The Last Days of Rome
Written by Ben Boyang
– June ‘26
Western law is based on Roman law, which was based on the roman household. The patriarch of the household was the unfettered ruler of everyone else including his wife and his slaves. He was given free reign to kill them or torture them. Eventually Emperor Tiberius made a decree limiting the most sadistic form of execution, quartering (tying the victim to 4 horses them giving them the lash) required approval from the local council. Tiberius ruled from 14AD to 37AD, so maybe Jesus had some influence on his newfound ‘compassion.’
Since Tiberius, western governments have been chipping away at those unfettered patriarchal rights. It may have taken 2000 years but we have pretty well cleansed male privilege from our statutes, but it still lives on in the very structure of our society, and thrives inside the minds of many men to this day.
Anthropologists have noted that the structure of a society tends to be based on the family. Put simply, a matriarchal family will generally have no tolerance for violence of any sort inside the family. Thus matriarchal societies tend to also reject violence as a form of control.
Conversely, a patriarchal family will tend to be ruled by violence and the threat of violence, and a patriarchal society will also be ruled by violence and punishment.
If we look around us today we can see that all modern societies are ruled by force, even if the titular head is a woman. Internationally brute force guarantees compliance. Domestically the threat of punishment enforces compliance, brute force is reserved for when that threat is not enough of a deterrent. To find societies that operate on a system of cooperation and mutual respect, and reject violence and punishment as a way of guaranteeing compliance, we must search far and wide among cultures that have not yet been destroyed by our modern economically fixated modus operandi.
Well, the writing is on the wall, cracks are appearing in the edifice,maybe it is beginning to crumble. For over 20 years economic growth, the shibboleth of our culture, has been waining. That natural decline is exacerbated by climate disasters. Soon enough all our resources will be swallowed up maintaining the status quo. There will be nothing left over for economic growth. This will be our moment of truth. Our response to the inevitable global collapse of consumer society that awaits us will determine our fate. Great suffering will no doubt ensue. A selfish response would soon lead to the collapse of society itself, dog eat dog, the law of the jungle. A united response may have the best chance of maintaining our social structure. If we can survive this massive shock without ruining our humanity we will be well prepared the dangers beyond…and if the truth be told, economic collapse will cause a dramatic drop in our emissions, a drop that could not be engineered in any other way, due to our unwillingness here in the rich world, to sacrifice a single skerrick of our economic advantage in order to avoid a catastrophe that lurks just around the corner, out of sight and out of mind. Our immediate suffering may well help us avoid an unimaginably greater suffering just down the track.
So perversely, I am actually looking forward to the ’fall of Rome,’ with some caveats: I would like the collapse to be gradual enough for us to adapt as we go. I would like it if we could maintain the basic essentials of life, whilst sweeping away the unnecessary dross that consumerism is so adept at providing.
As the climate crisis worsens, disasters will take an ever higher toll on the economy. As the economy shrinks we will begin to lose our livelihoods. We may become desperate, hopefully we will learn to accept at least a pause in our plans of ever increasing wealth. Up to this point there are very few of us indeed who have been willing to make sacrifices for the sake of the climate, so that sacrifice will be forced upon us by the climate.
It is time for the community to start preparing for the moment when the economy slumps, workers lose their job, then their house and thus their ability to survive independently. Society will be incapable of supporting them as all its energy and resources are exhausted dealing with the climate and the economy. So the climate casualties will have to fall back on the community for support. We must be ready for that deluge of human despair. We cannot satiate the endless discretionary desires induced by consumer society, but we can provide the basic essentials of life: Food, shelter, clothing, warmth and care. We can grow our own food, build our own shelter, get our clothes from the Op shop, burn wood for heating and have plenty of time left over to care for the incapacitated, the sick and the elderly. It will be such a joy to focus on the things that really matter. But we have to start building these networks of resilience soon. It takes a long time to build a house. It will take a lot of time and energy building the infrastructure of mutual aid.
But there is a positive feedback loop here. If we can begin to live more frugally we will have more time to provide our needs without resorting to ‘working for the man’ to pay for those needs. Consequently there will be more work available for those who have none at all. Ideally we could achieve a state of equilibrium where everyone is working part time inside the economy to pay for what the community cannot, allowing plenty of time for community to fill the gaps, and do all those other things we enjoy, like art and music and theatre and dance and film making and writing poetry and sitting around day dreaming.
We can create a society grounded in everything we hold most dear: family, community, creativity, nature, love and peace.
But I don’t think we will get there by overthrowing the present world order, a tall order indeed. No, far better to start at the community level, slowly creating an alternative structure that may one day grow larger and more powerful than the present order, hastened by the disintegration of that order as it devours itself.
Ben Boyang
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