{"id":16205,"date":"2016-01-08T11:53:50","date_gmt":"2016-01-08T16:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=16205"},"modified":"2016-01-08T11:53:50","modified_gmt":"2016-01-08T16:53:50","slug":"empires-like-the-u-s-fall-when-corruption-becomes-rampant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=16205","title":{"rendered":"Empires (Like the U.S.) Fall When Corruption Becomes Rampant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Empires (Like the U.S.) Fall When Corruption Becomes Rampant<\/a><\/h3>\n
Widespread corruption\u00a0destroys empires<\/a>.<\/div>\n
\n

By way of example, corruption was one of the main causes of the collapse of the\u00a0Roman Empire<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Praetorian Guard\u2014the emperor\u2019s personal bodyguards\u2014assassinated and installed new sovereigns at will, and once even auctioned the spot off to the highest bidder [and see\u00a0this<\/a>]. The political rot also extended to the Roman Senate, which failed to temper the excesses of the emperors due to its own widespread corruption and incompetence. As the situation worsened, civic pride waned and many Roman citizens lost trust in their leadership.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Ottoman Empire started its decline\u00a0when the sale of offices, bribery and corruption became widespread<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0Indeed<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Most historians point to \u201cdegenerate Sultans, incompetent Grand Viziers, debilitated and ill-equipped armies, corrupt officials, avaricious speculators, grasping enemies, and treacherous friends.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Yuan Empire (led by the Mongols) also\u00a0collapsed due to corruption<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The decline of the [the Yuan empire] was a result of a number of factors, these being incompetent and rivaling leaders,\u00a0corruption<\/strong>, revolts,\u00a0decadence<\/strong>, factional struggles,\u00a0assassinations<\/strong>, external attacks, and disease.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Moreover<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Toward the end,\u00a0corruption<\/strong>\u00a0and the persecution became so severe that Muslim generals joined Han Chinese in\u00a0rebelling against the Mongols<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Former history professor at the University of Alabama Larry Clayton\u00a0notes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The [Roman] republic evolved into an empire and the empire grew corrupt from its own tremendous power. There arose, like mushrooms after a long rain, self-indulgent vices driven by pride and power. An oft quoted observation noted:<\/p>\n

\u201cPower tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely\u201d wrote the English essayist and historian Lord Acton in 1887.<\/p>\n

Long after the Roman Empire disappeared, other empires, notably the ones of France, England, and Spain began with the conquest and settlement of the New World. By the end of the nineteenth century, European nations had created economic, military and commercial empires across much of the globe.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Empires (Like the U.S.) Fall When Corruption Becomes Rampant Widespread corruption\u00a0destroys empires. By way of example, corruption was one of the main causes of the collapse of the\u00a0Roman Empire: The Praetorian Guard\u2014the emperor\u2019s personal bodyguards\u2014assassinated and installed new sovereigns at will, and once even auctioned the spot off to the highest bidder [and see\u00a0this]. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[150,1638,196,259,11561,10633,5923,1024,5510,11560],"class_list":["post-16205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-survival-2","tag-collapse","tag-collapse-of-civilization","tag-decline","tag-empire","tag-mongols","tag-ottoman-empire","tag-roman-empire","tag-rome","tag-washingtons-blog","tag-yuan-empire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16206,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16205\/revisions\/16206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}