Collective States Always End In Loss

Conservative historian Victor Davis Hanson on socialism:

"...History is not kind to such collective states of mind. Pay an Athenian in the fifth century BC a subsidy to go to the theater; and in the fourth century BC he is demanding such pay to vote in the assembly as well — and there is not to be a third century free democratic polis. Extend to a Roman in the first century BC a small grain dole, and by the late first century AD he cannot live without a big dole, free entertainment in a huge new Coliseum, and disbursements of free coined money. Let the emperor Justinian try cutting back the bloated bureaucracy in sixth century AD Constantinople and he wins the Nika riots that almost destroy a civilization from within even as it is beset by hosts of foreign enemies."

I like reading Hanson for his classicism. His connection of the Ancient world to modern America is also intriguing.

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I might have written this in the past but I reckon what we're witnessing in America is not all that dissimilar with Caesarian Rome when Imperial Rome led by Caesar and his faction were in a political power struggle with the conservative Republican body and Cicero at its spiritual head.

 Empire versus the Republic.