06 Jan 2015, 7:49 am
GoonSquad wrote:
pawelk1986 wrote:
GoonSquad wrote:
pawelk1986 wrote:
I think that raising the voting age, for example, for a 21 year old, it's a bad idea. Because there will always be a Bolshevik who wants earn the political capital.
For instance Julius Caesar came to power, because the Roman patricians (the rich) would limit the voting rights of Roman Plebeians (the poor), the trouble is that the army of the Roman Republic (legions) was dominated by the plebeians, then Caesar caused the civil war, and the rest we already know.
That wasn't about voting rights. That was about ECONOMICS, pure and simple.
Economic?
Yes the real conflict was over issues like land reform, the state corn dole, etc. The populares wanted to break up the giant Latifundia (slave worked plantations) and give the land back to the common folks as small farms. They also wanted to start an official state run grain distribution to the urban plebs to help break the patron system...
The optimates didn't just try to suppress voting to stop this, they actually started killing Tribunes over these issues! That was really the beginning of the end for the Republic.
(Also, while every Roman citizen has a vote, those votes were wieghted according to wealth. The richer you were, the 'heavier' your vote was... i.e. it counted more than a poor man's vote. So, the rich really didn't need to 'suppress' votes all that much.)
Then they went from killing Tribunes to having full-on Civil Wars. First, Sulla (optimate) vs Marius (populares) and then Pompey/Senate (optimates) vs Caesar (populares).
The optimates/populares conflict was completely driven by economics. The optimates wanted to keep all the land and wealth and the true populares wanted to redistribute that wealth and land...
Of course, cynics would say that Caesar didn't really give a damn about the plebs and only use populares politics as a path to power. Be that as it may, I think the Gracchi--Gaius and Tiberius--were sincere reformers. They really did care about the wealth inequality and tried to restore the traditional Roman middle class via land reform, etc. You could call them the world's first progressives!
Unfortunately, the rich folks weren't having it, and killed them.
Interfering with a Tribune of the Plebs (much less killing them) was one of the most serious crimes there was in the old Republic--amounted to high treason. But, all it took was money to change all that, and make people forget the law.
Sorry, I'm a bit obsessed with Roman politics/constitutional matters...
Yes i forgot, i love Roman History too i have Total War: Rome 2
In the end both optimates and populares was screwed by Caesar and his successor Augustus, because Emperor took all the power.
In Poland we say"Gdzie dwóch się bije, tam trzeci korzysta" the crossest English translation is "Two dogs strive for a bone and the third runs away with it"
