All successful empires have the same problem. People always gravitate toward the centers of power, hoping for opportunity, work, anything better than what they have. Many of them are useful, and provide needed low-cost labor. Many are also unassimilable, and create problems. Some rulers try to send them back from whence they came, or to stop them from coming. It seldom works. Others ignore them, which also does not work: they become very irritating very quickly. The usual response is some variant on bread and circuses, which is usually cheaper judged cheaper - a calculation based on economics, not altruism - to sustain them marginally than to fight with them.
Ants allow the foolish grasshoppers to die, then the ants feast on the grasshoppers' remains...
I'll leave the feasting to you; it doesn't sound an appealing dish.
You realize, of course, that unemployment is necessary in a market economy. If we had 100% employment wages would quickly spiral to an unbearable level, and businesses would collapse, creating unemployment. By keeping wages moderate the unemployed perform an essential service to the economy. It seems only reasonable to provide some compensation for their valorous efforts. |
