If there is one point at which Marxism should have altered our understanding of history, it is in the recognition that empires are essentially commercial enterprises and that the life of the empire depends on the powers of commercial, rather than military, expansion. The Roman Empire fell because it had reached the limits of its technology for production and distribution, particularly for distribution. That is, beyond a certain point, with the technology available, commercial development - commercial expansion - could no longer provide the supererogatory profits necessary for empire. Expanding trade produces a profit over and above straight profit from commercial transaction. This is parallel to the expansionist force inherently built into stockholder capitalism. Stockholder capitalism is appropriate for venture capital formation, or second order venture capital formation. When primary investors have 'proved out' an invention or process development, stock offering is the next logical step. Obviously, a risk is still involved, and therefore the possibilities of profit above strict and appropriate interest should also be available. But once an invention or process development has also 'proved out' in the marketplace and established a fairly consistent market share, the expansionist force inherent in stockholder ownership is commercially counterproductive, a negativity that eventually feeds on the corporation itself.
            Marxism involved a number of radical errors. While Marx himself understood that money is credit and that the market is governed by demand, he still assumed that the value inherent in the product resided in the 'work value' necessary for its production and not essentially on the demand in the marketplace. As a consequence, he could assume that the value of products was an absolute, apart from the demands of the marketplace. As an equal result, he could assume that the whole structure of credit was largely extraneous, and particularly with respect to interest on credit. But the ancient religious strictures against interest evolved in societies in which almost all capital formation was traditionally a function of individuals or governments. Governments financed infrastructure and monumental architecture. Individuals directly involved in 'industry' or commerce developed their own capital base. Lending was therefore presumably an individual consideration. While I am not inclined, at this point, to argue the abstract question of the modern commercial and industrial state, it is obviously not possible without collective modes of capital formation. And, since collective modes are necessarily impersonal, the incentive is necessarily interest, if not the risk rewards of higher profits.

            I write all this because we need to understand the decline of empire in terms of market dissolution. While there may have been 'external forces' that caused the great migrations of the 4th and 5th centuries in Europe, it seems likely that they first began with the collapse of the Empire itself. The growth of empire had enriched the encircling 'barbarians', allowing for the development of craft and commerce within them as well as with the Empire. The breakdown of the Empire was a breakdown in commercial trade. And since the security of the Empire and its clients was predicated on the revenues from commerce, the political decline was a function as much of the commercial breakdown as of raw political corruption or decadence. Increased commercial development had allowed for population growth in the encircling tribal orders. With the decline of commerce, their internal political stability was threatened. The weakening security in the Empire made the inner provinces vulnerable. And, of course, from the borders, the inner provinces were visibly wealthier and a natural prey.
            And I say all this because the worldwide situation appears to be on the verges of the same kind of limitation. In this case, of course, the limitation of expansion is not so much technological as geographical. While regions remain inaccessible, the world itself has been industrialized and commercialized. Much growth is possible, but the physical market limits have been reached. This was also something Marx suggested, although, again, it became a relatively marginal function of his other errors. The reliance on 'expansionist' forces in economics is no longer endlessly appropriate, if it ever was. And the obvious limitations on resources, particularly fossil fuels, are also establishing new limitations on the actualities of commercial exchange, limitations that will probably prove more imposing than the geographical or the technological. And, of course, global warming and desertification are going to shrink the habitable regions.

            Historians commonly focus on expansionist forces, since, almost by definition, growth is more unified than decay, and is therefore more accessible. But Rome, of course, is the epitome empire and the paradigm collapse. Therefore the scrutiny on the fall has been intense. But Marx - perhaps paradoxically, given Gibbon's intellectual background - is the father of economic historiography. Even in terms of a comprehensive commercial thesis of empire, such as Marx's, its validation now depends largely on micro-history rather than on the surviving literary records concerning the growth of political, military and social power. And the anthropological and archaeological study of the decline at the micro-historical level, as well as the review and reinterpretation of the documentation in terms of the orientation, is relatively recent. We still have some historians who suggest that Rome thrived on booty, rather than commerce, as if the one-time profit of conquest were sufficient to sustain an empire such as Rome.
            Obviously, like most, I am using Rome as a metaphor. But whether the study, even with Marx's thesis, is relevant to our present situation remains moot. That is, whether the decline of imperial Rome can offer explicit cautionary instruction for our own situation is still less than clear. Our interdependence is not simply commercial, but also technological in an altogether new sense. And the evanescent nature of the infrastructure development, in the last few decades, as well as the ephemeral nature of the profit centers in the marketplace, suggests not only that the centrifugal forces are already at work, but that they involve possibilities for decay and disintegration not available to Rome. Scams and shoddy construction are undoubtedly as old as human urban history, if not older. But the possibilities of government sanctioned scams in recondite, virtual realms of credit are relatively new. And shoddy Roman construction departed from a base of durability that has seen their structures survive for two millennia.
            The larger question, of course, is whether a form of 'balanced' economy is possible. Embracing state socialism, of course, has proven a disaster. The state is about politics. Politics is about power. The aggrandizing or expansionist force is inherent in the process that brings politicians and bureaucrats to power. Therefore, the state, essentially in every case, is by nature an imperialistic force, unless restrained by the citizens. Even in putative 'democracies', where a substantial proportion of the population is supposedly 'educated', the education apparently does not include curricula concerned to address the actual nature of the state. Governments, as 'players', are always going to represent a peculiarly self-interested viewpoint.
            And, of course, without a worldwide effort to control population, population control will become subject to the forces of nature and not human consciousness. But this is the issue throughout. Are we ready to take the conscious steps necessary to prepare for the inevitable changes? Or are we going to continue to view the world according to cellular limitations in which our individual credit rating today and the security of our retirement tomorrow are the paramount concerns?

- Jeremy