The parallels between Rome and America today aren't just coincidence. There's a natural progression that begins with instituting a nation out of the chaotic and violent conflict that spawns them. People who have survived want their kids to have a better life, and create institutions they wish they'd had, or ended up cobbling out of the relationships with allies and neighbors that won the conflicts.

As each generation thereafter interacts and draws conclusions about how to govern, they do so based on their experiences, and seek to survive and prosper in the conditions extant. The experience of founders of nations instills far different principles and lessons than the experience of generations that grow up within a strong nation.

In both Rome and the world today, financialization has resulted from prosperity the sound institutions crafted by their nations founders, and culturally the respect survivors of war and hardship naturally feel for their allies is replaced by the indolence, entitlement, and narcissism of those coddled by the institutions.

Republics become empires, currencies are debased, and welfare destroys the need of parents for partners to raise families. Civil society is degraded to bread and circuses. It's the identical form and results from the identical influences in both Rome and the collapsing West today.

It's no wonder the Caligulan Left is seeking the debauchery and profligate sexual excess Rome featured in it's collapse, because it is coming from the same influences and institutions that had seized power in Rome through financialization.

Just like Roman citizenry did then, we face a coming dark age of oppression and ignorance. This is why I advocate personally seizing the means of production. I don't think the centralized institutions are going to remain competent, and if we don't want to be plunged into a dark age, we're going to need to keep the lights on ourselves.

Thanks for always ferreting out interesting and relevant issues, and your honest discussion. Thanks for the shout out too.