nelson
06-22-2009, 08:27 AM
Here's an economics post.
Mises has posted an intruiging article titled, Price Fixing in Ancient Rome (http://mises.org/story/3498).
It's a fairly broad overview of economic controls implemented by Roman government at the start of, and throughout, their period of decline.
(The article is actually an excerpt from the book, Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Controls: How Not to Fight Inflation (http://www.mises.org/store/Forty-Centuries-of-Wage-and-Price-Controls-P566.aspx).)
Check it out if you find economic history interesting.
Here's a tiny excerpt:
From at least the time of the fourth century B.C., the Roman government bought supplies of corn or wheat in times of shortage and resold them to the people at a low fixed price. ... In 58 B.C. this law was "improved" to allow every citizen free wheat. The result, of course, came as a surprise to the government. Most of the farmers remaining in the countryside simply left to live in Rome without working.
Slaves were freed by their masters so that they, as Roman citizens, could be supported by the state. In 45 B.C., Julius Caesar discovered that almost one citizen in three was receiving his wheat at government expense. He managed to reduce this number by about half, but it soon rose again; throughout the centuries of the empire, Rome was to be perpetually plagued with this problem of artificially low prices for grain, which caused economic dislocations of all sorts.
Price Fixing in Ancient Rome
http://mises.org/story/3498
Mises has posted an intruiging article titled, Price Fixing in Ancient Rome (http://mises.org/story/3498).
It's a fairly broad overview of economic controls implemented by Roman government at the start of, and throughout, their period of decline.
(The article is actually an excerpt from the book, Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Controls: How Not to Fight Inflation (http://www.mises.org/store/Forty-Centuries-of-Wage-and-Price-Controls-P566.aspx).)
Check it out if you find economic history interesting.
Here's a tiny excerpt:
From at least the time of the fourth century B.C., the Roman government bought supplies of corn or wheat in times of shortage and resold them to the people at a low fixed price. ... In 58 B.C. this law was "improved" to allow every citizen free wheat. The result, of course, came as a surprise to the government. Most of the farmers remaining in the countryside simply left to live in Rome without working.
Slaves were freed by their masters so that they, as Roman citizens, could be supported by the state. In 45 B.C., Julius Caesar discovered that almost one citizen in three was receiving his wheat at government expense. He managed to reduce this number by about half, but it soon rose again; throughout the centuries of the empire, Rome was to be perpetually plagued with this problem of artificially low prices for grain, which caused economic dislocations of all sorts.
Price Fixing in Ancient Rome
http://mises.org/story/3498