Few historical episodes offer as rich an intellectual exercise as the fall of the Western Roman Empire. It wasn’t a single cataclysm like the fall of Constantinople. Rather, new peoples with their own legal customs settled on Roman lands, lived alongside the existing population for a few generations — and eventually the Roman order simply dissolved. Modern theories about this slow unraveling are intriguing largely because they all, in one way or another, insinuate that the same process is unfolding in our own time.
The most famous explanation remains Edward Gibbon’s 18th-century thesis: a decline in Roman virtue, patriotism, filial respect, and the willingness to fight. The trouble, of course, is Gibbon’s method. He studied France in his own age and then announced, “This is exactly how it happened in Rome.” He lacked the historical depth to make that leap. The result is elegant, but superficial.
I personally find the sociologist Rodney Stark the most persuasive. His explanation is technological and institutional stagnation. Independent Germanic tribes, unburdened by the rigidities of a centralized empire, innovated more quickly. They pulled ahead in ironworking, weapon production, and military strategy. A more dynamic civilization slowly overtook a tired and outdated one.
But a few days ago — during a seminar at the Jungmann National Academy — historian Michal Téra offered a different angle. In the late empire, the wealthiest citizens accumulated so much power that they could effectively refuse to pay taxes. The burden fell onto lower classes already stretched to the breaking point. Even their crushing contributions could not sustain the system. When it finally collapsed, the state simply ceased to perform its functions. New arrivals stepped in — and no one had enough strength, or perhaps enough interest, to resist.
I cannot say with certainty how accurate this interpretation is. Real history rarely turns on a single cause. Taxes, stagnation, elite corruption — all of them likely played a role. But the parallel to our own situation is uncanny. Over the past few decades, tax burdens on the wealthiest have plummeted, and governments are increasingly incapable of funding even basic operations. Public debate is full of complaints about government waste, yet few mention that a generation ago the same level of public service was financed without much strain.
Two further elements must be added to the picture:
First, the money we transfer to banks. Formally, this isn’t a tax. In reality, it functions like one. Either the state collects funds and channels them to financial institutions, or individuals borrow privately to pay for services that the modern state once provided directly. Earlier generations of capitalism understood this arrangement differently.
Second, these structural changes come wrapped in a new moral framework, one aggressively sold to the public. According to this new ethic, it is virtuous — almost a civic duty — for the poor to shoulder their “fair share,” while the vast sums paid to banks somehow do not count. And to suggest that the wealthy should pay taxes at the levels seen in America or West Germany in the 1970s is treated as a relapse into Bolshevism. We have internalized this so deeply that even Communist parties no longer dare to challenge it.
But none of this resolves the basic arithmetic: the money is missing. And no one has yet invented a program of “austerity measures” that a national economy can actually survive.