What periods suffered the greatest experiments in authoritarian government?
This one jumps out at you. Rome, which had been a republic, did not relinquish in peace the prerogatives of power assumed during a couple of great wars. This, combined with unrelenting taxation and currency depreciation during the Third Century AD, culminated in a murderous police state. Another question – Beyond rampant inflation and political bullying, what else was common to the three monstrous centuries? It’s been the lust for unearned money. With its vast empire of conquest and tribute, Rome had accumulated the greatest amount of wealth in history. Then, once limitations upon government ambition were corrupted, even this great treasure became inadequate to fund bureaucratic ambition. Thus the resort to confiscatory taxation and horrendous debasement of the currency. These two evils are the big sign that bureaucracy has become more important than the common wealth. Over the centuries, there has been inquiry about collapsing empires and why Rome failed. Some have thought it was dest
