One of the books I found influential in graduate school in philosophy was M. I. Finley's The Ancient Economy, which appeared in 1973. Finley's book sought to explain important parts of the Roman world by piecing together the best knowledge available about the economic relations that defined its socioeconomic foundation. And the book proposes to consider economic history in a new way:There is a fundamental question of method. The economic language and concepts we are all familiar with, even the laymen among us, the "principles", whether they are Alfred Marshall's or Paul Samuelson's, the models we employ, tend to draw us into a false account. For example, wage rates and interest rates in the Greek and Roman worlds were both fairly stable locally over long periods ... , so that to speak of a "labour market" or a "money market" is immediately to falsify the situation. (23)Finley's point here is that we need to conceptualize the ancient economy in terms that are not drawn from current understandings of capitalist market economies; these economic concepts do not adequately capture the socioeconomic realities of the ancient world. …
Understanding Society
M I Finley on the dynamics of the Roman Empire
Daniel Little | Chancellor of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, Professor of Philosophy at UM-Dearborn and Professor of Sociology at UM-Ann Arbor
M I Finley on the dynamics of the Roman Empire
Daniel Little | Chancellor of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, Professor of Philosophy at UM-Dearborn and Professor of Sociology at UM-Ann Arbor
6 comments:
One can see whatever is behind ISIS has the metals again in ascension and is trying to erase any material record of what we were doing when we were last out from under the metals....
" And these imply a society sharply divided between haves and have-nots -- nobility and the poor. "
If you examine the Greek Scriptures the word 'poor' is never applied to anyone in Greece or Rome... they had no 'poor' among them... everyone was provisioned... Paul didnt go all around Greece and Rome opening up f-ing soup kitchens...
Finley here: " Finley summarizes the "balance of payments" through which towns and cities supported themselves under four categories: local agricultural production, the availability of special resources like silver;"
Finley is violating his own main point here: "these economic concepts do not adequately capture the socioeconomic realities of the ancient world."
Because he treats the metals as an accounting commodity... his analysis is within what we (maybe Warren coined it...) sometimes call a "gold standard mentality"... or Finley is "out of paradigm" as we say...
The key/basic socio-economic system differentiation between then and now is defined by mankinds relationship with these metals... we were not under the authority of these metals back then, the metals were under us .... AND WE UNDERSTOOD IT. Finley demonstrates no insight into this...
Today we have made the switch back operationally/technically it appears via happenstance, but this is understood only to this point by some (not many...) competent technocrats.... we (mankind) don't really understand this the way we did back then...
Once we understand it (it becomes a common understanding), socio-economic (ie material) outcomes will change pretty rapidly towards the better...
Matt, or they don't want to understand... Look at the ECB and the EU institutions, all know about 'overt money financing' but they against it.
And the typical initial reaction when you talk about this things are: "but what about hyperinflation...", "inflation would skyrocket", "politicians would abuse it!" and those "arguments" come often from the same politicians lol
A lack of faith in self-governance, which is a shame, because there is no other way, the economy is made by human actions and governance, is not like money falls from trees. (Even under commodity money the choice of the quantity produced and how is distributed, and the act of production is decided by humans, often authorities and governments, not some "free market" magic bullshit.)
Ignacio well that is like a form of libertarianism they are imposing there...
They are implying that we TINA to corrupt profligacy so therefore no one should be in charge we should just let it up to unelected technocrats or in the case of the metals, nobody.... we're yoked by the metals...
iow if you watch Bill's Q&A video from London, the Petifor lady is assuming TINA to very libertarian people out there... like the only people we could get would be out of control libertarians "drunken sailors", etc.....
I think you could judo that back around on them by saying it would require true "conservative" principles employed by those that we would seat in those circumstances...
Then you could flesh out who was a true conservative rather than some sort of closet libertarian masquerading as a conservative...
A true conservative should be able to see your point here... iow if you seated a bunch of corrupt out of control libertarians and they lost the handle, then the conservative party could say "you should seat us, we are conservative, we by nature wont let this thing get away from us..."
this could be a good use for (true) conservatives....
rsp,
In the whole Bible (KJV) there are 199 instances of the word "poor". 35 of them in the New Testament. The Gospel According to Matthew (both in the KJV and in the Greek Scriptures) contains 5 instances.
I'll give two examples, only. The first one:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
"makarioi hoi pthcoi tO pneumati hoti autOn estin hE basileia tOn ouranOn" (Matthew 5:3)
Note: pthcoi is "poor"
Mark (10:21):
"Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me."
"ho de iEsous emblepsas autO EgapEsen auton kai eipen autO hen soi husterei hupage hosa echeis pOlEson kai dos tois ptOchois kai exeis thEsauron en ouranO kai deuro akolouthei moi aras ton stauron"
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Willem M. Jongman reviewing Poverty in the Roman World (by Margaret Atkins and Robin Osborne, editors):
"This is a Festschrift of the modern kind ... for Peter Garnsey, one of the world's leading historians of the economy and society of ancient Rome."
Garnsey, it seems, was a critic of Sir Moses Finley (who popularized the view that poverty was permanently endemic in the Roman empire) and "[t]he authors [of all the papers included in the volume] are all pupils of Garnsey".
And yet, this is how Jongman summarizes the book:
"It is not surprising, therefore, that those papers in this volume that deal with poverty in the early Empire (first and second century AD) are mostly optimistic, whereas the bulk of the papers on later antiquity do indeed take widespread poverty for granted. As Peter Garnsey showed many years ago, social relations became increasingly grim from the second century AD, and the law turned oppressive."
In fact, Jongman comments on one particular paper:
"Among free Roman citizens [there were plenty non-free inhabitants: slaves], a new distinction emerged, between the honestiores the honorable (and certainly rich) people and the humbler people, whose status increasingly came to resemble that of slaves. From the early third century AD nearly all free inhabitants of the Empire had become citizens, but some now were more equal than others. Caroline Humfress shows that this is not refuted by the late antique legal discourse on the rights of the poor: these pauperes were by no means the really destitute, but only the less well off. As such, I think it reflects the contraction of and increasing inequality within the upper strata of late Roman society."
http://eh.net/book_reviews/poverty-in-the-roman-world/
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"Because he [Finley] treats the metals as an accounting commodity... his analysis is within what we (maybe Warren coined it...) sometimes call a 'gold standard mentality'... or Finley is 'out of paradigm' as we say..."
Finley did not live in Roman times. If -- as a matter of historical fact -- there was or not widespread poverty in ancient Rome, his beliefs regarding "the metals" could not explain it.
At most, one could guess Finley suggesting that the Roman themselves treated "the metals as an accounting commodity".
If you object to that, it's up to you (1) to show the Romans did not treat "the metals" as an accounting commodity and (2) to explain on those grounds whatever levels of inequality and poverty in Rome.
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