Dekandenz ueberall!

They really do get a higher class of political debate in Germany; for the last couple of weeks, anyone remotely involved in discussions about employment policy, minimum wage and the Hartz IV programme has been engaged, willingly or not, in arguments about the history of the later Roman Empire. It all began with the claim of the current foreign minister in the CDU/CSU/FDP coalition, the neoliberal ideologue Guido Westerwelle, that "Wer dem Volk anstrengungslosen Wohlstand verspricht, lädt zu spätrömischer Dekadenz ein" ("Whoever promises the people effortless prosperity is inviting late Roman decadence"). The leader of the left-wing Linkspartei responded by pointing out that it wasn't the slaves who lived in decadence in late antiquity but the political and economic elite, while the SPD's employment expert was reminded less of ancient Rome than of a medieval witch-hunt against the poor and unemployed. Media commentators have eagerly seized the opportunity to point out that Westerwelle's grasp of history is as shaky as his idea of 'socialism', while the Maerkische Allgemeine noted that, according to many historians, the later Roman state suffered rather from chronic lack of resources. Rome serves, as ever, as confirmation of more or less any fear about the future of European civilisation you care to mention, but it's still fun to see, for the moment at least, the ubiquity of such historical questions; the third question in a recent Stern interview with the Employment Minister was whether, in a visit to a Dutch employment centre, she'd seen any sign of late Roman decadence.