Eg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomes_policy .
In the US, Truman placed the railroad under US military control in 1950, and I recall at least threats of having military take over coal mines both in the US and UK, because of worker strikes.
I will translate your suggestion like this:
-Either be a full-on dictatorship OR
-Be a modern democratic state
China that infinite8s mentions in his comment could also be considered as such.
Heck, Franco's Spain lasted for 30+ years...
It's been a while, but I think Venezuela was one of Ian Bremmer's prime examples.
That's an ideological statement. One can be a "police state" and has advanced technology and products -- free market not required.
In fact most of the technical and product developments in 18th and 19th century took place in markets quite far from "free", and of course Nazi Germany (the de fact "police state") was quite competent technologically.
> Truman placed the railroad under US military control in 1950
These seem like non-sequiturs to me. The economy in the 50s was booming. Truman took control of the trains to mitigate the effects of a worker strike during wartime, when it was important that the trains be running efficiently.
You're using this as an example of fending off economic decline?
> GDP Growth Rate in the United States...[reached] an all time high of 16.90 percent in the first quarter of 1950...
The referenced article concerns oil mining placed under military control, so I thought it was relevant to point out that the US has also placed privately owned critical infrastructure under military control.
If there's any meaning to my comment, it's the suggestion to look to more recent history for compelling analogies, rather than ancient Rome.
Where is there notable about Venezuela which makes this comparison insightful? Wouldn't it be more insightful to compare it to, say, the decline of the British Empire?
Has Venezuela, like Rome, had a long series of costly wars (including civil wars) which took money out of the government coffers?
Has Venezuela, like Rome, lost a revenue source by no longer being able to expand into new territory?
Does Venezuela have anything like the Vandal pirates which disrupted Roman trade?
Has it undergone a partition like that of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires, where the money diverted into strengthening Constantinople meant that Rome was less defended against invasion?
Is the Venezuelan military increasingly peopled by foreign soldiers of fortune who have little loyalty to the country and might instead attack it?
Because all I get from the comparison is that there's hyperinflation going on caused by poor government and a loss of income. Which has been true of a lot of countries.
If I am betrayed by a friend and say "this is what Caesar must have felt like", I am not saying that my friend's betrayal is the most like that of Caesar's, nor that Caesar's betrayal is the most similar historical betrayal to my mine. It just means "oh, now I know more about what that feels like".
I lost a glove. What I felt must be like what Luke Skywalker felt when he lost his hand.
I set a PR of 7:15 on running a mile. That must be like what Bannister felt when he broke the 4 minute mile.
But montrose made more than a simple comparison. The implication is that high-level government attempts to control economic policy is what lead to the similarity.
I disagree that assessment, and pointed to other attempts at high-level government control of economic policy, with a variety of results, to show that there isn't a strongly causal connection.
Plus, there are other factors which are involved. Why should we think that the views of Romans in the late Western Roman Empire were similar to what's going on in Venezuela now?