Systems resembling modern étatisme can be traced to antiquity. So can other measures: planned economy in various fields, monopolies with their fixed prices and other burdens, forms of state control which benefited the state or particular individuals, but which compromised the best interests of the people. On the other hand, paying salaries to the poor, unemployed citizens to avert the outbreak of social revolutions, “soaking the rich” by excessive and even ruinous taxation were among the economic measures known to the ancient world also. So were other present-day phenomena: the presence of “haves and have-nots,” inflation, strikes, and the low purchasing power of the masses.