What causes some empires to fall?

Answer 1

Kit Walker has an interesting point, but it is at best a minor thing and only helped the fall of the Roman Empire, it did not cause it.

All great empires fall because they allow their economies to whither from within. In particular, every population becomes convinced that the rich are too poor and the poor are too rich, and that this is so dangerous that it must be remedied with drastic action. In every case (Roman, Ottoman, British, Germany, etc), the middle class is destroyed in an effort to make the ruling class more efficient. Land is taken from individual farmers, home ownership is curtailed to create more tenants, and indigenous labor is replaced with foreign or slave labor to increase profits for the very few at the expense of the many. The wealth of the nation is funneled into fewer and fewer hands, which means fewer and fewer tax payers.

In time, the empire's economy goes into such catastrophic debt that it can no longer provide any services, and so much of the tax income goes towards only servicing the national debt that the people are further disenfranchised through astronomical taxes. The people are reduced to poverty which leads to crime, the state can no longer provide security because it cannot pay the police which multiplies the amount of crime, and that is when the crippling loss of morality begins to show its head (as stated by another person above).

It is always a case of chosing to pay later rather than paying now.

Answer 2

In the book titled "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", the last sentence is a warning that all great empires and nations should heed:

"No great nation can fall from without, ...until it has fallen from within."

This would seem to suggest that no nation, great or small can fall from external forces such as from war or being attacked, until it's own society has been so corrupted and weakened that it can no longer resist attacks.

Answer 3

I always like this one. The Roman Empire ran with the ball for a while..but ,for the aristocracy, the drinking vessels were molded out of lead (Pb) .Wine and other spirits would cause a chemical reaction where Lead was absorbed into the brain causing mental disturbances ..IE Caligula etc madness prevailed into the close knit "families"...passed into wha?

Answer 4

Oppression is the biggest causes for the felt of most and greatest Empires. More oppressed people felt bigger grown the feeling of a change that ends up explosions into some kind of revolution and revolt (change of the actual state or substitute of the state by a modern one).

Answer 5

the answer acccording to me iscertain empire falls bcoz the people of the empire r not united or the king of the empire is not a good ruler who cant c the forthcoming danger like enemy,or dishonest officers or unsatisfied people who revolt causing an empir to fall.

Answer 6

some empires are conquered, like the Inca empire, most empires fall due to the corruption, social strife and in general, rots from the inside out, like the Roman empire, and some fall from environmental changes like the Mayan empire

Answer 7

lot's of empires were ruled by dictators and the only thing dictators are afraid of is the power of the people, because they created that power by repressing the people, they know that one day someone will say , no more repressing and I think a lot of empires have fallen because of the power of the people...

Answer 8

Unable to administer "good management" and inability to defend it effectively due to the sheer geographical size of the empires.

Answer 9

progress dude...today's empires are tomorrows ashes...just ask malcolm X or propagandhi...it's just a natural cycle of growth, over expansion/greed/oppression and death...the ruling class in any society is ultimately the harbinger of it's own doom...and i think that we're about due again...

Answer 10

Ottomans stayed behind the time.Innovations in all parts of human life must be followed and the ones that might be useful must be resembled.