Hanson: America Is Not Rome–Yet by Hoover Institution

Victor Davis Hanson, the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, discusses how Rome--stable and secure, with freedom for the individual and multiracial culture--collapsed and asks, “Can the lessons learned be applied to reverse the decline of the United States today?” Rome had a large, unproductive population that relied on entitlements; the United States, he says, is heading in the same direction. Hanson notes that the fragmentation (meaning that not enough people took their responsibilities seriously) of the common core led to its breakup, with the people instead focusing on their rights to handouts and entitlements. The United States has constitutional stability in its favor, but we need to remember that Rome worked when it respected the rule of law and its people were responsible citizens and collapsed when laws and responsibilities were abandoned. Hanson ends on a positive note, stating that the United States does have constitutional stability, property rights, rule of law and one of the freest economic systems in the world. Hanson also notes the United States is flexible and puts power in the hands of the individual. We produce our own food and may be energy independent in coal, gas, and oil in ten years. The United States has seventeen of the top twenty universities in the world; US ingenuity will continue to breed success.