Emperor Nero didn't actually play the fiddle, so he didn't play while the capital city of the Roman Empire burned for six days. It was his profligate spending on ‘great national projects' and the destruction of private wealth that displayed his madness.
Nero's reign involved currency debasement, looting property, and compelling the wealthy to commit suicide while he indulged in extravagances and appeased the masses with popular amusements.
Nero also silenced voices, like the great philosopher Seneca, who counseled reason, realism, and rational thought.
Yet the promises of a better life for the citizens of Rome proved hollow.
Eventually, he ran out of other people's money to spend.
This BBC documentary shows the greed, lust and corruption resulting from toleration of concentrated political power. The unheeded lessons from history continue to plague humanity to this day.
The framers of the Constitution for the United States studied the Roman Republic, almost obsessively, in hopes of avoiding the mistakes and forming a more perfect union.
Yet, appealing to popularity and promising something for nothing continues to plague social discourse. In fact, agitators for socialism are deliberately fomenting chaos and destruction in order to regularize even more coercive destruction of private property, all under the same mad assumptions Nero made about his benevolent rule.
This is why warriors, in service to liberty, must study political-economy. It is the highest form of strategy and, as Sun Tzu advise, the ground of survival or extinction.
Learn more:
- Inflation and the Fall of the Roman Empire
- Price Fixing in Ancient Rome
- The Edict of Diocletian: A Case Study in Price Controls and Inflation
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