About 290 years after Christ a Roman Emperor

Named Diocletian took over

He really grabbed the bull by the hornsHe took over in a period of turmoil and severe depression

The first thing Diocletian did was call in the gold

And closed the banks and raised the taxes

He reduced the power of the Senate

Delegated its power to a lot of little government burеaus

Do you know they even had a Transportation Act back thеre?

Prescribing the fee required to rent one laden ass per mile

And at today′s rate of exchange

It would have amounted to about 1/8th cent per mile?

Which meant that in order to make a profit

A jack ass would have to carry five passengers

That was simply beyond the capacity of the jack ass

Diocletian put millions of people on the public payroll

But when this failed to do the job, the country was still in trouble

He asked more personal powers for himself

For a brief while, incidentally, they were standby powers

But then he used them, all at once

He froze wages, he froze prices, he froze jobs

He stopped profits, he dictated to the farmer what he should plant

When and how he should sell it and for how much

And he rationed food and what happened?

The labor market closed down, incentive was gone

Farm life became dependent on bureaucratic red tape

Exorbitant taxes cost the farmer his land

He kept for himself only a small plot on which

He might grow turnips for his family

He lost the rest of it to the state

And without food and with incentive gone

City life stagnated and declined

And Rome past into what history has recorded as the "Dark Ages

Lasting a thousand years

Lasting a thousand years

Just by turning to the left, the world has gone in circles

The world has gone in circles

The world has gone in circles

Just by turning to the left, the world has gone in circles

The world has gone in circles

The world has gone in circles

A nation would evolve from a monarchy

Into an oligarchy, from oligarchy to dictatorship

From dictatorship to bureaucracy

From bureaucracy to pure democracy where

Finally, the people would cry out from the chaos

And confusion of the streets "Oh! Please God give us a king!"

And God would give 'em a king and they′d have a monarchy again

And start the whole silly cycle anew

Now either we will profit from the errors of their ways

Or it follows as the night the day,

Our children are going to have to relive the dark ages,

All over again, all over again

Just by turning to the left, the world has gone in circles

The world has gone in circles

The world has gone in circles

Just by turning to the left, the world has gone in circles

The world has gone in circles

The world has gone in circles

All over again, all over again

The world, the world has gone in circles

All over again, all over again

The world, the world has gone in circles