On pages 642-643 of Will
Durant’s remarkable book Caesar and Christ (1944) he discusses Diocletian’s
economic policies. (Diocletian reigned from 282 to 305 A.D.)
In years of peace Diocletian, with his aides, faced the problems of economic
decay. To overcome depression and prevent revolution he substituted a
managed economy for the law of supply and demand…. To ensure the supply
of necessaries for the cities and the armies, he brought many branches of
industry under complete state control, beginning with the import of grain; he
persuaded the shipowners, merchants, and crews engaged in this trade to accept
such control in return for government guarantee of security in employment and returns…. In 301 Diocletian and his colleagues [joint rulers of an administratively divided empire] issue an Edictum de pretiis, dictating maximum legal prices or wages for all important articles or services in the
Empire…. The Edict was until our time the most famous example of an attempt
to replace economic laws by governmental decrees. Its failure was rapid
and complete.
Durant goes on to explain how these economic regulations, combined with
higher taxes, caused people to engage in unprecedented levels of hiding
their productive activities from the state and in to fleeing Rome.
Medieval feudalism, Durant argues, finds its chief root in the restrictions
that Diocletian and his successors
imposed as they attempted to tie people to the land in order to prevent them
from fleeing:
It was probably to check this costly mobility, to ensure a
proper flow of food to armies and cities, and of taxes to the state, that
Diocletian resorted to measures that in effect established serfdom in fields,
factories, and guilds" [p. 644].
Durant concludes this discussion with the sorrowful observation that relatively few Romans protested, as they apparently were hoodwinked into
believing that in exchange for their freedom they were gaining greater
security.
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