Lessons from the Roman Empire for modern-day - historian explains | Anthony Kaldellis
Historian Anthony Kaldellis discusses lessons from the 2,200-year Roman Empire for modern America, focusing on the importance of building lasting institutions that serve the majority, aligning foreign policy rhetoric with actual military actions, and the persistent elements of human nature across centuries.
Summary
In this conversation, Kaldellis addresses how the Roman Empire's long history offers insights for contemporary American governance and foreign policy. He begins by discussing America's status as an empire, noting that academic discourse now openly analyzes America as an empire without the taboo that existed in the 20th century.
Kaldellis emphasizes that successful empires invest in institutions that work for the majority of subjects, even if those subjects bear costs. The Romans exemplified this by building infrastructure and institutions designed to last centuries, from roads to the Christian church. He argues that institutions must explain to people why they exist, which creates legitimacy and long-term stability.
A central theme is the gap between rhetoric and action in foreign policy. Kaldellis contrasts the Roman military, which generally did what emperors claimed it would do (protect subjects) with American foreign policy, which often proclaims lofty goals like spreading democracy while pursuing other interests. He notes that the military-industrial complex, combined with profit motives in weapons technology, widens this gap naturally.
The conversation addresses why this matters: the public's discovery of this gap during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars created credibility crises. Kaldellis explains that democracies face inherent challenges because elected leaders operate on short timeframes (4-5 years), incentivizing short-term gains over long-term institutional success, unlike monarchical systems with longer-term perspectives.
Finally, Kaldellis discusses human nature across history. He rejects post-modern views denying the existence of human nature, instead siding with Thucydides: humans consistently demonstrate love, hate, ambition, and incompetence across all periods. However, culture modifies these baseline psychological parameters in diverse ways. He argues that while cultural systems don't entirely colonize individual minds, exceptional individuals (Jobs, Musk) can occasionally alter historical trajectories through skill and timing.
Key Insights
- The Romans built institutions designed to last centuries and generally used their military for stated purposes of protecting subjects, whereas America's military serves broader geopolitical interests often masked by lofty rhetoric like spreading democracy
- The military-industrial complex combined with profitable weapons technology naturally widens the gap between stated foreign policy goals and actual military actions in America
- Democratic leaders operating on 4-5 year election cycles are structurally incentivized toward short-term gains rather than long-term institutional success, unlike monarchical systems with longer time horizons
- Kaldellis rejects the post-modern view that human nature doesn't exist, instead arguing that human psychology operates within consistent parameters including love, hate, ambition, and incompetence, though culture modifies expression of these traits
- Exceptional individuals with specific skills at critical historical moments can turn the tides of history, but cultural systems don't completely colonize individual minds to make people identical clones
Topics
Transcript
[0:02] So what from all of this, from this 2200 year history of the Roman Empire, what lessons can we draw for modern times? Now we're sitting in America, let's see, young empire. [snorts] I know we're not calling it an empire, but you know, >> Lots of people are calling it an empire. I thought it was sort of taboo. Yeah, in the 20th century it was like, is America an empire or not? But like I think since the Iraq war, like since 2003, I I I've seen at least very casual uses of [0:35] America and empire in the same, you know, sentence without any kind of hand-wringing. >> Is it ever called that in academic setting?…
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