Professional Documents
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Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece
Alex Krikos
Hellenic-American Cultural Association of Colorado
April 21, 2005
Overview
Evidence of Economy
Socio-Political Drivers
Value System
Land Ownership
Labor
Technology
Conclusion
Background
Ancient Greek Civilization
• Archaic Period: 776 to 480 B.C.
• Classical Period: 480 to 323 B.C.
• Hellenistic Period:323 to 30 B.C.
Modern?
•Evidence of capitalistic economy
•Evidence of free enterprise
•Evidence interconnected price-making markets
•Michael Rostovtzeff: …ancient Greek economy in the
Hellenistic periodwas so great that it could not be
considered primitive.
Nature of Ancient Greek Economy
Substantivist,or
•Economy embedded in political and social
institutions; that is, what is needed for the
sustenance of city states.
Formal?
•Prices are set from impersonal forces of supply
and demand among a group of interconnected
markets.
•Karl Polanyi argues that ancient Greece did not
have a developed market system until the
Hellenistic Period. Economies were largely
“substantivist” before then.
The Finley Economic Model
Moses I. Finley (~1973)
• Ancient Greek economy of smaller scale and
organization.
• Oikonomia: “household management”. Ancient
Greek economy was embedded in political and
social and economic institutions rather than the
production, distribution, and consumption of
goods.
• Embedded in ancient Greek value system that
emphasized the wellbeing of the community over
that of the individual.
• Subordination of economic activities to social and
political ones.
The Finley Economic Model
Moses I. Finley (~1973)
• Ancient Greek Value System
• Economic activities not subordinated to traditional
activities of managing the family were held in low
esteem. These were “banausic” work activities
which meant investing money to make money.
These activities were considered incompatible with
the activities of the polis and were even considered
as unnatural and morally corrupting.
• Production and exchange were to be undertaken
only for personal need or to benefit the community
as a whole
The Finley Economic Model
Moses I. Finley (~1973)
• Ancient Greek Value System
• Bulk of economic activity was produced from the
land.
• “Banausic” work including trade, manufacturing,
and trade were looked down upon.
• Ancient Greek political elite were landowners with a
primary interest in oikonomia—consumptive in
nature which fulfilled traditional social and political
needs, not strictly economic ones.
The Finley Economic Model
Metics
Citizens
• Consumption based work • “banausic”work
ethic (social and political • Businessmen
goals • Work considered unworthy
• Have slaves or metics if they for citizens
could afford them
• Finley said work was
considered necessary but
not ennobling
The Finley Economic Model
Freed from slavery
Slaves but not citizens
“manumission”
Metics
metecos o
Citizens
etanjeros