Archeology is interesting because it shows us ways that previous governments kept people off the streets. Many nations had periods of time where they were no longer in fear of enemies. The stretches of peace provided their citizens with opportunities to develop more efficient means of producing goods and services. These efficiencies, like Rome’s and Egypt’s “factory farms”, resulted in unemployed people wandering the streets, where they could make trouble.
Two methods of providing government employment evolved, Egyptian and Roman. Rome put its unemployed to work building roads, bridges, and infrastructure projects that kept people busy while making others more efficient. The Roman example of keeping people off the street was duplicated in wall-building China and in most Western countries.
Egypt, on the other hand, put its people to work on massive projects that institutionalized their religious beliefs in large, stone structures. Mayans and Aztecs followed the Egyptian model, in a far bloodier way.
Both the Egyptian and Roman systems worked for many centuries. In retrospect, we see that Egypt’s method worked for a few thousand years, Rome’s, for many centuries.
Today, the more “modern” countries have moved away from infrastructure development. The reason is simple. Building roads and bridges used to require huge gangs of men with picks and shovels. Earth movers and automated production techniques now produce infrastructure improvements with far fewer people.
Western governments are now moving toward the Egyptian model to keep people off the street. Modern governments now keep people busy by making them serve religious needs. State religions presently demand that all must work to serve ideals they invent. Today, we serve scary gods like “Maintain the right carbon dioxide levels or we will all die.” Their religion requires that taxpayers waste billions to cover the earth with god-pleasing windmills and solar collectors while staffing vast temples to serve their Climate Gods.
The new religion will be allowed to focus ever-larger resources on doing things that hurt, rather than help its citizenry. The citizens who are drained to pay for this foolishness will grow ever poorer, but their gods must be served.
