A case study Tainter explores is the Roman Empire. Initially, the republic and later empire expanded through conquest, using loot and plunder to finance state operations, including further expansion. But, eventually, Rome expanded to the point that further conquests were uneconomical—it simply could not field armies that far abroad.
When conquests ended, the Roman state had to finance its operations from resources under its control. This meant taxes, which meant a whole host of bureaucrats: census takers, to see who lived where, and surveyors, to see who owned what and what it was worth, as well as tax collectors and scribes. But all these bureaucrats had to eat, which meant that their incomes were deducted from that tax revenue.
So more expenses, and more complexity to finance those expenses, which created more expenses. This meant that every new crisis had to be financed out of tax revenue that was already strained by the costs of collecting it, which demanded yet more bureaucrats to find the necessary resources.
This was a downward spiral for Rome which, towards the end of the empire, featured a massively expanded bureaucracy and state apparatus but struggled to mobilize the resources it needed to manage its many challenges. Eventually, the state simply couldn’t finance its own operations and collapsed.
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