A heavily centralised state is the most fragile kind: when Rome’s centre failed, its successors were left without the resources or administration to do what it had done.

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• An institution can outlive the state that built it: the Church survived the collapse of Roman political authority when Rome’s other institutions did not. BDBret Devereaux28 Jan 2022
• The fall of the Western Roman Empire was a real loss of state capacity, not merely a change of management, and the evidence for that loss is ample. BDBret Devereaux28 Jan 2022
• Roman economic growth came from institutions rather than from technology, which is why it did not outlive the institutions that produced it. BDBret Devereaux26 Aug 2022
• The papacy made Italy uniquely unstable in Europe, because each new pope inherited a precedent that he could overthrow any government he liked. APAda Palmer16 Jun 2026
• A government only has legitimacy through long continuity, and once that thread is cut one regime change reliably becomes five. APAda Palmer16 Jun 2026

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