The Character of Ancient Near Eastern Economy

Making sense of ancient economies requires careful attention to particular details as well as a consolidating model that combines the detail into a coherent form. While there is always the danger that economic models will over-determine the detail, models are useful heuristic devices. In this article a model that draws on Marxist economic analysis is assembled and then used to trace a geographically pervasive and historically enduring economic system in the ancient world, stretching from the Ancient Near East to Greco-Roman, and so underlying much of biblical history and story. The article argues that the model of a tributary mode of production, administered through a city-state political system, may also prove useful exegetically and ethically, enabling us to understand particular texts more "economically" and to provide important perspective to our present day economic decisions.

Journal of Economic History 43/4 (1983) 795-829

Journal of Ancienct Civilizations, 2017

Rome; (2) Roland Boer's model of the economy of ancient Israel; and (3) K. C. Hanson and Douglas Oakman's social-scientific approach in New Testament studies. These models differ significantly from each other and are drawn from what are often treated as three distinct fields: classics, Hebrew Bible, and New Testament studies. It is precisely the differences between the models that are most illuminating, however, and juxtaposing them quickly reveals the emphases-and omissions-that are specific to and that characterize each model.

dans K. Ruffing, S. Föllinger, K. Dross-Krûpe (ed), Antike Wirtschaft und ihre kulturelle Prägung, Wiesbaden, 2016., 2016

Historians have found the possibility to use models coming from other academic fields appealing yet risky. The end of 19 th century has been a time of opposing views in ancient economic history between the supporters of Mahler and Buchner 1 . This wrangling has impacted ancient economic history for a long time, leading to a gap between so-called primitivists and modernists. It is now-a-days well-known that this debate often lead to theoretical dead ends. But at least, it help to reveal the problem of models use in history. Because of those long years of sterile debates, some scholars are still reluctant to use theoretical models. But an increasing number of historians are becoming aware of the usefullness of such models to help understand ancient evidence. The problem remains for historians to choose which model could be relevant for their studies. Those inspired by M. Weber, K. Marx or K. Polanyi 2 have often been used in ancient history, but their limitations have since become apparent. Research is currently exploring new paths : observation of ancient evidence leads historians to focus on the issue of economic growth, technological progress, or demographic expansion 3 . They also deal with the issue of economic change and of the factors which enable or obstruct this change. . Those new questions show a need for new theoretical background. Current research in economic sciences commonly uses the so-called neo-classical model. This theoretical framework brought to modern economic research a rigorous modelling, which appears to be very efficient to provide easy and clear explanations of modern world. According to classical economic theory, economic choices are supposed to be the result of an arbitration made by fully rational individuals: neo-classical homo economicus preferences are rational and can be identified and 1 On the use of economic models in ancient history, see the introduction of (Scheidel, Morris, Saller, & more, 2013). On the same subject in Assyriology, see (Laetitia Graslin-Thomé, 2009, pp. 91-181). 2 (Polanyi, 1977). For a more or less critical use of Polanyi's thesis in Assyriology, see (Renger, 1984) (Clancier, Rouillard, & Tenu, 2005). 3 It is the core of books like (Scheidel et al., 2013) or (Jursa, 2010).

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2019

Ancient Economies in Comparative Perspective, 2022

Before we can set about examining the economies and political economies in preindustrial, pre-capitalist and pre-mercantile societies, we must set aside all the usual categories we automatically use and try to understand the real bases of economic thought in those societies. It is certainly difficult for us to understand and even conceive forms of economic goals and relations that are different from the modern or contemporary ones with which we are familiar, and which refer to the economy as a system of 'rational actions' aimed at achieving maximum output with minimum effort. In today's terms, economic rationale is independent of politics and social ethics and aims at producing 'wealth', determining the 'value' of goods based on their 'scarcity' and of the rules established by the interplay of market forces. Precisely on account of our difficulty in understanding different types of rationales, the debate on ancient economies among most scholars has focused on the contrast between those who tend to see 'the first expressions of rational economic behaviour' appearing very early on, in the earliest Near Eastern societies, and those who tend to deny any recognisable form of economic rationality before the Greeks and Romans (see the discussion on this issue in Steinkeller 2015). I think, however, that this is not a matter of 'rationality', since, as Monika Poettinger has already pointed out, rationality as 'the effective use of means towards an end' has always existed in any economic action, but 'in every epoch it would be characterised by its own means and its own ends' (Poettinger 2013, 143-146). This is crucial to understand the profound differences between the political economies of different, sometimes very different, societies. The aims pursued by economic actions or strategy in early formative societies with some kind of central government or leadership may ultimately have been not only, or

Sitta von Reden and Kai Ruffing (eds.), Handbuch Antike Wirtschaft. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter: 41-64, 2023

At some point early in the 4 th century BC, a certain Aeschines of Sphettus (not the famous orator but a former pupil of Socrates) was involved in a court case in Athens. 1 The case concerned Aeschines' failure to repay a loan. We only know about it because passages from the speech composed by the orator Lysias for the (unknown) adversary of Aeschines in the case were quoted in a much later source (Ath., Deipn. 13, 611e-612e). Aeschines' adversary stated the following: I would never have expected, gentlemen of the jury, that Aeschines would have dared to become involved in such an embarrassing case, and I believe it would be difficult for him to find another that so blatantly abuses our legal system. For this man, gentlemen of the jury, owed Sosinomus the banker and Aristogiton money, on which he was paying three drachmas per month [per 100 drachmae, that is, 36 % annually]; and he came to me and asked me not to stand by and watch him lose all his property because of the interest. 'I'm setting up a business to make perfume,' he said; 'I need start-up money, and I can offer you nine obols per mina as interest' [i.e. 1.5 drachmae per 100 drachmae per month, or 18 % per annum]. Aeschines, however, failed to pay back this loan. The speaker continues: But the fact is, gentlemen of the jury, it is not just me he treats this way, but everyone who comes in contact with him. Don't the shopkeepers in his neighborhood, from whom he gets goods on credit and then fails to pay for them, lock up their stores and bring him into court? And doesn't he make the people who live near him so miserable that they abandon their own houses and rent others far away? Whenever he gathers contributions for a group dinner, he doesn't return the money that's left over… So many people come to his house at dawn to ask for the money they're owed, that passers-by think he's dead and they've come for his funeral! And the people in the Piraeus have adopted the attitude that it looks much safer to sail to the Adriatic than to get involved with him; because he regards any money he's been loaned as much more his own than what his father left him. 2 Historians studying ancient Greek finance have focused on this passage, considering it key to our understanding of Athenian credit relations. What is interesting, however, is that, having analyzed the passage, they arrive at diametrically opposed conclusions regarding the nature of Athenian financial life.