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| The fall of the Great Roman Empire. |
Norge og Vestens situasjon ligner mistenkelig sterkt på perioden før Romerriket gikk under. Jeg limer inn noen sitater fra relevant litteratur om dette, så kan man gjøre seg opp en mening selv.
Historikeren Edward Gibbon snakket om den nytelsessyke romerske kulturen og hva som var viktig for romerne:
“From the morning to the evening, careless of the sun or of the rain, the spectators, who sometimes amounted to the number of four hundred thousand as the giant Circus Maximus in Rome seated this many, remained in eager attention; their eyes fixed on the horses and charioteers, their minds agitated with hope and fear for the success of the colours which they espoused; and the happiness of Rome appeared to hang on the event of a race”
Daniel P. Mannix i boka "Those About to Die" viser beskrivelser av den romerske kulturen som er slående like vestlig kultur i dag, kanskje særlig amerikansk men også norsk. Likheten mellom "Pax Romana" og "Pax Americana" kan man ikke unngå å se.
“In a sense, the people were trapped. Rome had over-extended herself. She had become, as much by accident as design, the dominant nation of the world“ The cost of maintaining the ‘Pax Romana’ – the Peace of Rome – over most of the known world was proving too great even for the enormous resources of the mighty empire ….
“The cost of its gigantic military program was only one of Rome’s headaches. To encourage industry in her various satellite nations, Rome attempted a policy of unrestricted trade, but the Roman workingman was unable to compete with the cheap foreign labor and demanded high tariffs. The government was finally forced to subsidize the Roman working class to make up the difference between their ‘real wages’ [the actual value of what they were producing and the wages required to keep up their relatively high standard of living.”
"Life simply became too complex for the average Roman. But the continuous staging of games and spectacles – cleverly promoted by the Caesars to keep the people’s minds occupied was something to which he could relate. The Caesars, said one historian, “exhausted their ingenuity to provide the public with more festivals than any people, in any country, at any time, has ever seen.”
Festivaler, store konserter, store idrettsarrangementer, fotball og i det hele tatt brød og sirkus. Bra i passe doser, men ikke når det blir altoppslukende.
Velferdssamfunnet hvor 50% av BNP slukes av Staten, det store uhyret. Økonomiprofessor Grytten kunne fortelle på radio i går at i 1814 så utgjorde statsbudsjettet 2% av BNP (!), før krigen 10%. Sosialismen har slukt oss rått!
Lønninger i Norge har gått bananas og mye av industrien er flagget ut fordi den ble for dyr ift. konkurrentene. Enn så lenge kan vi kompensere med olje- og gassinntekter og ved å utvide lånebasen. Men når den muligheten er brukt opp...
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