In Machiavelli's graphic conception, power is presented to us as a centaur, that is, as a creature with the head, arms, and torso of a human, and the body and legs of a horse. If the centaur were to die, its circulatory system would cease to function, and blood would accumulate, due to the effects of gravity, in the sloping areas of its body. This phenomenon would give rise to cadaveric lividity (livor mortis), stains that could be concealed with makeup. What could never be concealed is the decomposition of the centaur, that is, the decline of power.
The history of humanity teaches us about the structural tensions and conflicts that precede the collapse of political regimes. It tells us about the end of power and the swindle that has been the pretense of deifying it. Rome, after the Republic, offers us an example of inexhaustible lessons, but the dream lulled by the ravings of arrogance refuses to accept any catechism.
Under the empire, Rome became the lord and master of the seas, its territorial expansion reaching unimaginable frontiers, a domain of 2,750,000 square kilometers speaks to us of immeasurable power, in fact, the possibilities of conquering new territories seemed exhausted, humanity witnessed a political achievement to which Ptolemaic thought assigned true aspects of eternity.
However, the burden of a trade deficit, the growth of an unaffordable bureaucracy, abusive tax collection, tax evasion, the massive exodus of the rural population to the cities that led to a significant reduction in the labor force to till the land, the depreciation of the currency and an unstoppable rise in the cost of living, the concentration of property in a few hands, the plundering of treasury lands, the handing over of the highest functions to unmeritorious servants, the promotion of a governmental oligarchy, a bureaucratized, onerous and slow justice system, the eclipse of culture, among other causes, will unleash an economic, fiscal and political crisis among the Romans of an insoluble nature.
After the death of Theodosius (395 AD,
IV) The political and territorial unity of the empire is divided. His children will share the inheritance. Rome will be the capital of the western empire, where Honorius will officiate; Constantinople will be the capital of the eastern empire under the command of Arcadius.
This is the moment when chaos deepens and becomes widespread. Military anarchy due to economic dissatisfaction leaves the borders unguarded. We witness the loss of the monopoly on organized violence, facilitating the emergence of barbarian tribes for whom hunger and corruption paved the way for alliances against everything that still remained standing, basically, in the West.
This phenomenon, known as the barbarization of the empire, can be explained by a change in the fate of the barbarian tribes, hampered on their journey east by the Great Wall of China, a circumstance that forced them to look west once more; but even if the empire had been protected by a barrier greater than the Great Wall of China, Rome would still have fallen, for the pallor of its power revealed its lack of moral boundaries.
For Bertrand Russell, power and glory together are humanity's highest aspirations and greatest reward; but as we can see, achieving them is not enough. Factors such as the deterioration of authenticity and the illusory nature of commitments tell us that both are lost.
Despite centuries of experience, problems such as hunger, unemployment, corruption—in short, institutional anomie, reduced to the point of rendering constitutional texts meaningless—continue to be studied as causes of power tensions. A chilling news story speaks of a billion human beings ravaged by hunger, while climate change caused by industrial activity fueled by fossil fuels threatens a cataclysmic shift in planetary temperature and chemistry, endangering all species.
These unrest is already generating processes that dissolve power, aggravated by the loss of effectiveness in the management of violence, the collapse of the monopoly on legitimate force, the degradation of social control, the destruction of wealth as the essence of the crisis, the population explosion, the depressing outlook that escapes vital statistics, the disloyalty of the opposition, the crisis of the party system, and the loss of legitimacy of electoral systems.
Giner states that legitimacy is earned day by day, and not only at the ballot box.
Meanwhile, such questions announce the death of the centaur.