Some slaves in the US were carpenters in the city -- especially
Charleston. They also worked on their own.
On Sun, Jun 17, 2001 at 10:43:39AM -0500, Ken Hanly wrote:
>
> As I understand it some Athenian slaves prospered in business and served
> their masters by paying them a certain amount or even buying their freedom.
> As for the law, Plato has very mixed feelings about it. Some of the
> Sophists for example taught how to make the weaker cause appear the
> stronger--an important skill in knowledge production for litigants. Plato
> disapproved although his hero Socrates often seems to outperform the
> Sophists in this respect in the Dialogues.. In the Republic the laws are to
> be kept simple and social order is to be maintained by proper education,
> training, and culture. This will obviate the need for complex laws and
> wasteful litigation. Of course later, in the Laws for example, Plato opts
> for much greater legal regulation..
> CHeers, Ken Hanly. . . .
>
>
> > > Doyle
> > Marks remarks need to have certain observations made, for example, Mark
> uses
> > the word "firm" to describe something that did contruction work in the
> > ancient period, but the word firm itself is not what Romans would have
> used,
> > and it is unclear they would have understood a business as a firm. For
> > example see
> >
> > http://www.csun.edu/~ms44278/ancient.htm
> >
> > "The literate people of antiquity despised "labor" in any form. The law
> was
> > an honored profession-- it was virtually the only profession, aside from
> > war, which was presumed to be a necessity of citizenship for virtually all
> > men. Farming and income from land ownership were likewise acceptable, but
> > "Trade" was generally viewed as servile and demeaning, incompatible with
> > one's dignity (an attitude which lingered to the present century in both
> > Germany and England). Artisans and self-employed individuals got middling
> > levels of respect, but it was felt that only the lowest class of person
> > would stoop to laboring for others for wages. People who needed employment
> > could sell themselves into slavery, with the eventual hope of manumission
> > and becoming a client of an affluent patron; it was a common practice in
> > Roman times. "
> >
> > source:
> > Mike Shupp
> > Department of Anthropology
> > California State University, Northridge
> > 18111 Nordhoff Street
> > Northridge, California 91330
> >
> > e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >
> > Doyle
> > Hence the conceptual basis for thinking about how a business works is not
> > present in the Roman concept of something that did work as Mark uses the
> > word firm. That is the typical capitalist understanding of work.
> >
> > Mike Shupp,
> > Peru maintained itself as both slave state and welfare state. The
> blessings
> > of imperial rule presumably included protection against famine from
> > storehouses near each community, kept high on the hillsides so the
> peasants
> > working the fields would be reminded of the Inca's beneficence.5 Ordinary
> > Indians were effectively slaves of the Inca; they could be relocated at
> his
> > whim, their movement and daily life was regulated by the state, which took
> > two thirds of their crops, required them to give labor and military
> service,
> > and also taxed them to make garments for soldiers.
> >
> > On the other hand, in a state without money, as Prescott muses, one could
> > hardly become poor by dissolute living or market speculation. And the
> state
> > was generous to those reduced to poverty by age or misfortune-- so much so
> > that Europeans were horrified to discover that the ill and infirm were not
> > dependent on their children and other kin; this was held ruinous to the
> > Christian notions of charity and filial affection. (Prescott 1847 : I 65)
> >
> > Doyle
> > Secondly Mark relies upon statistics reports in ancient times but these
> are
> > notorious for their lack of planning in the sense of financial effects of
> > borrowing and accounting practices that we would be able to understand
> now.
> > So that the anecdotal nature of the figures, the lack of accountability to
> > standards etc is elided in quoting as Mark does above. And understanding
> of
> > the purpose of making money through a business is absent from the Roman
> > concept. See this commentary upon tribute in ancient worlds by Shupp,
> >
> > Mike Shupp,
> > How was this all paid for? Our books are wont to refer to a rather
> bloodless
> > entity known as "the tributary mode of production", a certain form of
> state
> > finance rather like taxation, which nominally left the payers independent.
> > Let us restore the abstraction to life with other names: Danegeld, Ransom,
> > Extortion.
> >
> > Of our early civilizations, only the earliest Sumerians did not exact
> > tribute from an empire. This was merely because they had failed to think
> of
> > the idea. They had of course looted and demanded reparations from each
> other
> > as city-states warring for supremacy, but for some reason victors drew
> back
> > from the notion of installing their own rulers in defeated cities. This
> > changed with Sargon of Akkad, who put his own family members into
> > governorships and chief priest positions in conquered lands about 2400 BC;
> > afterward the Mesopotamians built conventional empires as avidly as anyone
> > else.
> >
> > The Egyptians collected tribute from time to time, but Pharaohs liked to
> > have things in their own hands. Tribute requires an entity capable of
> > paying. This lets out mobile barbarians, as a rule and requires at least
> > sedentary peoples. Surrounded by less-civilized peoples, it was more
> > convenient for the Egyptians to simply seize what they wanted. The policy
> > provoked some twelve centuries of conflict with their Nubian and Ethiopian
> > neighbors. The Chinese seem to have adopted similar practices under the
> > Hsia, Shang and Chou dynasties.
> >
> > The most "innovative" tribute system was that of the Incas, who copied it
> > from elsewhere in South America: whole villages were built near the
> imperial
> > capitals to house artisans carried off from the provinces to work full
> time
> > to create luxury goods for their rulers. Young girls were taken into
> > "convents" to weave tapestries and make other goods for the mausoleum
> > temples of deceased Inca rulers; many became short term "wives" of the
> Inca
> > or his officials, returning to their communities upon retirement, where
> they
> > were supported in luxury. Each peasant family was expected to labor one
> day
> > in three for their rulers and one day in three for the benefit of the
> > temples; they were to provide additional labor or military service each
> > year, and to make garments for the army.
> >
> > The Incas attempted autarky. To the extent practical, communities were
> > self-sufficient or reliant on supplies from imperial stocks. Luxury goods
> > flowed upward from producers to the rulers of the state who distributed
> them
> > to lesser nobility and foreign leaders. Markets were unknown, and trade
> > across state boundaries limited. Effectively, tribute was the whole of the
> > economy. (Earle and D'Altroy 1982)
> >
> > The harshest tribute system was probably that of the Romans in the late
> > Republican period. Since the state workforce was no larger than that
> needed
> > for a single city until Imperial times, the tax system was
> "Thatcher-ized".
> > The Romans called for bids each year, and farmed out the provinces beyond
> > Italy to groups of equestrians who promised to return the most to the
> > treasury. How these "businessmen" obtained the money was seldom examined.
> >
> > On top of this extortion, the provinces had to bear the cost of their
> > administration. Every Roman sent to govern a province, Cicero quipped, had
> > to earn three fortunes: the first to reward the senators who had elected
> him
> > to the post, the second to bribe jurors at his inevitable trial for
> > malfeasance, and the third for himself. On paper, Rome did not resort to
> war
> > except at the decision of the Senate, but the assorted governors,
> > proconsuls, procurators, and their underlings scattered across the Empire
> > did not hesitate to "rectify" boundaries at the expense of weaker
> neighbors,
> > nor to fight and enslave tribes across the borders-- invariably described
> as
> > "bandits" and "trouble makers"-- who chose inexplicably to dwell where
> > silver mines and lush vineyards which ought to belong to Romans had been
> > established. Julius Caesar's cold-blooded seizure of independent Gaul was
> a
> > deliberate and long continued violation of Roman law, but except in scale,
> > it was not unprecedented.
> >
> > Doyle
> > Thirdly Mark says that leading Roman families were deeply involved in
> trade,
> > yet this ignores that that is exactly the limitation of how trade was
> done.
> > The families organized and controlled trade. The financial system had
> > little to do with organizing that. Rather, the families and the way a
> > family functioned was what made the trade system work. These heavily
> > structured any sort of understanding of what business was in ancient
> times.
> > thanks,
> > Doyle
> >
>
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
