KFLCC Kingdom Economics

F INANCIAL S ECURITY IN THE L AST D AYS

the region under his control, ruling from Rome, Italy and spreading Rome’s influence throughout Europe and parts of the Middle East. Rome ruled for hundreds of years and was noted for building roads and bridges to connect their towns and cities throughout the empire. R EASONS FOR D ECLINE How can such a mighty empire split between west and east (AD 395), eventually decline, and the western half fall into the hands of barbarians? In his book, The Decay of Ancient Civilization by A. E. R. Boak, the writer explains what caused the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. One root cause was high debt and taxation: “The decline and fall of the Roman Empire, that is to say, of ancient civilization as a whole, has two aspects: the political, social, and economic, on the one hand, and the intellectual and spiritual on the other....” P AGE 3 “The cities, which had created and sustained the higher forms of economic life, gradually decayed, and the majority of them practically disappeared from the face of the earth.” “... by the third century the burden of taxation had become so heavy that it had begun to consume the capital resources of the taxpayer. This was due to the increasing costs of the imperial administration without any corresponding increase in production on the part of the population of the empire....” P AGE 39 "... the increases in taxation coincided with a falling off in production and in manpower. The result was bound to be a heavier weight of taxation for the survivors, and their gradual impoverishment, which, in turn, would cause a decrease in the public revenues.” P AGE 40 “... the attempt to enforce the economic and social reforms and to extract as large a revenue as possible from the civilian population led to increased departmentalization of the bureaucracy and also to an increase in the number of the civil service employees... this increased the cost of government. This in turn made the burden of the taxpayers still heavier and, under the declining economic conditions, led to further impoverishment....” P AGE 44

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