Studies on ancient Rome would reveal that free trade is something that is fundamental, while capitalism would only come into existence later. Free trade was quite common in ancient Rome. During that period of time, capitalism did not exist yet, and there were many crises caused by free trade. Such crises that caused by free trade was particularly dramatic, often involving wars, lootings and riots. For example, during the period of 130 B.C. to 30 B.C., a series of civil wars erupted in Rome. It was the time when the Roman Republic occupied Greece, took control of the Mediterranean, and achieved a series of military victories. These victories promoted rapid economic development, but it also intensified social conflicts. All these eventually led to the land reform in the Roman Republic by the two brothers Tiberius Gracchus and Gaius Gracchus between 133 B.C. to 123 B.C.
Ancient Rome lasted for around 2,200 years, and this had to do with its frequent reforms of its political system. A rational society can often seek to continue its existence and development through reforms, rather than through other much more drastic social means.
An interesting finding is that there are two trading systems in our world, namely free trade and centralized control, which are fundamentally two different types of resource management systems. From a non-ideological point of view, they are management models of controlling factors and resources. The history of ancient Rome shows that both of these two resource management systems caused crises, but those crises caused by centralized control would often be more devastating in nature.
These two types of resource management systems existed simultaneously in ancient Rome. The most common type of resource management system under the centralized control of the government was war. The ancient Romans often launched wars. This would mobilize all their resources, and most of the wars were projects of huge scales. Once the elements and resources were concentrated to the extent of war, the social environment would manifest coordinated adjustments. However, after the end of the wars, the social environment would not automatically re-adjust, which would in turn lead to crises. During the war, the communities involved in wars had their own interests, power structure and organizational system of different communities, in opposed to those engaging in free trade. Both sides were confrontational, and the ancient Romans adjusted these through the implementation of reforms, which might or might not work.
In ancient Rome, every time after a war ended, there would be pressure of crisis. The Romans would either conduct urbanization, which was the equivalent to starting a mega project, or there would be lootings and riots until the next war. The final demise of ancient Rome and its historical stages are actually related to the high concentration of such elements and resources which is actually true for the modern society. Resources were highly concentrated in the USSR under Stalin, but such a system was unsustainable in the end, and major crises erupted and ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. China's Deng Xiaoping carried out reforms and reversed the crisis in the planned economy, which was not that different from the Gracchus reform in ancient Rome.
Not conducting reform would mean either war or collapse.
Of course, free trade can also lead to crises, and it is common for capitalist financial crises to occur frequently. However, free trade economic crises can often be reduced and offset through the expenditure of large sums of wealth. The government can choose to intervene or not, but as long as the government intervenes, it means that the elements and resources are re-concentrated. For example, quantitative easing provided by the world's countries after 2008 was actually a centralized control process, but it is difficult to actually resolve the roots of the crisis. My previous research indicates that under the free trading system, every major financial crisis is related to infrastructure construction. Large-scale infrastructure construction is in fact the concentration of resources. However, as mentioned above, it seems that this is only a part of the problem. The contradiction between the centralized control of elements and resources and the social environment system is the real source of the major economic crises.
Final analysis conclusion:
Our world has always been swinging between the two extremes of free trade and centralized control. So long as we do not go to the extremes and exercise restraint, we can successfully maintain a balanced development of the society, although it can be rather difficult to accomplish this.
