When discussing Roman history and the fall of the republic, people tend to focus on the conflict between Caesar and Pompey. Left out of the discussion is their partner in the first Triumvirate, Marcus Licinius Crassus “Dives”, usually known as just plain ol’ Crassus. He was the money man and consigliere of the three, and Rome’s richest man. The man who defeated Spartacus, he got obscenely rich through a combination of greed, gross opportunism, and bullying.

The most famous account of his ‘entrepenuership’ describes his aquisition of most of Rome’s property. He owned his own fire brigade you see, and whenever a fire struck he and his firemen, (all slaves, as were 1/3 of the city’s population by this time,) would rush to the afflicted home and demand that the owner sell to him. In a city where fathers had right of life or death over their own families and slaves outnumbered free workers, there wasn’t a lot people could do about this kind of bullshit. Unless by “do”, you mean “capitulate to”. If the owner refused, Crassus and his men would stand and watch the place burn down, meanwhile preventing anyone else from putting out the flames. Once the owner inevitably sold, they’d rebuild the property, fix it up and sell it at a tidy profit.

Just imagine what California rental rates would be like if such practicies were (officially) legal today. Fortunately, to most people that just sounds plain wrong, but Au Contraire mein herrs! It’s actually a prime example of Free Market Freedom at work. So sayeth Town hall’s John Stossel, American Dickhead:

In praise of price gouging

John Stossel

Politicians and the media are furious about price increases in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. They want gas stations and water sellers punished.

If you want to score points cracking down on mean, greedy profiteers, pushing anti-”gouging” rules is a very good thing.

But if you’re one of the people the law “protects” from “price gouging,” you won’t fare as well.

Oh, there’s more my pretties, and it’s as strained logically as you’d think. It takes a particularly vivid imagination to conceptualize a defense of ripping people off when they’re at their most valuable, I mean vulnerable, but American Dickhead pulls it off admirably. He says:

At $1 a bottle, they stocked up. At $20 a bottle, they bought more cautiously. By charging $20, the price gouger makes sure his water goes to those who really need it.

Jesse at Pandagon points out the obvious: If you don’t have 20 dollars, you’re fucked, end of story. Who cares if the benevolent price gouger is making sure that only the rich or the sufficiently armed criminal can afford to save their lives, the free market will solve everything!

Of course, in times of dire emergency there’s an even easier way to make sure people get what they need without taking things from everyone else: Federal troops guarding the food and water supply, ensuring that nobody hoards and then price gouges. See, you don’t have to waste time figuring out the going rate of desperately needed supplies, you just distribute them because real Americans don’t fucking rip each other off because it’s convenient.

The thing is, fostering resentment and greedy comptetition, while simultaneously discouraging people from working together, just to turn a buck, might be a bad thing. Especially when the shit hits the fan, leaves to get some friends, and then comes back as a giant constructicon-like shit robot to take out the fan once and for all.

But then, to admit that exploiting people in a disaster is bad is to admit that Bush fucked up hugely, by not using his actual authority, which makes blaming the victim impossible. You know, holding Bush accountable for not using his power to save the lives of the people with whose safety he is entrusted. Not bloody likely amongst the illiterati over at Town Hall.

While we’re on the subject of Crassus’ inestimable influence, Amanda at Pandagon points to another, weirder example: The possibility that the National Guard is recruiting from among the displaced:

“Doling out food to the hungry crowds overflowing Houston’s Astrodome, the National Guard has engaged in ad hoc recruiting in recent days… the U.S. military is conducting a Job Fair in the Astrodome in a blatant effort to exploit the despair of masses of Americans evacuated from the Gulf Coast. Once signed up, even if purportedly to reconstruct their region, they could easily find themselves deployed to Iraq…”

This may not be true, though given Bush’s insensitivity, I wouldn’t be surprised. I haven’t even mentioned the fact that Haliburton has been contracted for disaster relief.

At any rate, you can be sure that whenever disaster strikes, you’ll find a conservative ready to exploit the situation to his or her best advantage. Sort of like Bizzarro Robin Hood.

UPDATE: Commentor Sarah reminds us that according to various ancient rumors, Crassus came to a deliciously ironic end.

As I mentioned earlier, Crassus was the general in charge of putting down the Spartacus revolt in 72 BC. While he managed (likely) to kill Spartacus himself, Pompey swept into Italy at the last moment and took control of the post-victory mop-up operations, and managed to claim half of the glory for the overall victory. Pompey’s fame was always significantly greater than Crassus’, and he ended up being more widely praised as the savior of Rome. This made the two bitter enemies (until Caesar sweet talked them into making nice with each other), and even as he became the richest man in Rome, Crassus never got over having his victory dance stolen out from under him.

In 53 BC, having spent nearly 20 years overshadowed by Pompey and later by Caeser’s conquest of Gaul, Crassus ineptly prosecuted an invasion of the Parthain Empire in a desperate attempt to get equal glory for himself. He wasn’t up to the challenge, his army was obliterated, and his standard stolen by the Parthians.

At this point, according to popular rumor, the Parthians who had heard of Crassus’ vast wealth decided to give him a fitting execution – They fed his greed by pouring molten gold down his throat. And at this point every single republican reading this gets an erection.

I’m not suggesting that the Parthians had the right idea, though Commentor Matt thinks suggests that we send Stossel to New Orleans and use his enormous mustache to mop up the receding floodwater, which would be hilarious punihsment, not only for his ridiculous views, but for sullying the good name of mustaches everywhere.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to pack some souvineer water bottles I’m selling in Houston this weekend.