Answer:
Oversea Slave Laborers Won’t Make Your Goods Forever
Explanation:
At its peak, money was rushing into the Roman Empire. The emperors and the government were basking in an absolute avalanche of wealth that helped them control the better part of the known world. But just because the nations had money didn’t mean the Roman people were getting rich.
Instead of hiring their own people, the Romans got foreign slaves to do most of their work. A massive part of their production was being done by foreign slaves, which left the actual citizens with nothing to do. A lot of Romans were unemployed, relying on government subsidies and handouts just to survive.
Modern companies can’t get away with literally hiring slaves these days, but they can come pretty close. Like Rome, the modern Western countries outsource the vast majority of the things they buy to sweatshops that sometimes pay as little as 64 cents an hour.
Approximately 60 percent of the things Americans buy are made overseas, but it’s not just the US that does this. China currently makes about 50 percent of the world’s clothes and 70 percent of its mobile phones.
The real lesson from Rome, though, is what might happen next—because Rome’s setup didn’t last forever. The slaves started to demand more and revolted. Meanwhile, the people of Rome, influenced by Christian morality, started feeling bad about using slaves.
Their labor system started to collapse. Since slave labor was the backbone of their entire economy, everything else went down with it.
