The Roman Empire was brought down by entitlement spending. By Wall Street Apes.

Historian Johan Norberg explains that one of the major factors in taking down the Roman Empire that’s rarely discussed, is the rise in entitlement spending

So many people started receiving welfare and it kept getting expanded, it quickly skyrocket inflation and destroyed their currency. …

“The emperors wanted to become popular by handing out free stuff to people. Originally, this started small. You just handed the very poor means of subsistence, make sure that they would but that group was enlarged because it was popular. So the group that lived on the public’s expense grew larger all the time

And emperors complained about this constantly while they were expanding it.

Everyone from Caesar and onwards said, “Oh, we’ve gotta reform this system because it means that we have fewer people working and more people consuming.” But no one succeeded. Instead, it was expanded all the time became more and more costly. …

“It’s a very worrying sign in each of these civilizations. Once you have an ever-expanding system of entitlements that you can’t afford, then you have to deal with it in different ways. Well, some of them just try to conquer other people’s and take their stuff. But once you run out of that, you have to resort to inflation. Rome started to debase the currency. …

Roughly 20% of the entire population ended up on welfare, it got so out of control they devalued their currency by 98%.

Unstoppable and ever-increasing entitlement spending inevitably leads to required currency debasement, and attracts parasitic immigrants. The parallels with the modern West are obvious.

By the way, the original Roman and Ancient Greeks were Germanic tribe who moved south. Many of them — e.g. Alexander the Great — were blonde, and tribal virtue and was high. Over time, migration to the economic powerhouse that was Rome changed the population, until blondness or virtue became rare. Maybe the welfare attracted less able people. In any case, the Roman population of 400 AD was very different from the Roman population of 200 BC.