Great Empires are Built on Strong Economies

Since the time immemorial, history has shown us that all great empires came around to become ‘great’ with stable and cyclically advancing economies they were built on. In the 21st century, although the global economy might not be in its best shape but there still exist some contemporary examples that prove that economy is the foundation for any empire to rise and fall, one such case being – The Sri Lankan Crisis.

Sri Lankan Crisis:?Why is the economy in crisis??

Major jolts to Sri Lankan Economy:

Firstly, the economy of Sri Lanka has been negatively hit since the Easter Sunday assaults in 2019 that shocked the nation and caused over 250 casualties. As a result, less tourists visited the country, which negatively affected its tourism industry. Given that tourism takes up a big chunk of their revenue, the incident ticked off a domino effect that is still spiralling in the country. The terrible scenario was made even worse in 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the decrease in travellers, foreign exchange reserves also took a dip.

Second, in 2019, the newly elected Gotabaya Rajapaksa government campaigned on a platform of reducing taxes. The economic issues were made worse by the faulty tax implementation promises.

Thirdly, all fertiliser imports were outright prohibited in 2021, making Sri Lanka an overnight 100% organic farming nation. This had a significant impact on food production because organic farming produces less than non-organic farming. This caused a food crisis and an increase in food prices in Sri Lanka. As a result, the Sri Lankan president unavoidably proclaimed an economic emergency to stem the tide of rising food costs, a falling currency, and rapidly diminishing foreign exchange reserves.

The Economic Crisis has its roots in all of the aforementioned causes, grounds, and reasons. With food and commodity prices skyrocketing, it is understandable why the 22 million Sri Lankans are starving, fearful, angry, and on the streets, which could cause the empire to collapse. There are few options for the nation and its citizens to solve the problem.

History tells us that not only todays Sri Lankan empire, but many empires collapse are fundamentally due to the collapse in their Economies or Economic Institutions that failed to address the include many The Great Depression in United States that wreaked havoc not only in US and also around the world, The Greek sovereign debt crisis in where Greece held a snap general election to elect a president who could handle the crisis.?

According to history, Sri Lankan empire is not an isolated case, many other empires' demises were primarily brought on by the failure of their economies or economic institutions to meet the Greek sovereign debt crisis, where Greece held an early general election to elect a president who could handle the issue, and the Great Depression in the United States, which inflicted havoc not only in the US but also around the world.?