these barbarian armies sacked Rome⁸.
We have many examples of this in modern America. All we need to do is replace the term “barbarian” with “terrorist”. The biggest of all these terrorist attacks in America was the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers in New York City. And there are countless smaller terrorist attacks that take place in America every year.
Like the Romans, America’s leaders continue to underestimate their terrorist adversaries. They’ve been called the “JV team”, yet they keep killing Americans⁹.
5) Training Enemies in Advanced Warfare
Interestingly, leaders of the Roman Empire revealed the same lack of common sense that American leaders suffer from.
In the last section, we discussed how the Gauls and Visigoths sacked Rome. Yet who trained many of them all about advanced warfare? That’s right, the Romans taught them.
For years, the Romans recruited Gauls and Visigoths into their great army as mercenaries¹⁰. They were taught all about military weaponry and discipline, as well as the latest in warfare strategies and tactics.
So is it really a surprise that these same soldiers later defeated the Romans on the battlefield?
America has done the exact same thing but in many more ways. We have trained mercenaries worldwide who have fought against us later. We have given them weapons and military equipment. We have built countless installations and even entire infrastructures for our future enemies.
And thousands of our adversaries are receiving educations in our top universities every single year. The Chinese government pays US universities enormous sums of money to allow Chinese students to take spots away from American students¹¹.
How does America benefit from all this?
6) Big Military Budgets Bankrupt Big Countries
Ancient Rome became painfully aware that when you become a world superpower, you also become a huge target. This fact forced Rome to place a high premium on defending its country.
Over time, the cost of maintaining the military presence required for defense became enormous. And the Romans had to keep raising taxes on its citizens¹².
The United States today has the same problem. They are considered the world’s biggest superpower, and they have a big target on their back as the Romans did.
Some people argue that the Romans had more territory to defend than America does. This is actually not true.
The successes of the Scandinavian countries are often regarded as the template that all countries should use. Their overall balance of capitalism and socialism seems to be working, and their economies were unaffected by the market meltdown of 2008.
However, these Scandinavian countries have very low military budgets. This is because they rely on NATO to militarily protect their interests. The biggest military presence in all of NATO is America.
This means that America is indirectly defending many borders across the world¹³ — just like the Romans did.
7) Sharp Decline in Patriotism
When you read about the earliest days of Rome, it is very much like reading about the colonial days of America. There is a clear cause and the level of Patriotism is off the charts.
Early Romans often used the phrase, “for the glory of Rome”. These words alone inspired the masses and all citizens were proud to be Roman citizens.
Yet this Roman patriotism gradually eroded away¹⁴. As more and more issues lowered the overall satisfaction level of the populous, the mighty Roman Empire began to crumble. All of a sudden, individuality became more valuable than the common good.
Aren’t we seeing this in America right now? How many symbols of American heritage are being destroyed right before our eyes? How many American flags have been burned?¹⁵
This is perhaps the biggest sign of all that America is collapsing as the Romans did.
[1]: Gus Lubin. (December 17, 2011). Even The Ancient Roman Empire Wasn’t As Unequal As America Today. https://www.businessinsider.com/even-the-roman-empire-wasnt-as-unequal-as-america-today-2011-12#
[2]: Alexander Meddings.The Truth Behind the Highest-Paid Athlete in History Will Seriously Surprise You. https://historycollection.com/the-truth-behind-the-highest-paid-athlete-in-history-will-seriously-surprise-you/
[3]: UNRV Roman History. Roman Slavery. https://www.unrv.com/slavery.php
[4]: Megan Elliot. (January 12, 2018). American Companies Keep Sending Thousands of Jobs Overseas. https://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/american-companies-sent-jobs-overseas.html/
[5]: Jason Daley. (November 6, 2018). Lessons in the Decline of Democracy From the Ruined Roman Republic. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/lessons-decline-democracy-from-ruined-roman-republic-180970711/
[6]: Joseph R. Peden. (October 19, 2017). Inflation and the Fall of the Roman Empire. https://mises.org/library/inflation-and-fall-roman-empire
[7]: Shobhit Seth. (April 14, 2020). Why China Buys U.S. Debt With Treasury Bonds. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/040115/reasons-why-china-buys-us-treasury-bonds.asp#
[8]: Evan Andrews. (August 29, 2018). 6 Infamous Sacks of Rome. https://www.history.com/news/6-infamous-sacks-of-rome
[9]: Johannes Lang. (March 20, 2019). Why We Are Still Losing the War on Terror. https://harvardpolitics.com/columns-old/losing-the-war-on-terror/
[10]: David G. Frye. Rome’s Barbarian Mercenaries. https://www.historynet.com/romes-barbarian-mercenaries.htm
[11]: Kate Hooper and Jeanne Batalova. (January 28, 2015). Chinese Immigrants in the United States. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/chinese-immigrants-united-states-4
[12]: Steven Wills. (June 25, 2014). Lessons from the Late Roman Army. http://cimsec.org/lessons-late-roman-army/11667
[13]: Stephanie Savell and 5W Infographics. (January 2019). This Map Shows Where in the World the U.S. Military Is Combatting Terrorism. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/map-shows-places-world-where-us-military-operates-180970997/
[14]: Jason Daley. (November 6, 2018). Lessons in the Decline of Democracy From the Ruined Roman Republic. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/lessons-decline-democracy-from-ruined-roman-republic-180970711/
[15]: Yannick Giovanni Marshall. (February 6, 2020). Patriotism is racist. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/patriotism-racist-200205133653479.html
