The failure of ancient Greek growth: institutions, culture and energy cost

Abstract

Along with introducing democracy, advancing philosophy and excelling at the arts, during the period 800–300bceancient Greece achieved substantial economic prosperity. Recent literature attributes the efflorescence to the institutions and culture of democratic city-states. However, the city-states failed to initiate sustained growth. Technological progress remained slow and the economic efflorescence ended after the prevalence of Macedon and the subsequent Roman conquest. The present study scrutinises the roles of city-state institutions and culture. It shows that ultimately ancient Greece could not sustain long-run growth because a multitude of independent small city-states prevented the exploitation of economies of scale and stoked continual wars that exhausted them financially and militarily, and because of a culture valuing landholding, self-sufficiency and collectivist attitudes.

Institutions, social order and wealth in ancient India

“…Consistent with both available evidence, Mauryan state and private institutions aimed to manage social needs as well as measurable economic outcomes. This is simultaneously consistent with, as well as in contrast to, the development and operation of markets in medieval Europe and, to the extent at which guilds operated, in Greece (Tridimas, 2019) or Rome (Temin, 2001), as discussed below.…”

“…However, within social constraints monitored by state institutions, goods were provided and priced by relevant sreni . This contrasts with ancient Greece and Rome where price making was facilitated on basis of individual commercial contracts and the law; in Rome, being the legal concept of the notion of ‘just price’ 10 or justum pretiu m (Maniatis, 2003: 131) and in Greece being citizenship laws emphasising notions of individual responsibility (Tridimas, 2019: 7).…”

“…Similar arguments have been advanced in related studies of economic development and the role of legal systems in other ancient societies. For example, in a study of economic growth in ancient Greece, political economist George Tridimas (2019: 3) suggests that ‘contrary to the primitive view, farmers ran their business with the aim of improving yields and profits …’. However, he does go on to identify ‘cultural traits’ such as ideals of self-sufficiency, freedom and individual rather than collective rights as part of an ‘anti-development’ culture that limited the potential for capital intensive technology and economies of scale (Tridimas, 2019: 21).…”

The evolution of property rights in Hellenistic Greece and the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt

“…Our main conclusion is that the evolution of property rights was strongly related to the development of new economic institutions from the Classical to the Hellenistic period (508–146 bce). The new economic institutions such as banking, insurance and market mechanisms that led to the significant rise of commercial activity and economic growth during the Classical period (Ober, 2015; Tridimas, 2018) made the development of property rights a necessary prerequisite. Furthermore, this evolution of market economy institutions went hand in hand with political liberalism through the development of direct democracy.…”

Introduction to the symposium on the empirics of judicial institutions

“…3On Ancient Greece, law and institutions, see also Tridimas 2018a and 2018b. Quite peculiarly, it is worth noting that in the Ancient Greece the war, and more precisely the development of new military tactics, the phalanx, and the subsequent emergence of the figure of the hoplite played a role in fostering democracy and, in turn, of peace (Kyriazis and Paparrigopoulos, 2014).…”