Why welfare isn't always the best solution

                Today in Western Civilization we continued our PowerPoint on Rome. First, we went over the Punic Wars in brief detail. After the Punic Wars, there was a large influx of slaves into Italy, about 50,000 Carthaginians and 150,000 Greek POWs, and others. By the end of the 2^nd century there were over a million slaves in Italy. While they were out at war, many small farmers lost their land to aristocrats. This land was then added to different latifundias, and slaves were made to work on them. This put much of the middle class out of work, and in turn to keep the people from revolting, free bread and entertainment was provided for their benefit (I’m sorry, but this sounds to me like why welfare is pushed so much by the Democrats, which is so they can get more votes from the people on it who don’t try to work) so then they wouldn’t pull themselves out of poverty and never got into a better social standing. Tiberius Gracchus actually wanted to improve the middle class’ living standards by not using government welfare, but was unsuccessful. Other military generals saw this and liked the idea, and gave spoils to their men after fighting battles. This eventually made soldier’s loyalty to their leader, and not Rome.