Quote of the Day: Augustus on Discontinuing the Dole

 

“I had a good mind to discontinue permanently the supply of grain to the city, reliance on which had discouraged Italian agriculture, but refrained because some politician would be bound one day to revive the dole as a means of ingratiating himself with the people.” — Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus

It is August 1, a month named after Cæsar Augustus, thus I thought I would go back to the old boy as my source for today’s quotation. There are many good or interesting quotations attributed to him, but this one tickled my funny bone. Yes, one might see it as a bit fatalistic. One might also see it as the root of Rome’s destruction that he did not act. Or, one might see it as a nod to human nature.

What do you see in it?

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  1. Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu Inactive
    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu
    @YehoshuaBenEliyahu

    Arahant:

    I had a good mind to discontinue permanently the supply of grain to the city, reliance on which had discouraged Italian agriculture, but refrained because some politician would be bound one day to revive the dole as a means of ingratiating himself with the people.—Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus

    It is August 1, a month named after Cæsar Augustus, thus I thought I would go back to the old boy as my source for today’s quotation. There are many good or interesting quotations attributed to him, but this one tickled my funny bone. Yes, one might see it as a bit fatalistic. One might also see it as the root of Rome’s destruction that he did not act. Or, one might see it as a nod to human nature. What do you see in it?

    Can you imagine if all welfare and food stamps were cut off tomorrow?  It would be the greatest thing that ever happened.  Current dole recipients would become more independent, go into business, and start voting Republican.

    • #1
  2. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu (View Comment):
    Can you imagine if all welfare and food stamps were cut off tomorrow? It would be the greatest thing that ever happened. Current dole recipients would become more independent, get into business, and start voting Republican.

    There is a need in some cases, although not nearly as many are on it. It used to be that the churches, families, or local governments had the wherewithal to take care of it. But the old infrastructure was disassembled. The transition period could be brutal. But once things settled down again, it would be better.

    • #2
  3. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental
    @JudgeMental

    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu (View Comment):

    Arahant:

    I had a good mind to discontinue permanently the supply of grain to the city, reliance on which had discouraged Italian agriculture, but refrained because some politician would be bound one day to revive the dole as a means of ingratiating himself with the people.—Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus

    It is August 1, a month named after Cæsar Augustus, thus I thought I would go back to the old boy as my source for today’s quotation. There are many good or interesting quotations attributed to him, but this one tickled my funny bone. Yes, one might see it as a bit fatalistic. One might also see it as the root of Rome’s destruction that he did not act. Or, one might see it as a nod to human nature. What do you see in it?

    Can you imagine if all welfare and food stamps were cut off tomorrow? It would be the greatest thing that ever happened. Current dole recipients would become more independent, get into business, and start voting Republican.

    After the civil war.

    • #3
  4. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Judge Mental (View Comment):
    After the civil war.

    As I said, the transition period could be brutal.

    • #4
  5. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Arahant (View Comment):
    The transition period could be brutal. But once things settled down again, it would be better.

     The ťransition period needs to be at least 40 years, and you need a wilderness for the people to wander in. The 3rd generation might be ok.

    • #5
  6. Vectorman Inactive
    Vectorman
    @Vectorman

    Arahant: It is August 1, a month named after Cæsar Augustus …

    and we have plenty of open Quote of the Day slots on the August Signup Sheet. We even include tips for finding great quotes, so choose your favorite quote and sign up today!

    • #6
  7. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    Part of the dependence of people on social welfare programs is caused simply by human nature in its constant striving for efficiency. I think it is part of the human adaptability thought process. It’s not a yearning for a life free of work or a desire to steal from other people. Instead, it’s just the way we think and work.

    For example, when the postwar families had their children, the public schools were pretty good across the country. People counted on that in their life planning and budgeting. In many communities today, they are not as good in relation to what students need, and expensive private schools or time-consuming charter schools have proliferated. Families have had to adjust their thinking as to what they do and do not have to write checks for among the existing child-rearing resources.

    We all look around our immediate environment for those available resources that can help us achieve our ends. What’s already here? What do I need to add to it?

    When American small towns evolved, it took several centuries of the townspeople sitting together and hashing out what things the towns would do with their tax revenues that would be helpful to most of the people in the town. These “services” became libraries, schools, police and fire departments, streets and sidewalks, and so on.

    I think when we look at entrenched poverty, we have to revisit what basic infrastructure our tax revenues have built and ask whether those are the same ones needed today for people to better their lives. Perhaps we’re holding on to some legacy services and infrastructure that we don’t need and neglecting to build or provide some that we do.

    I also believe entrenched poverty is somewhat geographical in the sense that it is the worst in the outer circles around our big cities. We need to spread out and build more towns. We need a plan for growth in the United States. The local, state, and federal governments own way too much land or impose anti-building restrictions on land that is privately held. People thrive in towns. In terms of an organizational structure for a country, small towns are the small pieces that make up the whole. We prospered as a nation at those times when we were building towns across the country. I know this because I read a great book years ago on real estate development, and the book started off making this dramatic point. It was how we grew from 100 million to 200 million. We have strangled ourselves in the years we’ve gone from 200 million to 300 million. Entrenched European-like urban poverty has been the result.

    Cape Cod is essentially an island, with a fixed amount of land. So all of our cities and towns have town meeting-approved comprehensive growth plans. We need one for the whole country to allow for growth. That will get a lot of people out of poverty.

    • #7
  8. Misthiocracy secretly Member
    Misthiocracy secretly
    @Misthiocracy

    Arahant: “I had a good mind to discontinue permanently the supply of grain to the city, reliance on which had discouraged Italian agriculture, but refrained because some politician would be bound one day to revive the dole as a means of ingratiating himself with the people.” — Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus

    Considering that the dole is (arguably) the single biggest factor that made the Caesars popular enough to become dictators-for-life in the first place, I find his explanation for why he didn’t discontinue it a wee bit disingenuous.

    Julius and Octavian bought the people’s love, pure and simple.

    Arguably.

    • #8
  9. Misthiocracy secretly Member
    Misthiocracy secretly
    @Misthiocracy

    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu (View Comment):

    Arahant:

    I had a good mind to discontinue permanently the supply of grain to the city, reliance on which had discouraged Italian agriculture, but refrained because some politician would be bound one day to revive the dole as a means of ingratiating himself with the people.—Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus

    It is August 1, a month named after Cæsar Augustus, thus I thought I would go back to the old boy as my source for today’s quotation. There are many good or interesting quotations attributed to him, but this one tickled my funny bone. Yes, one might see it as a bit fatalistic. One might also see it as the root of Rome’s destruction that he did not act. Or, one might see it as a nod to human nature. What do you see in it?

    Can you imagine if all welfare and food stamps were cut off tomorrow? It would be the greatest thing that ever happened. Current dole recipients would become more independent, go into business, and start voting Republican.

    • #9
  10. Misthiocracy secretly Member
    Misthiocracy secretly
    @Misthiocracy

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):
    The transition period could be brutal. But once things settled down again, it would be better.

    The ťransition period needs to be at least 40 years, and you need a wilderness for the people to wander in. The 3rd generation might be ok.

    How long did it take for Rome to recover when the dole was finally discontinued in 476 A.D.?

    ;-)

    (Of course, I’m assuming that the dole continued relatively consistently until the fall of the Western Empire, which is probably a foolish assumption.)

    • #10
  11. Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu Inactive
    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu
    @YehoshuaBenEliyahu

    This is a reminder of Romney’s famous “47% of Americans” are dependent on government, don’t work, therefore vote Democrat, or something to that effect.  Actually, it’s closer to 50% of all Americans get some sort of monthly check from the government.  And that does not count all the companies that contract with the government to provide goods and services.  Most of America is on the dole in one form or another.

    • #11
  12. Misthiocracy secretly Member
    Misthiocracy secretly
    @Misthiocracy

    MarciN (View Comment):
    We need one for the whole country to allow for growth.

    You had me right up to this point.  

    The reason why citizen-approved plans and programs for small municipalities can work is because their effects are limited to such a small territory.

    Trying to scale that sort of process up to the third-most populous country on the planet (and with the fourth-most amount of territory on the planet) would be … well, I’ll be charitable and just say that it would be “tricky”. 

    • #12
  13. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    Misthiocracy secretly (View Comment):

    MarciN (View Comment):
    We need one for the whole country to allow for growth.

    You had me right up to this point.

    The reason why citizen-approved plans and programs for small municipalities can work is because their effects are limited to such a small territory.

    Trying to scale that sort of process up to the third-most populous country on the planet (and with the fourth-most amount of territory on the planet) would be … well, I’ll be charitable and just say that it would be “tricky”.

    I would agree, but the amount of land that the towns and cities and states and country have carved out as “green space” or “reserves” has taken an enormous amount of land out of the market.

    I want to a see a plan that accounts for the current population in terms of government services such as schools, libraries (or computer terminals), transportation, police and fire–all of the things towns do each year.

    I want to see a whole new generation of thousands of new towns spring up across America. That’s my dream.

     

    • #13
  14. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu (View Comment):

    This is a reminder of Romney’s famous “47% of Americans” are dependent on government, don’t work, therefore vote Democrat, or something to that effect. Actually, it’s closer to 50% of all Americans get some sort of monthly check from the government. And that does not count all the companies that contract with the government to provide goods and services. Most of America is on the dole in one form or another.

    I think if you add local, state, and county numbers to that and even hospitals and their staff that halfway depend on Medicare and Medicaid–I’ll bet it up to 60 percent now. 

    • #14
  15. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    The bottom line is that we can’t stop growth. Nor would we ever want to–the opposite of growth is decay and death and stagnation. But we can manage it by establishing mutually agreed upon priorities and goals.

    • #15
  16. RushBabe49 Thatcher
    RushBabe49
    @RushBabe49

    The moral is that Human Nature never changes.  There is nothing new under the sun, and the same problems that plague humanity today have been with us since time immemorial.

    And the system of government that has had the most ameliorative effect on how people live, hands down, is Capitalist Democracy.  The greatest good for the greatest number is right here in the good, old, USA.  It’s a shame that many who benefit from this system don’t understand how wonderful it is.

    • #16
  17. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    RushBabe49 (View Comment):
    And the system of government that has had the most ameliorative effect on how people live, hands down, is Capitalist Democracy a free-market constitutionally-limited republic.

    FTFY. Capitalism is a Marxist denigration of free markets. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for lunch.

    • #17
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