Question

1. A historian was quoted as saying that if it hadn't been for slavery the ancient Romans would have had color television. What economic conclusions can you draw from that statement?

Answer 1

Ancient Rome was a slave, trade and agrarian based economy. They often domestically produced and sold agricultural produce such as olives, olive oil, wine, seeds and grains etc, which was meant to feed the general populous. Farmers were also taxed by the government monetarily on the income they earned as well as a part of the produce they harvested. This revenue was further used to finance war needs and expansionary purposes rather than for general citizen welfare, as the nation gained a lot of revenue and money in forms of spoils of war and looting.

Ancient Rome had decent trade connections in Parts of Europe, Asia and Africa where they traded goods such as grains, metals, weapons etc and even slaves. This is were the wealth at an other person's expense comes gravitates.

A lot of wealth was in the hands of very few imperial families and families in high societies. These people owned a large portion of resources as well as slaves and had either a trade background , military background or connections with the roman elite at the senate.

Slaves were traded over and over, where one slave would be traded multiple times. These men / women / children were not paid for their work and were put to survive in horrible conditions that was generally inhumane. Slaves were whipped and killed if they did not work up to standards. Slaves made up a large significant portion in ancient Roman economy. They were paid for once, to their seller / owner and were made to work for free , and this helped the government as well as slavers to cut costs massively, yet reap enormous profits. As a result of such revenue, the government taxed a portion of the incomes of these elites and slavers and used the extra money to finance wars, which they won many battles and territories that yielded them spoils of war and the captured people / prisoners at enemy territories were traded off as slaves in the markets, further contributing to this cycle.

As a result, the distribution of wealth was very unfair in ancient Rome and the wealth of the government as well as the elites and slavers heavily depended on slavery. This soon back fired when slavery was essentially abolished and prohibited and this meant that a major portion of what the Roman's considered as assets and resources disappeared, as slaves began to demand for payment and wages for their labor with rights and humane conditions. As Rome made a fortune dealing and distributing slaves to other nations, once slavery was abolished, they lost their markets as well as their revenue on the slaves they would have made. This reduced the profits made by the elites and farms and thus cut government revenue as well. Government cost also increased significantly as it had more people to take care of and provide necessary services. The old method of conquering and looting through was not possible in the modern society / economy, thus a large part of the army had to be laid off service as the government had no money to pay and maintain the same.

This crushed the roman economic system, and even to this day, over 16% in Italy are poor with Rome having a high population of 3 million people.