Kyle Harper

But, you know, the good version of that argument would just be that the Roman Empire is using, in fact, slaves and many of the most forward elements of the economy, too.

We tend to—

I think because we think – we know slavery is bad and we think progress and economic growth and innovation is good.

We tend to think that those things don't go together.

But in reality, it's like the most economically advanced sectors of the Roman economy that have the most –

a high degree of organization, productivity that tends to employ slaves.

And so in the Roman world, like you could make the argument that if the labor in those sectors had been free, there would have been more opportunities for positive feedback loops.

The way the argument is usually made is just that the Romans got rich without really thinking about –

productivity.

They just wanted to extract labor, extract wealth rather than create wealth, which I don't think is a terrible argument.

But ultimately, I don't think it's the system of labor that keeps the Roman world from industrializing.

And there are lots of sectors in the Roman world where slavery is not

a dominant institution.

And it's not like they're more productive or like flirting with some kind of breakaway.

So it's an interesting argument, but not one I've ever found all that persuasive.

You know, I haven't seen the second one.

So you mean the first one?

The first one got right that when you're making a movie, you should worry more about making a good movie

The first one's a great movie.

And if it was like completely historically accurate, it would have been much more boring.