For the economic history buffs.
Global Inequality
Economic reflections on the Fall of Constantinople
Branko Milanovic | Visiting Presidential Professor at City University of New York Graduate Center and senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), and formerly lead economist in the World Bank's research department and senior associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
I think that capitalism did not develop because there had developed no state view of possessive individualism, following C. B. Macpherson's argument. Where was Constantinople's Hobbes? Capitalism DID exist (IMO), but conditions were not ripe for its adoption by the imperial court -- it remained the province of groups and populations living on the margins of power, just it would later under the Ottomans. In short, as you suggest, like a large established firm, Byzantium's failure to innovate was the product of its very (military) success.
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