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Trade, merchants, and the lost cities of the Bronze Age (2019) [pdf]

keremcosar.uvacreate.virginia.edu

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Re: Trade, merchants, and the lost cities of the Bronze Age (2019) [pdf]

#21

Post by cwnyth »

spudlyo wrote: post #11
cwnyth wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone points to Ea-nasir, but that's a meme. Meanwhile, Diocletian outlawed price gouging and standardized prices across a variety of goods: 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.

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.

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.

Re: Trade, merchants, and the lost cities of the Bronze Age (2019) [pdf]

#22

Post by yieldcrv »

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

Re: Trade, merchants, and the lost cities of the Bronze Age (2019) [pdf]

#25

Post by WalterBright »

cwnyth wrote: post #4
spudlyo wrote: post #2

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,…

Everyone points to Ea-nasir, but that's a meme. Meanwhile, Diocletian outlawed price gouging and standardized prices across a variety of goods: 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.

> we've come a long way

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...

Re: Trade, merchants, and the lost cities of the Bronze Age (2019) [pdf]

#27

Post by moontear »

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?

Re: Trade, merchants, and the lost cities of the Bronze Age (2019) [pdf]

#28

Post by dosisking »

cwnyth wrote: post #4
spudlyo wrote: post #2

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,…

Everyone points to Ea-nasir, but that's a meme. Meanwhile, Diocletian outlawed price gouging and standardized prices across a variety of goods: 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.

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.

Re: Trade, merchants, and the lost cities of the Bronze Age (2019) [pdf]

#29

Post by imtringued »

nativeit wrote: post #9

Should we be surprised that economics preceded economists?

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.

Re: Trade, merchants, and the lost cities of the Bronze Age (2019) [pdf]

#30

Post by demaga »

chr15m wrote: post #24

Here's the original paper if you want to skip the slop: https://keremcosar.uvacreate.virginia.edu/publications/BCCH-...

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!

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