I.O.U.S.A - Addison Wiggin [56]
We ’ ve seen that a lot. Of course that was the story of the whole Roman Empire — they handed out the bread and circuses and they kept fi ghting. They fought all around the Empire. They always had a war going on. That ’ s what empires do, and that ’ s why our book is called Empire of Debt, because it is an empire. It ’ s an empire founded on debt but it ’ s an empire that acts like an empire, and an empire is a military thing. It ’ s a thing that provides order or establishes order, and it ’ s always at war one way or another — that ’ s the kind of business that it ’ s in.
Q: Can you talk a little bit about bread and circuses?
Bill Bonner : Bread and circuses was a system whereby Roman politicians were able to keep control of the population of Rome.
The population of Rome was very important because it was a big city, and if Roman politicians lost control of the population of c08.indd 116
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Rome, they lost control of the Roman Empire. So they were very careful to keep the people of Rome happy, and they did it by giving them something for nothing. They gave them bread and circuses, just what the mob wants. Rome seized Egypt and took a lot of grain from Egypt every year, and the grain was distributed as bread to the people of Rome. Likewise, they held games in the Colosseum. And so bread and circuses allowed the Roman Empire to maintain popularity with the people at home and effectively got the Roman people to support their political leaders, and allowed the Roman Empire to continue going for a long, long time. But it began to cost more and more to keep the Empire in business. So the politicians spent more and more and went further and further into debt in order to get the money. In the case of the Roman Empire, they didn ’ t have paper money, they didn ’ t have the dollar. They had to send more slaves to Spain where they had silver and gold mines, and they worked around the clock.
That was what we call monetary infl ation. They produced more money by mining it out of the ground in order to buy the things they needed to control the population and pay the soldiers. But none of these things will work forever. All institutions have a way of growing older and becoming corrupt and then falling apart.
And that ’ s what happened in Rome. They spent too much money and kept going into debt, and fi nally the whole Empire became corrupt and it fell apart.
Q: Can you talk a little bit about what happened in the early part of the twentieth century, with Mussolini and Hitler?
Bill Bonner : After the reorganization in the mid - nineteenth century, Italy had a government that tended toward debt, and it always had some terrible crisis. And each time, Roman politicians tended to want to go to war. I don ’ t know where they get this; maybe it ’ s in their genes or maybe they ’ ve just read a lot of history.
And Mussolini was no exception. In his election campaign, he railed against debt. He said that the Italian state was spending too much money, and he was going to bring the debt under control. But once he got into offi ce he realized that bringing the debt under control was no way to run a country or to get popular c08.indd 117
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Interviews
support. And he couldn ’ t spend more money because they were already deeply in debt, so he conjured up a war. We saw that in Argentina, too. Those generals were in a bind so they decided to divert the public ’ s attention by starting a war with England, and so they seized the Falklands. England didn ’ t put up with it, and sent a fl eet and took it back. This is not a new theme. We ’ ve seen it many times in history and probably will see it more.
Q: How did it work out for Mussolini?
Bill Bonner : It didn ’ t work out well. They hung him, and his mistress, upside down.
Q: I want to talk about the idea of what America was when it started, a long time ago. What was the dream of what America could be and what was it that the settlers were trying to break away from? And do you feel that perhaps this idea of independence