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Stoicism: Philosophy of Empire

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Title: Stoicism: Philosophy of Empire


1
Stoicism Philosophy of Empire
2
Polis law and Cosmopolitan Law
  • Alexander Pharaoh in Egypt, King in Persia
  • No Greek system of law
  • only Athenian, Corinthian, etc.
  • Polis law
  • Legacy of Greek empire cultural (phil, art )
  • Roman empire is based on Roman law
  • Cosmopolitan law

3
Irony of History
  • Only some are free (Hegel)
  • Greece
  • Accept Principle of enslaving others
  • Romans enslave them
  • Rome
  • Cheap slave-produced grain ruins small farmer
  • Destruction of free Roman army, fall of Rome

4
Compare with US system
  • House elected based on population
  • More democratic
  • Black slaves dont vote count 3/5s whites
  • Women, natives, slaves dont vote
  • Senate appointed based on equality of states
  • Elitist 2 senators per state no matter the
    population small state equals large state
  • U.S. Constitution as legacy of Roman Law
  • Rationally organized code (Justinian)
  • V. England no written constitution

5
Some are free
  • Representatives and direct taxes shall be
    apportioned among the several States which may be
    included within this Union, according to their
    respective numbers, which shall be determined by
    adding to the whole number of free persons,
    including those bound to service for a term of
    years, and excluding Indians not taxed,
    three-fifths of all other persons.

6
Lessons of History 1
  • U.S. imitates Roman system
  • Political
  • checks and balances
  • Excludes women, slaves, and native Americans
  • Legal written system of law
  • Some are free.
  • gt Civil War
  • Shows need to go beyond political limitation of
    freedom All are free.

7
Main Roman periods (compare with Greek periods)
  • 1) 494-440 struggle of the orders gt republic
    Twelve Tablets (or Tables) of the Law, 451
  • 2) 405-264 Internal, Italian wars
  • 3) 264-146 Struggle with dominant external power
    of Carthage (3 Punic Wars)
  • 4) 134 -71 BCE --Renewed class warfare 3 Slave
    wars
  • 5) Fall of Republic (Emperor Augustus Caesar, 27
    BCE - 14 CE)

8
Second wave of class struggles
  • Tiberius Gracchus, about 133 BC "Wild animals
    stalking their prey throughout Italy have dens
    and lairs to spend the night in, but people who
    fight and die for Italy have nothing but the air
    and the light. They wander with their children
    and wives like homeless vagabonds. The warriors
    fight and die for others' luxury and wealth they
    are called the masters of the universe, yet they
    don't have a single plot of land."

9
Self-Defeat of Roman peasant
  • New kind of threat not enslavement but economic
    ruin
  • Invisible enemy who to blame?
  • Cycle of cause and effect (karma)
  • 1) Roman peasants enslave Greek citizens
  • 2) Greek slaves in Syracuse produce cheap grain
    for Roman aristocrats
  • 3) Roman peasants are ruined become urban
    proletariat

10
Lessons of History 2
  • US trade unions (modern proletariat) strike
  • Veto power of Roman plebeians
  • What about foreign workers?
  • Only some workers are free
  • Corporations employ cheap foreign labor, move
    elsewhere
  • US workers compete with cheaper foreign labor
  • Wages drop unemployment rises
  • Social network declines

11
Causes of downfall
  • 1) Force Democratic institutions are sabotaged
  • 2) Fear threats to physical security of ordinary
    people
  • gtPeople give to new power to authoritarian
    leaders to exercise military power
  • 3) Corruption money undermines over the
    political system

12
1) Destroy democracy by brute force
  • Later Roman farmers face already existing state
    made up of their own sons
  • Goal of Tribunes, Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus
    land to the Roman farmers
  • Both are assassinated
  • Compare assassination of the Kennedy brothers

13
2) By Using Fear Slave Wars
  • Three Servile Wars
  • Gladiator Spartacus and 70 others escape
  • Army of 120,000 threaten Rome
  • Crassus manipulates Spartacus and Rome
  • How did Crassus make his money?
  • Crucifixion of 6000 on Apian Way
  • Why is Crucifixion especially horrible?

14
3) By Corruption Client system of Politics
  • Wealthy Romans have clients
  • Huge wealth from victorious wars
  • Individuals raise their own armies
  • Clients vote as they are told
  • gt Corruption of electoral system
  • gt Fall of Republic

15
Lessons of History 3
  • Huge cost of running for elections
  • Super PACs
  • gt Power of private wealth over politicians
  • gt Apathy of voters
  • Effect on US democracy?

16
U theory of History?
  • Going from L to U
  • End role of money in elections
  • On world level
  • Making environmental and labor laws part of
    international trade (all should be free)

17
Why not fight back?
  • Strong Roman army (and nowhere to go)
  • A powerful State, with a standing army, is now in
    existence
  • Recall Rousseaus analysis of early state

18
Rousseau on the victory of the rich over the poor
  • The outcome was . . . the most thought-out
    project that ever entered the human mind. It was
    to use in his favor the very strength of those
    who attacked him, to turn his adversaries into
    his defenders to give them other institutions
    which were as favorable to him as natural right
    was unfavorable to him.

19
Turn to Authoritarian Rule
  • Plebs support popular Roman generals
  • Gaius Marius, Julius Caesar
  • Julius Caesar is assassinated!
  • gt Generals take more and more power
  • Octavian Augustus Caesar (adopted son of Julius
    Caesar) made Imperator for life (27 BCE -14 CE)

20
How Did Augustus Seize Power?
  • A grateful Senate, weary of seemingly endless
    civil wars, heaped him with honors, including, in
    27 BCE, the title Augustus, meaning sacred or
    venerable. (Spodek, 180)
  • Augustus rejected the title of monarch,
    preferring to be called princeps, or first
    citizen. This gesture of humility fooled no one.
    With Augustus reign, the imperial form of
    government begins even though the Senate and the
    consuls and other magistrates survived. (Spodek,
    180)

21
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22
Fall of the Republic, Rise of the Empire
  • Chancellor Palpatine In order to ensure our
    security and continuing stability, the Republic
    will be reorganized into the first Galactic
    Empire, for a safe and secure society which I
    assure you will last for ten thousand years. An
    empire that will continue to be ruled by this
    august body, and a sovereign ruler chosen for
    life.

23
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24
How does liberty die?
  • PADME So this is how liberty dies, with
    thunderous applause . . .
  • (Star Wars III Revenge of the Sith)

25
How democratic was it?
  • In 14 C.E. Augustus Caesar announced that there
    were 4,937,000 citizens, about 2 million of them
    in the provinces. At that time, the total
    population of the empire was between 70 and 100
    million. Spodek, 182. 5 to 7 are free
    citizens
  • (Athens 16)

26
Abstractness of Cosmopolitan Citizenship
  • Under the empire, legal citizenship has become
    abstract, formal, almost powerless
  • gt Citizens have formal legal rights but not real
    power to control their society

27
Greek philosophy of free polis
  • Recall Socrates
  • Re wealth and virtue
  • Re soul and body
  • Re choice and destiny we choose our own fate
  • Socrates does not flee
  • His life is tied to the Athenian polis
  • He is a true citizen
  • He has real citizen power

28
Stoic philosophy of empire
  • Socrates virtue does not come from wealth, but
    that wealth, and every other good thing which men
    have, whether in public, or in private, comes
    from virtue.
  • Stoic position virtue is unrelated to wealth
  • Virtue (mind) is in our power
  • Wealth (body) is not in our power

29
Slave and Emperor
  • Two great Stoics
  • Epictetus the slave (50-138 AD)
  • Marcus Aurelius, the emperor (121-180 AD) (See
    film, Gladiator)
  • Philosophy that equates master and slave

30
What we can and cant control
  • Under our control are conception, choice,
    desire, aversion . . .
  • not under our control are our body, our
    property, reputation, office . . .
  • if you think only what is your own to be your
    own, and what is not your own to be, as it really
    is, not your own, then no one will ever be able
    to exert compulsion upon you . . . 1

31
Body and Soul
  • Philosophy of Roman empire
  • All can be free internally (in mind)
  • None can be free externally (in body)
  • Philosophy of Greek republic
  • Virtue (the rightly ordered soul) brings wealth
    and all good things (of the body)
  • I.e., we can control our external conditions of
    life

32
Be realistic
  • Do not seek to have everything that happens
    happen as you wish, but wish for everything to
    happen as it actually does happen, and your life
    will be serene. 8

33
How to be free
  • Whoever, therefore, wants to be free, let him
    neither wish for anything, nor avoid anything,
    that is under the control of others or else he
    is necessarily a slave. 14
  • Story of Epictetus and his master
  • Freedom of the mind

34
Accept your role in life
  • Remember that you are an actor in a play, the
    character of which is determined by the
    Playwright if He wishes the play to be short, it
    is short if long, it is long if He wishes you
    to play the part of a beggar, remember to act
    even this role adroitly and so if your role be
    that of a cripple, an official, or a layman. For
    this is your business, to play admirably the role
    assigned you but the selection of that role is
    Anothers. 17

35
The world is in good order
  • In piety towards the gods, I would have you
    know, the chief element is this, to have right
    opinions about them, as existing and as
    administering the universe well and justlyand to
    have set yourself to obey them and to submit to
    everything that happens, and to follow it
    voluntarily, in the belief that it is being
    fulfilled by the highest intelligence. 31

36
Is Socrates a Model Stoic?
  • See Epictetus 53 Well, O Crito, if so it is
    pleasing to the gods, so let it be. Anytus and
    Meletus can kill me, but they cannot hurt me.
  • Does Socrates neglect the body? Wealth? Is he a
    fatalist?
  • Plato on nature of our fate we freely choose our
    lot in life! (NDE of Er)
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