1893 - State Library Information Center

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND FUNCTIONS OF BUREAUS. 57modern nations with Bteam at their service and with volumes ofpolitical economy. The subdivision of labor was not only knownbut highly organized. The rich Romans had slaves to work forthem. The free workmen, organized in trades unions, performedthe public work for the government, such as its temples,aqueducts, baths, Ac, worka which to-day remain unrivaled. Itwas by the aid of the trades unions that the government organizedthe administrative service and its distribution of militaryforces and developed its architectural splendor. As the republicextended her conquests she increased her revenues andexpenditures with her domains and armies. The taxes were collected,part in money and part in kind, from the farmers of thepublic domain. Hence to collect taxes and feed armies becamepart of the work and function of the trades unions, of butchers,pork-butchers and various other trades, as is attested by the lawsrelating to those trades. It is therefore evident that if knowledgeof the political economy of the Romans is not to be found inbooks, it may be discovered by the aid of their jurisprudence;in the labors of legions of marvelous workmen, who left theirwonderful handicraft in Gaul, Spain, England, Germany, Asia-Minor, Syria, Egypt and northern Africa—in fact, in the wholeof the then known universe we may discover her politicaleconomy in her monuments*Rome, Athens and Sparta had their political economy, as England,France aud the United States have theirs; burdensome taxation,usury, bankruptcy, revenue frauds, public stealings, crime,insufficient wages, drunkenness, pauperism and prostitutionalllicted old communities as well as new; and to eliminate thesecauses of excitement and insurrection, the ancients were asanxious and made as many efforts as we ourselves.We find abundant proof in history of the anxiety and fear ofthe economists when confronted by these questions. The Atheniansfeared to take or publish a census of their slaves, lest theyshould know their own numbers, and thereby be encouraged torevolt. The insurrection of slaves under Spartacus made theeconomists of Rome tremble for the security of the state. If thehistorians who wrote at that period did not record their anxietyand fear, it is because at Rome they dared not speak of thatgangrene which was slowly preparing the dissolution of the