Even the Ancient Roman Empire Wasn't as Unequal as America

By Gus Lubin, Business Insider

17 December 11

ome 1,500 years after the fall of the Roman Empire, the supposedly advanced and progressive United States of America is plagued by even worse income inequality.

Tim De Chant at Per Square Mile reached this conclusion based on a study by historians Walter Schiedel and Steven Friesen.

Rome's top 1% controlled 16 percent of the wealth, compared to modern America where the top 1% controls 40 percent of the wealth.

Looking at the Gini coefficient, where 0 means perfect equality and 1 means perfect inequality, Rome measured between 0.42 and 0.44. Modern America scores worse at 0.45, and some areas are much worse like Fairfield County, Conn. with an alarming 0.54.

De Chant comments on a telling line from the essay by Shiedel and Friesen:

At the end, they make a point that's difficult to parse, yet provocative. They point out that the majority of extant Roman ruins resulted from the economic activities of the top 10 percent. "Yet the disproportionate visibility of this 'fortunate decile' must not let us forget the vast but - to us - inconspicuous majority that failed even to begin to share in the moderate amount of economic growth associated with large-scale formation in the ancient Mediterranean and its hinterlands."

In other words, what we see as the glory of Rome is really just the rubble of the rich, built on the backs of poor farmers and laborers, traces of whom have all but vanished. It's as though Rome's 99 percent never existed. Which makes me wonder, what will future civilizations think of us?