Because of this, roman citizens were charging higher prices for items so they would be receiving the same amount of silver. Inflation was not the empire’s only concern with the economy. The defense of the empire was very expensive and Rome also needed to maintain an active military, as a result Rome raised taxes that the average roman citizen could not afford. Even with the raised taxes it could not provide enough money to maintain the empire. The ultimate outcome of
Expenses grew, such as the cost of defense, so the government raised taxes. In addition, they minted more coins made of less metal each. This caused the economy to suffer from inflation. Secondly, politics declined which added to the downfall of Rome. The key problem in politics was the lack of loyalty.
Some of the things they spent it on were golden statues of themselves, banquets that were very expensive and clothes made out of the finest, unique fabrics instead of trying to develop the infrastructure of Rome. By spending so much money on themselves, they had to raise the taxes so they could carry on paying for their own well-being. As they raised the taxes, less people could pay for their well-being such as food, which caused another problem, poverty. Furthermore, another problem was how much money the Roman Empire spent on creating new buildings, which were built on people’s land. But the empire were very inconsiderate and silly as people were paying the taxes by growing and harvesting crops which they would sell to the markets in order to pay for the taxes.
The decline lasted for approximately 300 years until A.D. 476 when it finally collapsed. There were a number of problems which led to the empires downfall. One of the leading factors was that the people had become disloyal to the empire and very different than they had been years before. Another major reason was that there were political and economic decays. And also, the military had drastically weakened, which made a huge difference.
When the empire expanded as far as it could in the second century and there were no more enemies to be conquered, the flow of wealth Rome experienced during the expansion slowly dried up. The empire found itself under the internal pressure of having to pay a large army to defend the large territory acquired, and the cost of sustaining this army became a burden. The overexpansion caused a struggle to recruit enough troops and resources to defend against local rebellions and invader attacks. More and more resources were used to upkeep the empire’s borders, leaving Rome’s civil infrastructure in disrepair and slowing and technological advancements.
And to top it all off both of these empires fail for similar reasons. The Han Empire collapsed for reasons such as: undetermined emperors could no longer control powerful warlords, weak emperors let canals and roads fall into disrepair, because of the weak government people started to turn on each other and lose control. But the most important reason for the empire collapsing was because of the economic inequality. Burdened by heavy taxes and crushing debt many peasants revolted destroying the civilization. While this collapse took very little time to happen, the Roman Empire’s decline took about a century to occur.
Germanys list of problems at this time was only growing. Losing WW1 caused many problems in itself as one might expect, never mind the Treaty of Versailles that was to follow. The most prominent socio-economic effects were most naturally the casualties, 2 million Germans were killed and a further 6 million were injured, also the increasing number of civilian deaths due to hypothermia and starvation. The reason these deaths increased, was due to food and fuel shortages caused by the cold winter of 1916-17. In these winter months there were signs of the country’s morale and unity breaking, it was not helped when Germany was hit with an influenza epidemic, wiping out 20-40 million, the resistance to the disease was lowered due to decline in living conditions.
In this essay I will discuss if hyperinflation was completely caused by the Treaty of Versailles (1918-19). The Treaty of Versailles was responsible for thee suspension of the Ruhr, this was a place of great industrial power and brought in a lot of money to Germany. However when it was taken away from the Germans, there was halt in the industrial production which caused the collapse of the German economy. This meant that there were very few goods therefore the government printed the money. This lead to prices rocketing and the savings unfortunately became worthless.
This decreased the income of money going into the government which was used for military and other government worthy things. The result of that led to higher taxation on citizens which made the people of Rome upset and ended up having less money to buy necessities and other things to keep the economy rolling. Another important reason was the abundance of slaves in Rome. The large quantity of slaves help lead to the growth of latifundia which is large land estates, consisting mostly of slaves for farming. This ruined the farmers of Rome which in result, they drifted to cities that helped add more unemployment to the cities.
Many have come to the question: What were the contributing factors to the fail of the Roman Empire? Political downfall, social wrecking, economic destruction, and military confusion brought on the collapse of the Roman Empire. What was once a thriving republic that the public knew and loved turned into an unjust and corrupted empire and with it brought confusion. Julius Caesar, a military leader, had earned the support and trust of Rome and was appointed dictator. Caesar would later destroy what was left of the republic.