America’s culture does seem unlike Rome’s in the amount of change it accommodates, especially in the realm of morals. You note that Roman notions of personal honor and disgrace and the behavior appropriate to each were very different from those of present-day America. Do you think we’d do well to move a little closer to Rome in that regard, and away from our culture of individual rehabilitation and reinvention?

On the one hand, I do wish America’s sense of public virtue were stronger. It used to be quite powerful. In the 18th century the idea of honor was pronounced, and it led to terrible things like dueling. But at the same time, there really were public standards that saturated the consciousness of public people. Go look at George Washington’s rules of civility—they were very Roman. We may have lost this permanently. Certainly we would never want a Roman sense of honor that was so extreme that people would simply commit suicide—someone like Alberto Gonzales or Karl Rove or Scooter Libby—public figures caught in public mayhem of one sort or another. Back in ancient Rome, these wouldn’t be one-year, two-year stories. The people involved simply wouldn’t be around that long. We don’t want that, obviously.

At the same time there is something that’s beneficial about America’s tolerance for second acts. The idea that you can come back, that you can wipe the slate clean, that you can constantly improve yourself; there is an undeniable positive aspect to this. But you do, from time to time, see situations where people get into ridiculous tawdry kinds of trouble, and you know it’s only a matter of time before they have their own TV show and you’re tearing your hair out. But that may be a small price to pay for something that is a larger benefit.

How might this tolerance for second acts play into the privatization of public services that you talk so much about in the book? You argue persuasively that we’re setting the stage for a real crisis of power and accountability in government down the line. In the case of Rome, at least, that dispersal of public power and the rise of people operating primarily in their own interest eventually led to feudalism. Do you think the United States is headed toward a similar sort of corporate feudalism?

I do worry that America is heading toward some kind of feudal state again. The great thing that kept Rome together for so long was the fact that the people who held public power had a deeply ingrained sense of public virtue that was a great restraint. It goes back to the same sense of honor that led people to take their lives at a moment of what they perceived as public disgrace. They didn’t feel they could simply retreat to private life again.

In the United States, we created a state with a very pronounced set of public objectives and public responsibilities that were well laid out. My worry now is that we’re moving away from this great sense of government as a public calling—if you’re thinking benignly, in the interest of efficiency, or if you’re thinking malignly, in the interest of greed—and toward something very different, something market driven. In the end it amounts to getting the government that you pay for. Not just that you’ve paid for as a people, but that you’ve paid for as individuals. It’s happening all around us, usually in the guise of some deal that’s just too good to walk away from, and it’s happening in virtually every sector of public endeavor. Even if one can make the case that privatization makes sense in this instance or that instance—or even in every instance—the effect over time is going to be that there’s no government left, that all power of one sort or another is in private hands. Ultimately the result is to bring back feudalism. And we’re well on the way to it.