Why Great Societies Fail

“We have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society” (Johnson 1) There were many great societies but they all seemed to fail in some way. Greece, Rome, Mesopotamia, Easter Island and Ancient Egypt all came to an end because of wars they kept losing, loss in money and really big populations they couldn’t keep under control. The quote above mainly means that we can get rid of the rich and powerful societies and we don’t have to live like that but we just want to have a good society meaning the “great society” and live a good life . Even though there are societies out there that say they are great they still seem to fail in some ways. Great societies had collapsed because …show more content…
This last argument about these societies is about how big the populations were. Having a big population was a good thing at some point but bad at the other. As the society got older more and more people needed things and it was getting really hard to provide the things they needed. In Greece there were approximately 140,000 people, I am assuming that having that amount of people in this society made it really hard to do things. Greece had a huge population, and they also had a lot of wars and not everybody had jobs and got paid, so there is a big issue. “The reason for this is its people failure to form unity” ( Senja 1) This quote stated above proves that the people in the society failed to agree on anything which made it hard to do things. Greece had a huge population, yet it was a very good society but it managed to fail in some way. The fall of Rome was an ongoing process and it lasted forever. The population of Rome was huge making it hard to provide the things that they needed. Having a huge population was not a good thing, but here everybody had jobs and got paid. However after a few years the people weren’t getting paid anymore. As people stopped getting paid there were more and more slaves. “The decline in morals, especially in the rich upper classes, nobility and the emperors.” ( Alchin 1) This quote proves that the people started having issues and they were getting treated differently. This was definitely a big issue and it impacted many people in the city of Rome. Ancient Egypt had a really big population along with two really big military armies. Soon after everybody was living there for a while there was a big amount of people that went into poverty and they didn’t have any money. “The recent political upheaval in Egypt exposed the sad condition of what was once one of the world’s great Empires.” (Why did Ancient Egypt Decline 1) This quote stated proves that