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Historians are completely right questioning using modern ideas on historical things. For a long time historians used the idea of nations to explain history even

Historians are completely right questioning using modern ideas on historical things. For a long time historians used the idea of nations to explain history even though that idea just originated in the 19th century. You can see this especially in how the views on the migration period are slowly changing. Saying ancient people trading was free market capitalism is on the same level as saying ancient people living together without money was communism.

QuesnayJr 5y ago
Communists actually do say that. Marx called it "primitive communism". The trend in economic history has been the opposite of what you say. In the 70s it was fashionable to emphasize how different ancient economies were from modern. See for example Moses Finley's Ancient Economy. The trend of recent scholarship has been to show that things in the old days are more like today than we thought. It's made the Industrial Revolution harder to explain, because all of the institutional details that seemed like they were important get pushed further and further back in time. Anyway, I thought the quote was odd because it was such a large worry for such a small point. It's interesting that standardized weights and measures didn't require a central government. I have trouble believing that this would radically change anyone's perception of the trade-offs between governments and markets, but the authors are clearly worried that their research is going to give ammunition to someone they don't like.
- Talanes 5y ago
  To me it read more like they were just acknowledging that a result that fit too neatly into their modern view of the world could be shaped by their own unconscious bias. In general, I think it's safe to assume that social scientists speaking in a scientific context just literally mean "neo-liberal" when they say it, rather than any politically charged meaning.
inglor_cz 5y ago
On the other hand, it makes no sense to pretend that ancient commerce was something totally different from modern commerce. People who were just like us took part in that, they had to fight the same problems of greed, fraud, uncertainty, force de majeure, safety of roads... the very word "market" is pretty old, probably one of the oldest in organized civilization. Markets were the killer feature of all ancient cities, at least from the citizen's point of view.

QuesnayJr 5y ago

Communists actually do say that. Marx called it "primitive communism". The trend in economic history has been the opposite of what you say. In the 70s it was fashionable to emphasize how different ancient economies were from modern. See for example Moses Finley's Ancient Economy. The trend of recent scholarship has been to show that things in the old days are more like today than we thought. It's made the Industrial Revolution harder to explain, because all of the institutional details that seemed like they were important get pushed further and further back in time. Anyway, I thought the quote was odd because it was such a large worry for such a small point. It's interesting that standardized weights and measures didn't require a central government. I have trouble believing that this would radically change anyone's perception of the trade-offs between governments and markets, but the authors are clearly worried that their research is going to give ammunition to someone they don't like.

Talanes 5y ago
To me it read more like they were just acknowledging that a result that fit too neatly into their modern view of the world could be shaped by their own unconscious bias. In general, I think it's safe to assume that social scientists speaking in a scientific context just literally mean "neo-liberal" when they say it, rather than any politically charged meaning.

inglor_cz 5y ago

On the other hand, it makes no sense to pretend that ancient commerce was something totally different from modern commerce. People who were just like us took part in that, they had to fight the same problems of greed, fraud, uncertainty, force de majeure, safety of roads... the very word "market" is pretty old, probably one of the oldest in organized civilization. Markets were the killer feature of all ancient cities, at least from the citizen's point of view.