When the military successes of Rome brought in all those slaves it wasn't too long before your lower- and middle-class Roman had no way to earn a living. Slaves were doing all the work. To keep the peace, the ruling class had to give away food and create increasingly elaborate forms of entertainment.
In our modern empire, the role of the slaves has been replace by automation and cheap foreign labor. The results are similar. Lower- and middle-class citizens are deprived of the means for earning livelihoods. Our problem today is to find a solution for this that is better than the Roman solution was.
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