Are We Rome?

Introduction

Monumental sums for bailouts. Staggering increases in public debt. Concentration of power in the central government. These are only some of the economic issues the United States is facing. Lawrence W. Reed, president of FEE, discusses 21st Century America and how familiar it is to the ill-fated Roman welfare state of two millennia ago.

Further Suggested Readings

• Podcast: Rome's Economic Suicide with Lawrence W. Reed and Marc Hyden
• Infographic: Currency and the Collapse of the Roman Empire
• The Slow-Motion Financial Suicide of the Roman Empire by Lawrence W. Reed and Marc Hyden
• Caligula: Plumbing the Depths of Ancient Tyranny by Lawrence W. Reed
• The Fall of Rome Began with the Abuse of Refugees by Harrison Searles
• The Fall of the Republic by Lawrence W. Reed
• Homeland Security Circa AD 285 by Harold B. Jones, Jr.
• Enemy of the State, Friend of Liberty by Lawrence W. Reed
• Bureaucracy Kills: A Lesson from Rome by William Henry Chamberlain
• Ancient Lessons by James A. Maccaro
• Poor Relief in Ancient Rome by Henry Hazlitt
• The Ancient Suicide of the West by Nicholas Davidson
• Rome: Money, Mischief, and Minted Crises by Marc Hyden and Lawrence W. Reed
• Why Rome Declined and Modern Europe Grew by Mark Koyama
• Nation Building Doesn't Work. Just Ask Rome. by Marc Hyden
• The Lust for Power Led to Rome’s Decline and Fall by Lawrence W. Reed

• Didius Julianus: The Man Who Purchased an Empire by Lawrence W. Reed

• How Great Civilizations Rise and Fall: Learning from Livy by Lawrence W. Reed

• The Keen Mind of Historian Edith Hamilton by Lawrence W. Reed

• The Tyranny of the Short-Run: What I Would Tell the Romans by Lawrence W. Reed

• The Rise and Fall of Ancient Rome (video) by Lawrence W. Reed

• How a Lowly Monk Ended Rome’s Gladiatorial Duels by Lawrence W. Reed

• How Mises Explained the Fall of Rome by Ludwig von Mises

• The Fall of Rome Began With the Abuse of Refugees by Harrison Searles

• How Roman Central Planners Destroyed Their Economy by Richard Ebeling

• Rome and the Great Depression by Lawrence W. Reed

• The Roman Emperor Who Tried to Bring Monetary ‘Reform’ to the Empire—and Failed Miserably
• The Emperor Who Tried to Bring Sound Economics Back to Rome—and Paid With His Life

Recommended Books

• The New Deal in Old Rome by H.J. Haskell
• The Rise of Rome: The Making of the World’s Greatest Empire by Anthony Everitt
• Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome’s Greatest Politician by Anthony Everitt
• Cicero: A Portrait by Elizabeth Rawson
• Cicero: Politics and Persuasion in Ancient Rome by Kathryn Tempest
• Empires of Trust by Thomas F. Madden
• Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland
• The Roman Revolution by Ronald Syme
• How Excessive Government Killed Ancient Rome (policy brief) by Bruce Bartlett

How to Lose a Constitution—Lessons from Roman History

Drawn largely from his talk, “Are We Rome?” and his essay, “Enemy of the State, Friend of Liberty,” FEE president Lawrence Reed delivered this speech at the final “Farewell to Irvington” event on August 23, 2014.

Lawrence W. Reed speaks about the parallels between the fall of Rome and the modern United States

This talk was delivered at FreedomFest in Las Vegas, Nevada in July 2013.