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spudlyo 2 hours ago [-]
It's interesting that commerce/business was this sophisticated in the Bronze Age. I guess it's not that surprising given the famous customer service complaint[0] cuneiform tablet to Ea-nāṣir about receiving the wrong grade of copper ingots and his servant receiving rude service.
It's also no wonder that the thing a theory describes exists long before the theory itself. We had language well before we had grammarians, and we had music long before music theory existed. Adam Smith didn't invent moral sentiments or market economics, just as Pythagoras didn't invent music. The article weirdly makes a big deal out this.
From Polanyi, Finley, and Weber to Austin and Malkin, we've come a long way in recognizing the sophistication of ancient economic thought.
spudlyo 1 hours ago [-]
We are about ~300 years closer to Diocletian than Diocletian was to Ea-nasir. Too bad he didn't have access to Adam Smith, who could have told him that price fixing wouldn't work and might have pointed to Roman currency debasement as one of the major causes of inflation. Of course greed is always a factor I suppose.
cwnyth 1 hours ago [-]
Fair! Chronologically, at least, Diocletian's time is closer to us, though not technologically or population-wise. And by Diocletian's time, inflation was already out of control. If anything, the political stability that came with Diocletian's reforms actually helped bolster the economy, though it wouldn't last, as soon the center moved to Byzantium, leaving Rome (and Italy) to whither and die over the next century.
dosisking 21 minutes ago [-]
I guess Diocletian was the first Communist, before there was such a thing as Communism.
The price fixing was a failure, as would be expected. I am not sure if 'sophistication' is the right word to describe it.
WalterBright 33 minutes ago [-]
> we've come a long way
See "Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Controls" which shows that humans are very slow learners.
You forget to mention life and biology, earth and geology, universe and cosmology.
AngryData 1 hours ago [-]
A lot of people underestimate the bronze age and all the limelight goes to later Greeks and Romans because we have better records of them. But the bronze age and its empires were just as impressive in my opinion. Tin is not a very common metal to find and there are only significant deposits in a limited number of places around the globe. The trade routes required to support bronze production were thousands of miles long.
nativeit 2 hours ago [-]
Should we be surprised that economics preceded economists?
imtringued 10 minutes ago [-]
As far I know economists are neither historians nor do they perform any management or business function.
Considering how necessary economies are and how economists claim economists are unnecessary to run an economy, I wonder why economists even exist.
The first thing a rational economist would do is tell the government to fire all economists and stop accrediting economics degrees.
Thanks! I don't know if the article OP linked is slop or not - site is plainly inacessible from Ukraine.
I find it interesting that they only analyzed texts that mention at least two cities, like this one:
> From Durhumit until Kanes I incurred expenses of 5 minas of refined (copper), I spent 3 minas of copper until Wahsusana, I acquired and spent small wares for a value of 4 shekels of silver. (Tablet AKT 8/145, lines 24–29)
Because I know some local businesses here that are based in city X would not mention this fact in the books, at least not for every transaction. They would write something like 'Got shipment from Y' or 'Sent for repairs to Z' etc.
They also exclude texts that mention Assur, which is the largest city there
> We exclude Assur, the home city of the Assyrians, from our automated search. First, the word Assur is also the name of the main Assyrian deity and occurs very often as an element of personal names. Second, the city of Assur is often referred to as simply alum — “the City” (comparable in use to references to the financial district of London)
So very cool work, and it can be improved upon too!
moontear 31 minutes ago [-]
So what’s a better form than the current capitalistic (?) model? Surely we would say the market is efficient, but at the same time it can’t be good for society that so much capital is localized with a few people (bezos, musk etc.).
If the roots for capitalism or similar market economies are so old, what would be better for society?
yieldcrv 1 hours ago [-]
I’m glad they have evidence, the glamorization is inaccurate
People that trust each other just learned to set that current trust in stone, literally, in case it didn’t last
The regulators allow people that trust each other far less to do business and engage in the same agreements
In some fields, completely anonymous people that don’t trust each other at all, can now transact and pool capital spontaneously
These are things governed by protocols or regulators
jrm4 2 hours ago [-]
I hope people get the right message from this, which is:
The way people talk about "Capitalism" is most often silly and counterproductive because most of the time -- the person that hates capitalism and the person that loves capitalism are talking about nearly entirely different things.
t-3 1 hours ago [-]
Capitalism was a term coined by Marx, so not really surprising that most using it are anti-capitalist.
dudeinjapan 1 hours ago [-]
Also, should we capitalize the "C" in "Capitalism"? One might think we should, because C is a capital letter. But capital itself is lowercase, and therein lies the paradox.
pram 2 hours ago [-]
“The word “capitalism” would not be coined for another 3,800 years. Adam Smith was 3,700 years from picking up his pen.”
This is pretty bad writing lol. Markets are as old as civilization itself, Adam Smith obviously knew this. General commerce != capitalism
dudeinjapan 1 hours ago [-]
I'm looking for the tablet that says "We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune..."
psychoslave 1 hours ago [-]
Obviously not exactly that, but egalitarian regims in complex societies was apparently a thing, or at least strong evidences back this scenario.
It's also no wonder that the thing a theory describes exists long before the theory itself. We had language well before we had grammarians, and we had music long before music theory existed. Adam Smith didn't invent moral sentiments or market economics, just as Pythagoras didn't invent music. The article weirdly makes a big deal out this.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complaint_tablet_to_Ea-n%C4%81...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_on_Maximum_Prices
From Polanyi, Finley, and Weber to Austin and Malkin, we've come a long way in recognizing the sophistication of ancient economic thought.
The price fixing was a failure, as would be expected. I am not sure if 'sophistication' is the right word to describe it.
See "Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Controls" which shows that humans are very slow learners.
https://www.amazon.com/Forty-Centuries-Wage-Price-Controls/d...
Considering how necessary economies are and how economists claim economists are unnecessary to run an economy, I wonder why economists even exist.
The first thing a rational economist would do is tell the government to fire all economists and stop accrediting economics degrees.
I find it interesting that they only analyzed texts that mention at least two cities, like this one:
> From Durhumit until Kanes I incurred expenses of 5 minas of refined (copper), I spent 3 minas of copper until Wahsusana, I acquired and spent small wares for a value of 4 shekels of silver. (Tablet AKT 8/145, lines 24–29)
Because I know some local businesses here that are based in city X would not mention this fact in the books, at least not for every transaction. They would write something like 'Got shipment from Y' or 'Sent for repairs to Z' etc.
They also exclude texts that mention Assur, which is the largest city there
> We exclude Assur, the home city of the Assyrians, from our automated search. First, the word Assur is also the name of the main Assyrian deity and occurs very often as an element of personal names. Second, the city of Assur is often referred to as simply alum — “the City” (comparable in use to references to the financial district of London)
So very cool work, and it can be improved upon too!
If the roots for capitalism or similar market economies are so old, what would be better for society?
People that trust each other just learned to set that current trust in stone, literally, in case it didn’t last
The regulators allow people that trust each other far less to do business and engage in the same agreements
In some fields, completely anonymous people that don’t trust each other at all, can now transact and pool capital spontaneously
These are things governed by protocols or regulators
The way people talk about "Capitalism" is most often silly and counterproductive because most of the time -- the person that hates capitalism and the person that loves capitalism are talking about nearly entirely different things.
This is pretty bad writing lol. Markets are as old as civilization itself, Adam Smith obviously knew this. General commerce != capitalism
https://asiatimes.com/2023/06/mystery-of-missing-indus-valle...
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/indus-val...
And Pangram flags it, too.
https://www.pangram.com/history/126831e1-562f-4e65-9874-5250...
> Wall Street calls it securitization. The merchants of Assur called it Tuesday.
was the give away for me.