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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]

#71

Post by dang »

Gimpei wrote: post #53

Terrible article title and framing. This is just about a QJE article, the QJE by the way is famous for being a little more out there. The article takes a standard gravity equation from economic geography and finds that it fits well to a dataset they created from Bronze Age slates. In general the gravity equation is one of the successes from economics so this isn’t super surprising, but it is welcome and notable. That…

(We've since changed the URL from https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/ancient-clay-tablets-sho... to the paper itself.)

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

#73

Post by Terr_ »

microgpt wrote: post #62
Terr_ wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the current capitalistic (?) model? Surely we would say the market is efficient I'd like to highlight a a fundamental contradiction between "free[ly moving] markets" versus "free [to do what you want] markets." 1. The mathematically efficient market involves perfect information and restrictions on what you can do. No secret prices, no hidden NDA'ed transactions, no hidden ownership for straw-trades, etc. 2. The do-…

This is also the contradiction between "free markets" (which has always meant markets that move freely, with low friction, and has never meant you were free to add friction to the market) and "capitalism" (which is a system where much of society is controlled by whoever has the most capital).

Yep, hence "Capitalists Hate Capitalism" [0], and if we want to keep the core thing (as opposed to Manoralism or Feudalism in a mask) the participants can't be allowed to destroy it with monopolies, monopsonies, and regulatory-capture.

[0] https://locusmag.com/feature/cory-doctorow-capitalists-hate-...

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

#74

Post by microgpt »

jrm4 wrote: post #67
microgpt wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just in case anyone else misunderstood this comment on their first reading, kubb is not praising capitalism here

Eh, he's either praising or being condescending, seems like?

Read the second half sarcastically. It makes more sense that way.

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

#75

Post by microgpt »

Terr_ wrote: post #73
microgpt wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also the contradiction between "free markets" (which has always meant markets that move freely, with low friction, and has never meant you were free to add friction to the market) and "capitalism" (which is a system where much of society is controlled by whoever has the most capital).

Yep, hence "Capitalists Hate Capitalism" [0], and if we want to keep the core thing (as opposed to Manoralism or Feudalism in a mask) the participants can't be allowed to destroy it with monopolies, monopsonies, and regulatory-capture. [0] https://locusmag.com/feature/cory-doctorow-capitalists-hate-...

But if capitalists can't have unlimited power then is it really capitalism? Capitalism is defined by capitalists having most of the power in a society.

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

#76

Post by jeremysalwen »

microgpt wrote: post #61
spudlyo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Lots of people say lots of things. I don't see why Adam Smith is special. Price fixing can work within reason . Did you know that the communism-themed Fusion Festival fixes the price of a meal, across all 100+ vendors, currently at 7€? This is presumably negotiated between the festival organisers and the food vendors as a reasonable price. (Some of them make a point of advertising 6.50€ but that doesn't actually make…

What is a meal though? Do you get the same volume of food from all vendors, and the same number of calories? I definitely order multiple items from restaurants that have small portion sizes, so I suspect some vendors would be better or worse deals even at a uniform price.

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

#77

Post by microgpt »

jeremysalwen wrote: post #76
microgpt wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people say lots of things. I don't see why Adam Smith is special. Price fixing can work within reason . Did you know that the communism-themed Fusion Festival fixes the price of a meal, across all 100+ vendors, currently at 7€? This is presumably negotiated between the festival organisers and the food vendors as a reasonable price. (Some of them make a point of advertising 6.50€ but that doesn't actually make…

What is a meal though? Do you get the same volume of food from all vendors, and the same number of calories? I definitely order multiple items from restaurants that have small portion sizes, so I suspect some vendors would be better or worse deals even at a uniform price.

I don't know what goes on in the back end, but 7€ buys you what you get for more money at other music festivals, including from the exact same vendors.

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

#78

Post by Terr_ »

microgpt wrote: post #75
Terr_ wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, hence "Capitalists Hate Capitalism" [0], and if we want to keep the core thing (as opposed to Manoralism or Feudalism in a mask) the participants can't be allowed to destroy it with monopolies, monopsonies, and regulatory-capture. [0] https://locusmag.com/feature/cory-doctorow-capitalists-hate-...

But if capitalists can't have unlimited power then is it really capitalism? Capitalism is defined by capitalists having most of the power in a society.

I think if you proceed in that "unlimited power" direction, what happens is you land inside regions for which we already have other--much older--words (Manoralist, Feudal, Monarchy, Despotic, etc.)

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

#79

Post by AngryData »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #59
dosisking wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I thought communism was about central ownership of the means of production? But yeah, long term price fixing always fails.

Not neccessarily central, but somehow distributed ownership over business by the working class. The most simple case though being the state owns it and then workers theoretically own the state. An economy of all independent co-op businesses could probably be defined as communism too though.

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

#80

Post by jltsiren »

Animats wrote: post #46
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,…

> It's interesting that commerce/business was this sophisticated in the Bronze Age. That trade would have records is not surprising. That trade would follow patterns based on distance is not surprising, especially since transport costs were very high in that era. Hence the "gravity model". The surprise here is in organizational form. The article describes a limited partnership contract, with partner investments and a…

Roman law recognized various types of legal entities at different points of time. Some of the terms they used include "collegium" and "universitas". And that's were the word "university" comes from. It emphasizes that a university is not just any school but a self-governing corporation (or a body) of students and scholars.
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