There are tax farmers squeezing a province dry. There are soldiers fighting for the emperor’s baton. And then there are a few who dread the empire’s fall and dream of the old republic.
This is not just the story of ancient Rome. It’s also an apt metaphor for the state of contemporary America—a late-stage empire defined by extreme inequality, militarization, and a governing class that clings to power while the social fabric unravels.
In Rome, the Senate once stood as the heart of the Republic, composed of elite Patrician families who wielded enormous religious, political, and economic influence. But as historian and economist Michael Hudson writes in The Collapse of Antiquity, these elites became entrenched creditors and landlords, a rentier class unwilling to compromise or adapt. They refused debt cancellation, land redistribution, or any reforms that might curb their power—transforming what was once a dynamic, if imperfect, republic into a brittle and parasitic empire.
This refusal to evolve created an unsustainable system. Wealth concentrated in fewer hands. Small farmers and urban workers were crushed under debts. The rural economy collapsed as latifundia (large estates) displaced independent farmers. Military commanders, frustrated with elite gridlock, seized power for themselves. And the Senate, once a genuine force of governance, became a ceremonial shell. What followed was a long descent: civil wars, authoritarianism, economic stagnation, and eventually the re-feudalization of the West.
Hudson’s view is clear: the Roman Senate and elite, by prioritizing their creditor rights over the common good, destroyed the economic base that sustained the Empire. In their greed and rigidity, they ensured the fall they feared.
Now consider the United States. Like Rome, America has become dominated by a professional ruling class: oligarchs, financiers, tenured politicians, credentialed technocrats, and think-tank warriors. Institutions of higher education, once engines of democratic possibility, have increasingly become training grounds for this elite. And like the Roman Senate, they are largely unaccountable—privatizing gains, socializing losses, and suppressing reform.
Just as Roman tax farmers drained the provinces, today’s student loan servicers, for-profit colleges, and hedge fund–backed housing firms squeeze the public to fund private empires. Just as Roman generals became emperors, today’s billionaires and media moguls wield near-sovereign power over public discourse, elections, and foreign policy. And just as the Roman elite clung to legal fictions while society crumbled, our ruling class insists the republic is healthy—even as inequality soars, infrastructure decays, and democratic norms erode.
There are still those who long for a return to the “old republic”—to a time when education was a public good, when civic virtue mattered, and when government sought the common welfare. But those voices are increasingly drowned out in a landscape of imperial spectacle, culture wars, and managed decline.
Hudson reminds us that ancient societies that survived economic collapse—like those in Mesopotamia—did so by recognizing the need for periodic resets. They canceled debts. They redistributed land. They prioritized stability over elite entrenchment. Rome—and perhaps America—refused to learn those lessons.
In this moment of crisis, the choice is stark: will we continue down the path of empire, ruled by debt and extraction? Or will we recover some measure of republic, with institutions that serve people, not just capital?
One thing is certain: empires fall. But their people don’t have to fall with them—if they choose to resist.
Sources:
-
Michael Hudson, The Collapse of Antiquity: Greece and Rome as Civilization’s Oligarchic Turning Point, 2023
-
Mary Beard, SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, 2015
-
Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776–1789
-
Kyle Harper, The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire, 2017
-
Higher Education Inquirer, ongoing coverage on student debt and elite university structures
-
U.S. Department of Education, data on student debt and institutional concentration of resources
