When the Roman builders completed a bridge, they applied for payment for the structure, and at that time the builder and his entire family were chained underneath the bridge. The local Legion was called up, and proceeded to march, in step, over the bridge. If it failed some of the legionnaires would die, but the bridge builder and his family would too, and Rome could make repairs and reinforcements with the money not paid to the now dead builder. Failure of other structures were rewarded with impalement or crucifixion, and confiscation of the builder's entire estate.
Failures were very rare, and some of the structures built using this procurement method are still in use today. Keep in mind that this was a society which did not understand the number 'zero', which had no science of materials, but which nonetheless created beautiful durable buildings, because the reward and the responsibility of those involved were balanced.
Then came the Dark Ages, after the collapse of Rome, which was fueled by taxation and the debauchment of the Roman currency, driving producers out of business and away from Rome. There are parallels to be explored there, but fast forward to the 20th Century.
I once had an attorney of my acquaintance who called me up and asked me to come to his office. He said he though he had a problem, and he wanted my advice. When I showed up at his office, he took me to a room in which he had recently stored his records, dozens upon dozens of heavy boxes of files piled on the floor, which responded to this gross overload by deflecting about 8" downward. It wasn't a big room, perhaps 12 feet square. When we looked at the underside of the floor, the joists had started to split and crack. I told him, emphatically, that he had to remove the boxes and get an engineer and a contractor to design and build a reinforced floor if he wanted to store his boxes there. He whined, "Well, I only need to put a few more boxes in there, and that sounds expensive!" I suggested that if he did not need access to these records that he could store them in a self-storage locker, but reiterated that the structure needed to be unloaded immediately if not sooner. I also told him that he could not pay me to walk out on that floor, or to work under it.
I vaguely recall that he delayed repairs for several months, only doing so after some further ominous creaking and cracking so alarmed his employees and the tenants that they refused to enter the building. At that point, he made adjustments and repairs.
There are all sorts of parallels between that attorney and the politico/economic situation today, except that today's politicians are not content to leave an overloaded economy alone; they are continuing to increase the load while at the same time sawing away at the floor which holds the load up. Foolish as he was, I would rather have that attorney in charge of our nation's economic policies than the mental defectives that are running things now. He at least ultimately paid heed to those around him.
Economies, like buildings, will act to shed loads, as they are made up of people who will for the most part act to maximize their interest within whatever framework they accept. As the Federal government of these presently united States continues to overload the productive people living here, by overt taxation and by the hidden tax of inflation, producers are increasingly going Galt, refusing to produce.
The present overload WILL be eliminated, one way or another, regardless of how badly some would wish otherwise. If we are to avert a collapse of Biblical proportions, then we need to trim about 60% of Federal and State spending, and we need to do it now. As I expect, given the political climate today and the unwillingness of those who would rule us to listen to the groans of a grossly overloaded productive class, that this will not happen, we need to not only prepare for the crash, but be prepared to explain to the survivors WHY the floor fell out from under, and what to do to prevent a recurrence. Enlightenment philosophy IS the answer and the solution to over a century of pernicious Progressive tyranny.
We also need to take a lesson from Rome, and make sure that the architects of the coming collapse are held to proper account for their many egregious violations of the Constitutional restraints they have so arrogantly and persistently committed.
" 'Ware shoal! breakers ahead!" comes the cry from the lookouts of the Ship of State.......
With regard to all who serve the Light
Historian