Preliminary Programme

Wed 4 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Thu 5 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30
    19.00 - 20.15
    20.30 - 22.00

Fri 6 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Sat 7 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.00 - 17.00

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Wednesday 4 April 2018 16.30 - 18.30
D-4 ANT02 The Political Economy of Ancient Greece
MAP/OG/005 Maths and Physics
Networks: Antiquity , Politics, Citizenship, and Nations Chair: Roland Oetjen
Organizer: Roland Oetjen Discussant: Roland Oetjen
Philipp Bösherz, Lauritz Noack : The Connection of Market Activity and Happiness in Plato's Laws: the Prelude on Retailers as an Example of Plato’s Thoughts on the Importance of Functioning Markets within a Polis
Plato’s Laws can be read as a manual on how to design a new state from scratch aiming at all citizens be as happy as possible (according to philosophical criteria). One core assumption being made in of this ancient text is that the majority of people behaves selfishly and tries ... (Show more)
Plato’s Laws can be read as a manual on how to design a new state from scratch aiming at all citizens be as happy as possible (according to philosophical criteria). One core assumption being made in of this ancient text is that the majority of people behaves selfishly and tries to pursue their individual happiness by accumulating tangible goods. According to Plato, every law in this new state would have to take this circumstance into consideration. Another reoccurring theme in Laws is the importance of people to overcome this selfishness for the general public good and subsequently their own benefit which depends to a large extent on the prosperity of the polis. The dialog partners agree throughout the text that any market related activity produce harmful effects on the participating individuals’ characters. Indeed, Plato describes market activity to be of such a detrimental nature for the state of the soul that one could expect a prohibition of moneymaking in Magnesia.

However, trade and economic interaction are a central part of daily life. Apparently, the market has to serve a function in contributing to the overall goal of the law – supporting the pursuit of happiness. The lawgiver introduces numerous regulations of market activity which aim at preserving the cardinal function of the market. According to Plato, this function is to achieve a balance between those who possess one or several goods in excess and those who are in need of those goods. In particular, the law on retail trade tries to regulate retailers’ profits in a way so that “retail benefits everyone”. This law is justified by the inherent benefits a well-functioning trade system has for a polis. Using a differentiated analysis within the framework of a modern economic theory, we can demonstrate that Plato – whose views on economic issues are often neglected – developed a noteworthy concept for market activities pursuing a higher aim. (Show less)

Brooks Kaiser : Resource Economics and Institutions in Ancient Athens
Institutional development in ancient Athens ranged from banking and legally recorded and sustained private ownership of a variety of goods and services that enabled domestic and international trade to liturgical mechanisms for procurement of public goods. These institutions in turn provided creative and effective tools and incentive structures for Athenian ... (Show more)
Institutional development in ancient Athens ranged from banking and legally recorded and sustained private ownership of a variety of goods and services that enabled domestic and international trade to liturgical mechanisms for procurement of public goods. These institutions in turn provided creative and effective tools and incentive structures for Athenian prosperity in the fifth century. During this time, Athenian hegemony in the Aegean arose from sea power, which arose from initial community investments in a navy, and in institutional structures to pay for continued operations.

A significant lingering question for the ship-timber-poor Athenian landscape has been from whence, in fact, the timber for Athenian naval construction and maintenance came. Many theories have been proposed and debated (e.g. Meiggs, Borza, Rawlings, Bissa, Sergidis). Contemporary sources identify Macedonia (e.g. Xen. Hell. 6.1.11), Thrace (Strabo 12.3), Southern Italy and Sicily (Thuc. 6.6), and parts of the Black Sea region as the best sources of quality shipbuilding timber; and indeed, acquiring timber resources is a major explanation for the Sicilian Expedition of the Peloponnesian War, and later agreements with Macedonia (IG I2 105). However, no regular channels of trade or transactions are identified before this Macedonian agreement (407/6).

We know that some constructed ships were forcefully appropriated to one degree or another through hegemonic tribute or battle (through which they might also be lost). Privateering may have supplied some timber directly (van Alfen). But these channels of acquisition were not necessarily reliable.

The Old Oligarch reminds the reader that sea power controls timber extraction (Ps. Xen. Const. Ath. 2). One can assume that markets for ship-timber did not operate unencumbered, even when direct force or extraction of tribute was not the main mechanism. But no consistent records or other reliable indications point to steady, enforced markets in timber from a given location to Athens.

We use resource economic theory to uncover more about timber acquisition in Athens, the “most silent and least recorded of the major ancient industries” (Meiggs). Aristotle highlighted both the threat of illegal forest use and the need for public intervention to curtail it by identifying forest wardens as one of the key items needing state provision for democratic governance (Aristot. Pol. 6.1321b). We hypothesize that this silence and this attention for monitoring and enforcement reflect in large part a trend continuing today for global timber: illegal logging.

The transactions costs of timber acquisition in various locations is expected to vary as a function of not only standard economic concerns regarding distance-costs to Athens, but also institutional costs of reliably getting the needed timber. We use orbis.stanford.edu and GIS ecological and topographical information as analytical tools for spatial cost-distance from forests to Piraeus to calculate relative costs of transport. These relative costs are then weighted by qualitative understanding of institutional costs to access of the timber in the various physically possible locations to provide likelihood estimates of the timber supplies to Athens. In so doing, we are able to both offer new understanding of the channels for Athenian timber supply and new context for broader insights to common property governance as a foundational link in economic growth and prosperity. (Show less)

Carl Hampus Lyttkens : A Belligerent Democracy
While the Athenian empire may have contributed in various ways to the development of democracy, it does not follow that the tribute paid by the members of the Delian league was necessary for the running of the developed democracy. As pointed out by Mogens Hansen, Athenian democracy was more expensive ... (Show more)
While the Athenian empire may have contributed in various ways to the development of democracy, it does not follow that the tribute paid by the members of the Delian league was necessary for the running of the developed democracy. As pointed out by Mogens Hansen, Athenian democracy was more expensive in the fourth century when the Athenians had lost their empire.

The main puzzle for public finance seems to be how the Greek city-states managed to find resources that enabled them to wage wars with surprising frequency. Athens is a good case in point. Wars were very costly. The Athenians, Victor Hanson argues, could have built two Parthenon temples per year for the cost they incurred in the Peloponnesian war. Wars among the city-states were common in ancient Greece, as summarized by Hansen: “From the end of the fifth century to the middle of the fourth, Athens was a society at war, relieved by occasional short periods of peace.” Similarly, Pritchard states that the Athenian demos, in fact, waged war more often in the fourth century than previously: “They campaigned incessantly from 396 to 386 and then from 378 to 338 with only year-long interruptions.” Indeed, it is hard to find a decade between the battle of Salamis and the dismantling of democracy in 322 that did not witness a major military engagement by the Athenians.

The full consequences of these military activities remain to be traced. For example, on several occasions, the Athenians suffered a loss of a sizeable proportion of the citizen body. Demographic change is one of the great engines of change in world history. This rule applies especially when external transitory events cause major shifts in the demographic structure. Examples include the Black Death, but also the Athenian expedition to Syracuse in 415 and their Egyptian adventure in the 450s. The consequences for Athenian society of the loss of manpower on such occasions must have been keenly felt. Lyttkens and Gerding argue that at least some 10 % of the citizens were lost in Egypt, and that this circumstance was important for the subsequent policies of Pericles. The repercussions of the Sicilian disaster must have been even greater and highlight, for example, the legal position of widows in Athens. By and large, long run socioeconomic consequences of victory and defeat among the Greek city-states in the fifth and fourth centuries have been ignored in the literature.

While dealing with these questions, several interesting but unresolved issues will be confronted. For example: the increasing use of mercenaries by the Greek city states in the fourth century and the changing nature of warfare, the temples as “banks” in a situation where the banking system was still in its infancy, and whether it is true, as commonly believed, that Greek city states could not run a deficit but were limited in their expenditure to money actually in the hands of the officials.

By applying an economic perspective to these and similar issues this paper provides new insights regarding the costs and consequences of war in classical Greece. (Show less)

George Tridimas : Why Ancient Greece Failed to Industrialize: Cost of Energy, Culture and City-State Multiplicity
Ancient Greece stood out for introducing democracy, advancing philosophy and excelling at the arts. During 800-300, the estimated annual real per capita growth rate was 0.14 per cent bringing ancient Greece to the verge of a permanent break out of the Malthusian trap. Yet, ancient Greece failed to do so, ... (Show more)
Ancient Greece stood out for introducing democracy, advancing philosophy and excelling at the arts. During 800-300, the estimated annual real per capita growth rate was 0.14 per cent bringing ancient Greece to the verge of a permanent break out of the Malthusian trap. Yet, ancient Greece failed to do so, technological progress remained slow, the economy declined and city-states sank into irrelevance after the Roman occupation was completed in the first century. The present essay attributes the causes of the failure of ancient Greece to enter a path of sustainable growth, comparable to that of the industrial revolution, to the high cost of energy from animate sources relatively to slave labor, a culture that valued land holding by free farmers but scorned dependent work, and a multitude of independent small size city-states, which prevented the exploitation of economies of scale, but stoked continual wars which exhausted them financially and militarily. (Show less)



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