Economic Growth in Ancient Greece

>>2948675
>>“Basically the answer to that is politics,” Ober argues. “The Greek world is distinctive in having this dispersed structure so that there are many, many independent states rather than a single empire – or rather than a few big and powerful states.”
So basically the HRE of antiquity.

File: acb.jpg (39KB, 640x640px) Image search: [Google]

39KB, 640x640px

>>2948675
so was greece the ultimate anarcho-capitalist society? if you think about it the poleis wasn't even a formal government

>>2948683
Yeah basically.

>>2948701
A lot of shit in Ancient Greece wasn't even paid for by taxes. It went something like this:

"Who wants to pay for this [insert project]?"
"Can I brag about how great my family is?"
"Sure Nicky, go ahead."
"Alright I'll pay for the [project]."

>>2948675
> In his new book, The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece, Ober links this unexpected prosperity to a relatively democratic, decentralized state system that allowed for innovation and cultural development.
Confusing cause and effect?

Greece was democratic because it was a wealthy trade center. If you don't give the middle class rights they will just move shop to the next city.

>>2948774
OP here, idk man, I'm just sharing the article.

>>2948755
https://aeon.co/ideas/voluntary-taxation-a-lesson-from-the-ancient-greeks

"The Greeks put taxation in the field of ethics: the liberty or despotism of a society could be measured by its system of taxes. We should admire them not so much for the way that they taxed, but the way that they didn’t. There was no tax on income. Taxes were not the way by which the wealth of the rich was shared with the people. Instead, this was achieved by a voluntary alternative: liturgy.

The word liturgy – from the ancient Greek leitourgia – means ‘public service’ or ‘work of the people’. The idea of benefaction was embedded in the ancient Greek psyche, and had roots in mythology. The Titan Prometheus created humanity and was its greatest benefactor, giving the gift of fire, which he stole from Mount Olympus. The Goddess Athena gave the citizenry the olive tree, symbol of peace and prosperity, and so the city of Athens was named after her.

The philosopher Aristotle developed the theme. His ‘magnificent man’ gave vast sums to the community. But poor men could never be ‘magnificent’ because they did not have the financial means. True wealth consists in doing good, Aristotle argued in the Art of Rhetoric: in handing out money and gifts, and helping others to maintain an existence. The physician Hippocrates, the founder of medicine, was another who believed in this social responsibility, advising doctors: ‘Sometimes give your services for nothing, calling to mind a previous benefaction or present satisfaction. And if there be an opportunity of serving one who is a stranger in financial straits, give full assistance to all such.’"

>>2948675

The economic growth is pretty much fact but his explanations for it are pretty much assumptions.

>>2948885
>But poor men could never be ‘magnificent’ because they did not have the financial means.

>The word ‘generosity’ is used relatively to someone’s means; for generosity resides not in how much one gives, but in the moral character of the giver, and this is relative to the giver’s means. There is therefore nothing to prevent the man who gives less from being the more generous man, if he has less to give than those who are thought to be more generous, yet who have not made their wealth but inherited it; for in the first place, the latter sort of man has no experience of want, and secondly all men are fonder of what they themselves have achieved, as are parents and poets. It is not easy for the generous man to be rich, since he is not apt either at taking or at keeping, but at giving it away, and he does not value wealth for its own sake, but as a means to giving. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 4.1)

>>2948683
>So basically the HRE of antiquity.

No, because there was no central authority even in theory. It was more the Sumerian city states of the Archaic period.

>>2948701
>if you think about it the poleis wasn't even a formal government

Except for the fact it was, you mean? You realize they had constitutions? That they punished criminals, including those who committed "victimless" crimes like blasphemy or homosex? That they maintained a monopoly on producing money?

>>2948675

I have no idea why this is a surprise. Greece rose from the ashes of the bronze age collapse to become THE power of their age, who thought they did this with a "static, poor economy"?

>>2948885
>Taxes were not the way by which the wealth of the rich was shared with the people. Instead, this was achieved by a voluntary alternative: liturgy.
>The word liturgy – from the ancient Greek leitourgia – means ‘public service’ or ‘work of the people’.

Interestingly this is the same method by which Victorian Britain harnessed the wealth of its elites, thru the building of great public works and not thru taxation.

>>2949571

Do you think you refuted Anon with this? Show me where Aristotle says the poor can be magnificent. I'll give you a clue: Generosity is not the same thing. Generosity was expected from everyone as a basic virtue. Magnificence was the expenditure of huge sums for the public good, something the poor, no matter how generous, obviously could not do.

>>2949650
A lot of people (particularly libertarians) unironically believe there was no economic growth between the stone age and the 1600s.

>>2949657
Interesting.

The Greeks didn't help their image by constantly going on about how they were poor compared to the Easterners.

>>2948675
Kinda doubt democracy had anything to do with it.
It was the same way Europe became a powerhouse. It was a bunch of small states that were hypercompetitive with each other, trying to gain power over others in a protracted period of time.