Considering capitalism didn't exist and the Industrial Revolution

>>71348005
Ancient Rome was very socialistic in nature, but also instilled cultural values and a kind of imperial identity, similar to a national identity.

>>71348005
so any history fag can tell me why it got ruined?

>>71348236
That wasn't the question

>>71348236

I do know that they had dictators, but according to Wikipedia they were only used in emergencies. So what did they do, collect taxes from the farmers and paid others to build the structures? Or was it mostly slave labour?

>>71348005
Look up mercantilism

>>71348348
This. I think it was pretty similar to europe today.

A mix of socialism and small time capitalism.

>>71348005
Of course there were businesses. One of the richest guys in history, Crassus, got his fortune through being a typical cutthroat capitalist

>Some of Crassus' wealth was acquired conventionally, through traffic in slaves, production from silver mines, and speculative real estate purchases. Crassus bought property which was confiscated in proscriptions. He notoriously purchased burnt and collapsed buildings. Plutarch wrote that observing how frequent such occurrences were, he bought slaves 'who were architects and builders.' When he had over 500 slaves he bought houses which had burnt and the adjacent 'ones because their owners would let go at a trifling price.' He bought 'the largest part of Rome' in this way. He bought them on the cheap and rebuilt them with slave labour.

>>71348455
Who was the one who got to be richer than the entire roman empire at some point?

>>71348293
less efficiciency/productivity + mass Germanic invasions fleeing Attila's hordes = collapse

>>71348508
Probably him, Crassus is considered one of the richest people in history

>>71348508

That guy from Mali? Was the roman empire even around during the Islamic golden age?

>>71348533
>Germanic invasions
Why they lost to them when romans had better technology?

>>71348618

Internal conflict resulting from a change in beliefs due to th spread of Christianity

A good bunch of commercial laws come from the Roman era

>>71348618
Romans had become "lazy" so to say. The last days of the Roman Empire were marked by lavish feasting and excess. Meanwhile, the Germanic tribes were driven out of their homeland by the Huns so they were literally fighting to the death. That plus the sheer number of Germanic tribes invading led to the collapse.

>>71348618
romans didn't have better technology, Germanic weaponry and tactics were comparable so much so that you would have trouble determining of a weapon was made by romans or by germans.

>>71348651
Christianity wasn't really the cause of anything, it was rather a symptom.
Many new belief systems came about, but none of them took a firm hold. The spread of Christianity is a mark of the changing social dynamics of the time.

>>71349024
The Germans that invaded were Christians as well.

So basicly roman empire was a shit country that was easy to destroy internally

>>71349150
Afaik they were mostly pagans and only converted to Christianity later. Lots of them became Romeboos like Charlemagne, but that's a few centuries later.

>>71349219
Wasn't so easy for a millennium, it only needs to work once.

>>71349262
>Afaik they were mostly pagans and only converted to Christianity later.
Um no, they were Christians, the pagans were in scandinavia.

>Considering capitalism didn't exist
It's not like entrepreneurship, trade, investing, money etc. require capitalism to exist.

>>71348005
Patricians did buildings like statues. Public buildings like aquaducts were built by senate. Most of buildings were done by senate. Sometimes legionaries were used to build them. There were market and even specific parts of town separated for trade.

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>>71348005
>were there any businesses in ancient Rome or just markets?
the majority of trade and commerce i imagine was done by public/nationalized companies

>And who built all the structures?
the projects were usually contracted out to the government
>artistic endeavors
usually artisans and skilled craftsmen
>infrastructure like roads, aquaducts etc
usually a mix of early architects/engineers, with military, the public, or slaves
>large scale projects made purely because yeah we make big heckin' stuff
usually architects + slave labour

>Were they commissioned by the government or private groups/individuals?
the commissioning of artistic projects by private institutions other than the church took a while to take off, and wasn't really a thing until the north italian renaissance

mercantilism was extremely strong up until the 1300's/1400's so it was pretty much out of the question for international private companies that would benefit merchants to even exist during roman days

that being said, mercantilism did stick around into the 19th century, to protect western nations from the extreme product price difference between nations at the time

>>71349771
>contracted out to the government
*by the government

>>71348397
European capitalism is purer than american capitalism.

>>71348693
This. Romans had the freest system in their time.

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>>71348236
>slave society
>socialistic

>>71348618
The process of the fall of the roman empire was slow and germanics were more sucessful in "defeating" the roman empire by integrating their society than having battles with them.

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>>71350007
They were working to build socialism.

>>71349771
How tf do you imagine the state to have so much power and control to be doing the majority of trade and commerce? That's only been done in modern communist regimes through industrialization. The vast majority of trade was definitely done by typical merchants.

>>71350125
The state controlled all industries and productions.

>>71350125
>How tf do you imagine the state to have so much power and control to be doing the majority of trade and commerce?
because the state controlled all industry you dingus, any large scale projects were commissioned by the state and all people doing these projects were contracted out by the state
the only trade that wasn't taxed was local crop trade and shit like that, and those people were already being taxed anyways
>The vast majority of trade was definitely done by typical merchants.
who were literally agents of the state, and paid heavy tax, even moreso if trading outside of the empire in north africa or the middle east/persia

>>71350203
>controlling industry and production
>controlling trade and commerce
Not the same thing

>>71350328
Projects aren't trade and your claim that all traders were government agents is false. Literal plebeians and freed slaves could be merchants.

>>71350536
as time went on, plebeians were allowed tob ecome merchants, yes
but the thing is, roman military were utilized to secure trade routes
they poured money into navigational aids such as lighthouses
merchants were extremely controlled on where they could trade and with whom, and were taxed heavily to further support securing trade routes, and the taxes of merchants were an extremely large part of roman revenue
to claim that trade wasn't controlled by the government is just silly, it is nowhere near even renaissance trade in comparison to renaissance times

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>>71351003
>it is nowhere near even renaissance trade in comparison to renaissance times
well i fugged that sentence up

>>71351003
If by controlled you mean trade was regulated, then yes the government "controlled" trade, just like almost any other country in antiquity, the Middle Ages and other times in history.
When you said the government controlled trade, I understood it as the government centrally planning exactly how much of what product will be traded, when and where. This only existed in modern communist regimes.

>>71351266
well yes, quantity of anything would've been difficult to regulate
but who was traded with, who could trade and how much it was taxed was controlled by the state
i imagine also in times of scarcity of specific resources, those trades would've been either prohibited or at least would've been restricted to a point

>>71348005
Rich people were around even back then m8

>>71351470
That's nothing special, look up how the Holy Roman Empire, England, the Netherlands and many other countries gave special trade rights to specific towns while prohibiting others.