>as well as some slavery and conquering which impoverish some populations to enrich others).
Massive understatement, roughly 15% of the population of Rome were slaves and the Pax Romana is often seen as one of the causes of the breakdown of the economy. This is a common theme with capitalism and it's enrichment periods. It's very hard to argue that most of the world benefitted from colonialism.
>And Rome periodically put them back into grinding poverty by reducing the size of the grain dole because it was too expensive? Funding consumption can't reduce long term poverty (give a fish vs teach to fish).
And capitalism periodically put them back into grinding poverty with massive crashes or unchecked greed. Teaching a man to fish isn't that helpful if you then own all of the poles and materials to make the poles and refuse to share.
In a world with free markets and free trade how would this be possible? I'm having a hard time imagining a single person or even a corporation owning, for example, all of the iron across the entire globe.
And no, control of that land isn't what enabled the grain dole. The lands won by the army did.
This isn't that different than capitalist Venezuela. Loan someone in Venezuela a bunch of arms, they fight, then they have to repay you and look at those discovered oil fields they have!
(Also, you spotted that Rome was a slave society, but failed to make the obvious conclusion that slavery precludes free exchange of labour!)
Government took only 5%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_economy#GDP_and_income_d... In the Scheidel–Friesen economic model, the total annual income generated by the Empire is placed at nearly 20 billion HS, with about 5 percent extracted by central and local government.
>What does this even mean?
It means that the reason there was grain for Rome to give was because of trade and capitalism (as well as some slavery and conquering which impoverish some populations to enrich others).
Capitalism (private ownership of means of production) means that I benefit if I provide things that other people want.
Trade allows individuals to make exchanges that benefit them.
Free trade ensures that exchanges benefit both parties, resulting in an increase of total well-being.
> Rome pulled massive numbers of people out of grinding poverty with the free grain dole, not at all capitalist.
And Rome periodically put them back into grinding poverty by reducing the size of the grain dole because it was too expensive? Funding consumption can't reduce long term poverty (give a fish vs teach to fish).