https://fortune.com/2022/01/21/bank-of-america-ceo-great-resignation-brian-moynihan/

  • Tervell [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    There was a bit in Roman history when Diocletian made a bunch of professions hereditary. Looking forward to :amerikkka: bringing that back, just having all grocery store workers' children being trained from birth to inherit their checkout line.

    • ssjmarx [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Diocletian's reforms helped the Roman Empire last another 300 years in the west, and 1000 in the east.

      I really hope that's not the direction America goes.

      • Tervell [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        To be fair, to do that he had to institute the Tetrarchy - essentially accepting that the Roman empire was far too big to be effectively governed by one guy, and splitting it. And while the Eastern Empire indeed survived for long, it lost a lot of land and had to adopt a more defensive, "let's hold onto what we've got" approach rather than seeking aggressive expansion - after Justinian, they were mostly either losing territory or barely defending what they had, with occasional exceptions like the Komnenian restoration and Basil II having them recover sizeable portions of land.

        So, going by this analogy, the US would need to split up in several states, and really cut down on overseas imperialism to focus on maintaining what they have (which would be pretty good for the rest of us). The impressive thing about Diocletian's system is that it didn't immediately lead to the Eastern half saying "yeah, fuck you guys, we're doing our own thing now" - it wasn't a Balkanization, since the new split states weren't hostile to one another. I'm not sure if that could really happen with America.

        It would be really funny to see the tradition of junior emperors being brought to the US however - just imagine failsons like Hunter and the Trump kids being deputized to rule the West Coast, it'd be great

    • Diogenes_Barrel [love/loves]
      ·
      3 years ago

      yo i was just reading about the fabricae and fabricenses as a hereditary & inescapable profession (not really, in the grand scheme of things) but the Praetorian Prefect was charged with checking all the branches of imperial service for deserters from other parts. Soldiers and craftsmen like the fabricenses were literally branded, and that's when you were lucky enough to not be a slave of the state working in dyeworks, mints, or textile factories

      anyway can't wait to be barcoded and and contract over my offspring to the end of time in service of the McDonald Corp.

      • Tervell [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        It was only introduced after a prolonged period of crisis and civil war, but yeah, pretty fucked up. Diocletian on the whole reduced social mobility a lot as part of his efforts to stabilize the empire