Is a lesson for anyone who wants to see how socialism failed long before Marx.

In A.D. 301, Diocletian issued the Edictum de Pretiis. This edict set forth fixed prices, wage control and started public works to keep people employed. It's the forerunner of FDR's socialist thinking in how to deal with a poor economy. Food was given at reduced prices to the poor or they were fed for free. Government started controlling all industries.

And taxes were brought to bear on the rich to pay for all this government largesse.

The Roman bureaucracy was too corrupt and controlling all this was too much. So waste was everywhere and taxes rose to unprecedented heights.

What happened?

The people dropped out of the workforce to evade taxes, some even moved to live among the barbarians where Roman law had little reach. lawyers crafted new laws to FORCE people to work and lawyers invented new laws tied up people to their professions and their location. So it was illegal to quit! It was illegal to leave! This was what started serfdom and the slavery of the middle ages!

Marx, Lenin, FDR, Obama and all the rest never learned from history or they DID learn and simply want instant power. While for the short term they are the heroes of the uneducated poor, as time passes their failed system brings ruin on everyone and paves the way for the greatest abridgement of human rights.

Socialism is a key element of slavery. Those who don't mind being slaves, and can't feed or house themselves by any other ways embrace it doing as little as they can, but everyone else relishes the chance to work, compete and prosper. Some people grab at the shackles as a form of security and others see them for what they are - slavery.