Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "“Shocking” Things you Did Not Know about Roman Ancient Egypt" video.

I read in the book "The Economic Life of the Ancient World" by Jean-Philippe Lévy, and I concluded that the economy of the Ptolemian Egypt must have been the most dystopian economic system in history. And that doesn't say little with all the crappy regimes that have existed throughout history. And I happen to know a lot about economic history as a nerd I am into the subject. Its an interested topic for exploration, but I don't know any books written about the economy of the Ptolemian Egypt specifically. To me is Ptolemian Egypt a blueprint of how a rich ruling class opress the rest of society and steal all wealth from everyone else only to enrich themselves. They raise taxes on the poor and on everything they consume. They own all property in the country and charge fees for their use, so there is really no incentive for any person to do any work at all so the economy of the society goes into total stagnation. And to make matters even worse, was the ruling class not even Egyptians, but Macedonian Greeks. So no solidarity at all existed between the ruling class and the people, as they did not even feel any pity for them or cared the slighted about their fellow Egyptian subjects, as the rulers were not Egyptians themselves and therefore did not even care a bit over the people who lived in the country. This was just a simple parasitic plundering economy. Egypt had a huge economic potential. It was the breadbasket of Rome. It was the mightiest and richest country in the mediaterranean sea during the middle ages. And ancient Egypt was one of the most advanced and early human civilizations in antiquity. So to me its clear that this country had a huge economic potential. But the Ptolemian rulers did manage to let it all go to waste. To me they were the proto-neoliberals. They can be said to be a blueprint for what happens when a selfish powerful rich ruling class takes over the state machinery in a country and start using it to steal money from the poor so the rich can make themselves even richer that way. It reminds me how the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth destroyed itself from within, or how Swedens time as a great power ended with its corrupt aristocracy taking power during its "age of liberty". And it also reminds me of Yeltsins oligarchs that took over Russia, and Carlos Menems corrupt regime that transformed Argentina from one of the richest countries of the planet into a 3rd world country. The Ptolemaian Egypt is a historical warning. Just like George Orwells book 1984. This is a dystopian, dysfunctional and extremely crappy economy and society. And a lesson in how to not do things.
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@Earthbound369 You do not say anything substantial. Probably because you have nothing of value to say. There is nothing to gain by having a society where rich people steals money from the poor and rig all rules in their own favor. Personally do I believe that mass production needs mass consumption. So if you have a large middle class, then you can have a large group of consumers. But if you kill off that middle class and make them poor, then you will also kill all industries that depends on them. This is what happened in Rome after all wars with Carthage and Greece. The rich got richer, while the middle class either died in the wars or got thrown into poverty and was forced to sell their farms out of desperation to feed themselves and their families - and when all farmers in Italy did the same, then rich people could buy up all land at firesale prices. And people went to loan-sharks and fell into debt-traps. Ordinary people had to flee from the countryside into the cities to try to find a job. But there was not enough jobs for everyone. So a class of poor people without property was formed in Rome. And the rich got enormously wealthy from all cheap land and all slave labor they could use to grow things on it. All this meant a death blow to the Roman industry. There was no longer any middle class that could buy all pottery, furniture, textiles and other simple everyday goods. Too few people had any money to be able to afford to buy stuff to keep those industries alive. And the only two industries that would flourish from now on was luxury products such as high quality wine and jewelry/metallurgy. But those industries were small and employed very few people... so when Roman agriculture died out, then did also Roman industry die off. The division of labor that Adam Smith talked about did then also stagnate along with the technological innovation. Rome became a more unequal society and the rich and powerful people had started to put self-interest before the interests of the well-being of Rome. The economy stagnated. The democracy of the Roman Republic died and got replaced by the monarchy of the Roman empire. And the country started to get torn apart in costly and deadly civil wars. Not at anytime did the rich try to do an effort to try to save Rome from destruction by giving back all land in Italy to the Roman people. But instead did the rich rather want to keep all land and power in their own hands. And buying grain from Egypt and bribing people off with bread and circuses was seen as less economically costly than doing a land reform and giving every Italian a piece of land they could use for farming. So the damage of the punic wars was never repaired. So the economy remained crappy. And then did Rome stop expanding and ran out of slaves. So feudalism began to become popular. Nobles were exempt from taxes, and the peasants were forbidden from moving away from the farms for tax reasons. And the tax system became more and more opressive towards ordinary people. The obvious solution would have been to tax the rich and to hand over land to the Italian people to undo all damage that the rich had done to Rome and to save Rome and the Roman economy from destruction... But the rich people did rather let Rome die than changing course. A few Roman politicians did try to change the system - like Julius Caesar. But the rich nobility got enraged and saw it as impossible to compromise with him and saw no other possible solution than to kill him - which they did. And with his death did the best chance of saving Rome from a sad ending go lost.
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