"Slow but constant" is a clue

Simkhovitch, V. (1916): “Rome's Fall Reconsidered”. Political Science Quarterly Vol. 31, No. 2. Open Access at JSTOR

Simkhovitch, from page 216:

The expropriation of the Roman peasantry, the concentration of ownership of land in the hands of the few, to which the Romans ascribed the ruin of the Empire, is also a very gradual process and runs parallel with the process of soil exhaustion. Compared with the seven-jugera holdings of the early Republic, the hundred or hundred and fifty acre plantations to which Cato refers are large estates. These " estates " of Cato, which in size correspond to an average American farm, gradually disappear and their place is taken toward the end of the Republic and under the Principate by vast domains measuring thousands and thousands of acres. The process of transformation was slow but constant.

"The process of transformation was slow but constant." Slow but constant is a clue.

There must have been some force, some economic force that was driving the concentration of land ownership in ancient Rome. The transformation was slow, so the force was a subtle one. The transformation was constant, so the force was persistent.

If the force was persistent, it can only have been the result of policy. To borrow a phrase I read long ago, it was either a sin of commission or a sin of omission: It was either something policy did, or something policy failed to do. Either way, economic policy was at fault. We know this, because the resulting force was persistent.

If the force was subtle, it is because it was not recognized as a problem. Yes, the loss of small farms was recognized as a problem and yes, the rise of the latifundia was recognized as a problem; but the force driving the concentration of land ownership was apparently beyond the grasp of the ancient Roman mind.

How could they fail to recognize it? Perhaps the explanation is simple: Perhaps they did recognize it, but as a good thing. Simkhovitch (page 230) relays the story of the Euboean Hunters:

The local orator introduced to us by Dio goes on urging the citizens to take up the cultivation of abandoned land, for deserted land is a useless possession. Let anyone cultivate as much as his capital may allow him to do, for it may save the remaining population from its two cardinal ills — idleness and poverty. The orator is suggesting that the land should be given to anyone rent-free for the first ten years, and later on for a moderate tax upon the productivity of the soil, but the tenant should not pay any taxes upon his cattle.

After the first ten years, in other words, tax the income but not the wealth of farmers reclaiming the land. Tax the income, but not the wealth. This was the recommendation of the "local orator", a self-identified owner of "a vast acreage." This orator obviously thought taxes were necessary, but that taxes on wealth were harmful. Thus, not taxing cattle was recognized as a good thing.

Hey, everyone likes a tax break. Who would object to the orator's plan? Evidently, no one.

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Well I'm surprised. I didn't expect to be writing in favor of a wealth tax. My point is simple, really: It is easy to overlook the harmful effects of an economic policy if we think of it as good policy. Reevaluation is always necessary. Reconsideration. Follow-up analysis. Afterthought. Hey, call it second-guessing if you want. Certainly it would have been better (for ancient Rome) to observe the concentration of land ownership, and wonder if perhaps the economic policies they liked so much were actually creating the problem: would have been better than letting it continue until it killed off civilization.

And follow-up analysis is just what Vladimir Simkhovitch was doing, two millennia later, in "Rome's Fall Reconsidered". Maybe that's why I like the essay so much.