Ancient Economic Thought, Volume 1

ANCIENT ECONOMIC THOUGHT This collection explores the interrelationship between economic practice and intellectual constructs in a number of ancient cultures. Each chapter presents a new, richer understanding of the preoccupation of the ancients with specific economic problems including distribution, civic pride, management and uncertainty and how they were trying to resolve them. The research is based around the different artifacts and texts of the ancient East Indian, Hebraic, Greek, Hellenistic, Roman and emerging European cultures which remain for our consideration today: religious works, instruction manuals, literary and historical writings, epigrapha and legal documents. In looking at such items it becomes clear what a different exercise it is to look forward, from the earliest texts and artifacts of any culture, to measure the achievements of thinking in the areas of economics, than it is to take the more frequent route and look backward, beginning with the modern conception of economic systems and theory creation. Presenting fascinating insights into the economic thinking of ancient cultures, this volume will enhance the reawakening of interest in ancient economic history and thought. It will be of great interest to scholars of economic thought and the history of ideas. B.B.Price is Professor of Ancient and Medieval History at York University, Toronto, and is currently doing research and teaching as visiting professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ROUTLEDGE STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF ECONOMICS 1 Economics as Literature Willie Henderson 2 Socialism and Marginalism in Economics 1870–1930 Edited by Ian Steedman 3 Hayek’s Political Economy: The Socio-economics of Order Steve Fleetwood 4 On the Origins of Classical Economics: Distribution and Value from William Petty to Adam Smith Tony Aspromourgos 5 The Economics of Joan Robinson Edited by Maria Cristina Marcuzzo, Luigi Pasinetti and Alesandro Roncaglia 6 The Evolutionist Economics of Léon Walras Albert Jolink 7 Keynes and the “Classics”: A Study in Language, Epistemology and Mistaken Identities Michel Verdon 8 The History of Game Theory, Vol. 1: From the Beginnings to 1945 Robert W. and Mary Ann Dimand 9 The Economics of W.S.Jevons Sandra Peart 10 Gandhi’s Economic Thought Ajit K Dasgupta 11 Equilibrium and Economic Theory Edited by Giovanni Caravale 12 Austrian Economics in Debate Edited by Willem Keizer, Bert Tieben and Rudy van Zipj 13 Ancient Economic Thought Edited by B.B.Price ANCIENT ECONOMIC THOUGHT Volume 1 Edited by B.B.Price London and New York First published 1997 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 1997 B.B.Price All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Ancient Economic Thought/edited by B.B.Price p. cm. “Many of the chapters…issued for a conference at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994”–Introd. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Economics—History—Cross-cultural studies. 2. Economic history—To 500. I.Price, B.B.(Betsey Barker). HB77.A63 1996 330′.09–dc20 96–33564 ISBN 0-203-98170-7 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-415-14930-4 (Print Edition) In memory of Barry Gordon CONTENTS List of contributors viii Introduction 1 Part I Indian economic thought 1 THE CONCEPTS OF HAPPINESS, ETHICS, AND 17 ECONOMIC VALUES IN ANCIENT ECONOMIC THOUGHT S.Ambirajan 2 KAUTILYA’S ARTHASASTRA: A NEGLECTED 41 WORK IN THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT Kishor Thanawala Part II Hebraic economic thought 3 LOOKING FOR OURSELVES IN THE MIRROR OF 58 OUR PAST: WITH WHAT DOES ECONOMICS COPE? AND THE DIFFERENCES IN THE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN RATIONALES FOR HANDLING USURY Mark Perlman 4 ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL RABBINIC 73 ECONOMIC THOUGHT: DEFINITIONS, METHODOLOGY AND ILLUSTRATIONS Ephraim Kleiman Part III Greek economic thought 5 REFLECTIONS OF ANCIENT ECONOMIC 95 THOUGHT IN GREEK POETRY Bertram Schefold 6 GREEK ECONOMIC THOUGHT: INITIATORS OF A 142 MEDITERRANEAN TRADITION Louis Baeck vii 7 THE ECONOMY OF HELLENISTIC EGYPT AND 168 SYRIA: AN ARCHEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE Murray C.McClellan Part IV Roman economic thought 8 CLASSICAL ROOTS OF BENEVOLENCE IN 185 ECONOMIC THOUGHT Gloria Vivenza 9 ASSUMPTIONS, ECONOMICS, AND THE ORIGINS 205 OF EUROPE Alan E.Samuel Bibliography 231 Index 256 CONTRIBUTORS B.B.Price is Professor of Ancient and Medieval History at York University, Toronto, Canada, and is currently a visiting Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. S.Ambirajan is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India. Kishor Thanawala is Professor of Economics at Villanova University, Villanova, Pennsylvania, USA. Mark Perlman is Professor Emertius of Economics at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennyslvania, USA. Ephraim Kleiman is Professor of Economics at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel. Bertram Schefold is Professor Doctor of Economics at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Louis Baeck is Professor of Economics at the Katholicke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. Murray C.McClellan is Professor of Archeology at Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Gloria Vivenza is Professor of the History of Economics at the Universita di Verona, Verona, Italy. Alan E.Samuel is Professor of Classics at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. INTRODUCTION B.B.Price It is clear from the endeavours of academics and the gatherings they have fostered in the most recent few years that interest and serious scholarship in the subject of economic ideas in antiquity are increasing. The academic excitement is also broadening to become virtually worldwide. In this volume alone are presented contributions from scholars in India, the United States, Israel, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Canada, each with a cross-cultural awareness of one or more traditions of economic thinking whose roots derive from antiquity. It is also clear just from the scholars here presented that the purview to undertake the requisite research in ancient economic ideas extends through the disciplinary boundaries of economics, archeology, classics and history. Appreciation of the benefits of the variety of approaches to the study of ancient economic ideas is clearly reflected by the scholars themselves. Also, accessibility to the research area is undoubtedly enhanced by this complementarity, for readers both in the academic community and in the greater world of general interest. It is acknowledged that lack of familiarity with a cultural setting and the theological or philosophical terminology or argumentation of a particular period can make the subject seem daunting. This volume hopes, however, to have so contextualized the ancient facet of the history of economic ideas as to sustain the breath of new life and interest growing in the previously relatively ignored esoteric connections between classical and archeological studies and ancient intellectual history, and economics. It is, of course, a constant temptation, especially for economists, to see connecting links, if not direct continua, between the ancient thinkers and later writers of economics, such as Adam Smith. The editorial position for this volume has been, however, to recognize that the task to present the ideas of the ancients themselves is large enough, and that the necessary substantiation of the lineage in terms of evidence of direct transmission, let alone a significant parallelism or similarity of ideas, must await a different volume. The few references to modern economic thought figure as aids to a non-anachronistic understanding of the past, assuredly not as gratuitous arrows pointing to the relevance of earlier ideas. 2 B.B.PRICE This volume’s exciting collection of documentary and analytical material, grounded in many respects in ancient economic history, is intended to enhance the reawakening in ancient economic thought. The survey addresses ancient Indian, Hebraic, Greek and Roman economic ideas, supported by basic research in archival collections and field work. Analysis and insight are dedicated to written works significant to economic thought in each of the four historical spheres: the Mahabharata and Arthasastra, Pentateuch and other Biblical books, the Mishna, Gemara, Midrash, and Geonica, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the poetry of Hesiod, Tyrtaios, Sappho, Alkaios, Solon, and Pindar, the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Aristophanes, Plato’s Republic and other dialogues, Aristotle’s Politics and Nicomachean Ethics, Xenophon’s Oikonomikos, and Seneca’s De beneficiis and Cicero’s De officiis. Material artifacts, such as urban excavations and numismatics, are also interpreted. Each chapter’s author attempts to illustrate the leading edge of research and discussion in the economic component of a tradition’s thought.

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