Die Welt: Europe’s crisis resembles the decline of ancient Rome
Europe is experiencing a decline similar to the fall of the Roman Empire, writes Daniel Eckert in the German newspaper Die Welt. According to Eckert, the history of the collapse of Rome has many consecutive coincidences with the developing crisis in the European Union.
The author considers the first coincidence to be a period of inflation, which struck a previously stable currency. In the Roman Empire money did not depreciate for about two and a half centuries, but then devaluation turned the social order upside down.
“The devaluation of money began in the second century AD, almost immediately after the pandemic. Before that, the Roman currency, the denarius, had been very stable in value for centuries,” the author explained.
Eckert cited the pandemic as the second factor – the Antonine plague was rampant in the Roman Empire and beyond before the period of inflation.
“How exactly the plague affected price development in the empire is as difficult to determine as the number of victims. One in ten inhabitants in the urban centres of the empire is reported to have died, and the army partly exterminated a third in its field camps. There is no doubt that the monetary and economic order was no longer the same after the plague of Antoninus. Perhaps it was because politicians were increasingly trying to regulate prices,” he said.
In addition, government control of the market led to an even worsening of the crisis. For example, maximum prices were set for grain that were lower than market prices, leading to a reduction in supply and stopping trade between cities and provinces.
Returning to Europe’s current economic decline, Eckert stressed that the continent was also painfully dependent on the free movement of goods and money supply, which was not helped by sanctions restrictions or border closures during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Germany has been hit twice by two overlapping crises because, as an exporting country, the country is more dependent on secure trade routes than almost any other country. Like the Roman Empire 2,000 years ago, our prosperity is largely due to the free movement of goods and services, while supply disruptions and other disruptions slow prosperity,” said the author.
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