johnbyronkuhner.com

The Roman word for their government was the Res Publica, the public property.  At every stage of the decline of the Republic the conflict can be interpreted as a desire on the part of the most powerful to privatize what was public, and to convert it into res privatae, private possessions, and so it happened until the Empire, in which the entire Mediterranean became one man’s estate: the ultimate small government, which of course by the contradictory logic of the universe meant unlimited tyranny.

Jack Goldstone never mentions the Romans, but in his excellent little piece on the recent debt crisis he (I think very accurately) interprets Republican actions as being consonant with cultural decline.  The Republicans are becoming more and more Orwellian in name: they are convinced that the only way to a strong res publica is by turning it into res privatae. I doubt the term Resprivatans will catch on, though.

An excerpt from Goldstone:

It is quite astonishing the degree to which the United States today is, in respect of state finances and its elites’ attitudes, following the path that led early modern states to
crises.  As in the past, inability to sustain international influence is merely symptomatic of deeper internal decay.

For example, lack of consensus among U.S. elites has virtually immobilized efforts to deal with a persistent federal budget deficit, and has hamstrung state action in many foreign policy theaters and in much domestic policy planning. The only consensus that has prevailed in the last decade is precisely that which history tells us is the most disastrous, namely, the consensus that private consumption should take precedence over all public expenses, and that raising taxes to realistic levels to meet state obligations should be fiercely resisted.  Hence the U.S. has been running a growing debt, sustained only by foreign borrowing.

The result has been just what the history of earlier states who have been denied adequate taxation and relied on debt would lead us to expect: private individuals among the elite have become enormously richer, while basic public services that support the economy as a whole—primary and secondary education, airports, trains, roads, and bridges—are neglected, overburdened, and deteriorating.

The United States thus enters the 1990s with several evident problems: factional divisions among elites that undercut policy consensus, widespread resistance to realistic taxes, an overreliance on debt and a polarization of private incomes while public services … are grossly underfunded and losing their ability to support the economy.  … It is certain that the long-term results, which now only slightly apparent but will accumulate rapidly in the coming decades, will be a relative decline in the living standards freedom of decision, and international position of the United States as compared with
other industrialized nations.