Roman

While thinking of Edward Gibbon, it comes to me that the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is not entirely irrelevant to what we are facing.

The original theory of Gibbon was rather simple: The decay in the moral quality of Roman citizens resulted in an increasing reliance of barbarian (Germanic) mercenaries for the defense of the country, leading to "cultural dilution" and the loss of some "core value" of the original Empire.

Sounds familiar, eh ?

If not, maybe you would find the theory of Arnold Toynbee more alarming:

You know what, the Romans had no budgetary system and wasted whatever resource available. The tax system and economy was largely based on a few financial tyrants (who had command on a huge slave labor). Small scale farmers could not survive, and they were forced to move to the over-populated cities - and probably become slaves of those tyrants. There was no middle class with purchasing power. An overspending government means that financial needs continued to increase, but the means of meeting them steadily eroded.

I shouldn't say any more.