5 ms·

Observations on Credit and Lending Practices in Ur III Mesopotamia (2004) [pdf]

87 points by throw0101b 3y ago

Terr_ 3y ago
> I find his description of the typical money lender especially attractive [...] a professional, often associated with the royal sector, who held a suku allotment and had the resources, in barley, silver, and draft animals, to cultivate his allotment and to pursue the control of additional allotments (Steinkeller 2002: 117). What this individual lacked, according to Steinkeller, was the necessary labor to work the land that he could acquire. I'm pretty sure I've seen a similar characterization of nobles in England: They possessed land, resource-privileges, and capital equipment, but had to seek out labor. I suppose it should be no surprise, given the asymmetry between being able to own those things versus not being able to own labor in the form of slaves. (Though serfs can come close.) It's weird to imagine an opposite reality, a planet where ownership of land/capital/resource-rights is impractical or anathema, but slavery is normal and expected.
- diogenes4 3y ago
  This is central to the theory that modern financial markets (and certainly capitalism itself) originated in the wake of the labor market reorganization and mass migration symptomatic of the black death. The plauge had a multitude of effects on Europe, but chief among them was the severe contraction of the labor markets and the subsequent restructuring of of local and regional economies. Of course, events like the reformation and the thirty years war are just as influential, but relate less directly to the political economy.
- pyinstallwoes 3y ago
  The beginning of the Luddite revolution
mriet 3y ago
Sounds like it's related to Graeber's book, "Debt, The First 5000 Years".
- Mistletoe 3y ago
  Another book in this vein is The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest by Edward Chancellor if anyone is looking for one.
  - throw0101b 3y ago
    See also Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50358103-money https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50358103-money And The Power of Gold: The History of an Obsession (2e has an intro from Volcker): * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/249245.The_Power_of_Gold https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/249245.The_Power_of_Gold With all the talk of the US dollar losing its status (highly unlikely due to no realistic alternative), How Global Currencies Work: Past, Present, and Future on the history of various previously predominant currencies is also interesting: * https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691177007/how-global-currencies-work https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691177007/ho...
    - rnk 3y ago
      There's no obvious alternative but there's nothing stopping other countries from using other currencies than dollars to do transactions, just the infrastructure that supports it. It feels like the dollar is more stable than other countries currencies, due in large part to our strong economy and strong military. China is big enough that they can probably do transactions in their currency, but any week they can significantly devalue it.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - throw0101b 3y ago
        > China is big enough that they can probably do transactions in their currency, but any week they can significantly devalue it. There are roughly as many CAD and AUD transactions as RMB/CNY: * https://data.imf.org/?sk=e6a5f467-c14b-4aa8-9f6d-5a09ec4e62a4 https://data.imf.org/?sk=e6a5f467-c14b-4aa8-9f6d-5a09ec4e62a... * https://www.statista.com/statistics/247328/activity-per-trading-day-on-the-global-currency-market/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/247328/activity-per-trad...
malfist 3y ago
This is fascinating. It's interesting that most of their loans don't seem unlike payday loans i.e. advances to produce a good or service.
- everly 3y ago
  Indeed - I did a double-take at the notion that creditors often wanted a borrower to default so they could then collect payment in the form of the debtors labor, basically debt-slavery. As you said, fascinating stuff.
  - gwern 3y ago
    Where does he say that? He spends the end explaining that clearly most of the lenders had no interest in such a thing, many of the debtors wouldn't be good for labor, and lenders and always tried to take repayment in cash etc.
  - bboygravity 3y ago
    Debt-slavery which interestingly was banned under Ceasar if I'm not mistaking.
    - Telemakhos 3y ago
      Solon, long before Caesar was ever born in Rome, abolished debt-slavery in Athens. There's a good book on Athenian banking: Cohen, E. 1992. Athenian Economy and Society: A Banking Perspective. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. He goes into interesting evidence for bank money (ledger entries not backed by coins, as opposed to metal currency), fractional reserve lending, and inflation in ancient Athens.
      - throw0101b 3y ago
        > There's a good book on Athenian banking: For a wider net, on the general legal framework(s) of that time, see perhaps Ancient Greek law in the 21st century, Perlman, Paula Jean, editor: * https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477315217/ https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477315217/ It turns out one of the largest banks in Athens was owned/run by some slaves: finance was not a 'respectable' profession—with farming/agriculture being the most 'noble'—so it was left to the lower classes and other riff-raff. Lots of slaves ran businesses, and the question often came up whether any associated debt belong to the business, the slave, or the slave's master (important when slaves were bought and sold).
082349872349872 3y ago
Does the shortage of labor discussed imply that some class was complaining "no one wants to work anymore" during the Ur III period at the end of the third millennium BC?
- bbor 3y ago
  No! Maybe, but seeing Sloth as the ultimate sin is definitely a mania that’s very heavily based in modern corporate capitalism. Consider some alternate (still very boomer) takes: “The gods have taken away the good workers!” “Women are taking the young men’s attention away!” “This is a bad year for work.”
  - thechao 3y ago
    I was idly wondering, today, if the capitalism was supercharged by the Protestant notion of idle-hands are sinful-hands? The refrain for most of history was that land owners couldn't get any (read: excess) work out of peasant labor: once they had hit their sustenance & rent requirements they just stopped. The Protestant ethos would be to be as industrious as possible; and, I think, capitalism capitalized on that zeitgeist. I dunno... if I still had a Reddit acct, I'd Ask Historians.
    - softg 3y ago
      >I was idly wondering, today, if the capitalism was supercharged by the Protestant notion of idle-hands are sinful-hands? German sociologist Max Weber was wondering the same question about a century ago and wrote a whole book about it called "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism". The part where he talks about the Protestant notion of calling comes very close to what you described. I read it a decade ago so the details are a bit fuzzy but I think the gist of it was it's super difficult to get into the heaven in Protestantism (it's actually pre-determined in Calvinism I think) and one needs to devote themselves to some task to avoid sinful earthly distractions. Also charitable works are kinda meaningless because only through faith you can be saved. So you have all these people who work all the time and who do not spend that much on poor people or themselves which helps with capital accumulation. Also with that mindset business becomes an end into itself that should be pursued for its own good so Weber thought this fostered the separation of personal affairs and business iirc.
nologic01 3y ago
Its fascinating that script seems to have been invented to serve as a credit contracts database and to support associated accounting and taxation functions. The central role of bean counting in pushing information technology repeated in rennaisance with paper ledgers and was key also in early commercialization of computers (IBM). Somehow the thread has been broken as of recent, with blockchain almost a parody of progress. We mostly still emulate age old patterns. A visitor banker from Ur III would very quickly find their way to the bad loan books.

87 points by throw0101b 3y ago

> I find his description of the typical money lender especially attractive [...] a professional, often associated with the royal sector, who held a suku allotment and had the resources, in barley, silver, and draft animals, to cultivate his allotment and to pursue the control of additional allotments (Steinkeller 2002: 117). What this individual lacked, according to Steinkeller, was the necessary labor to work the land that he could acquire. I'm pretty sure I've seen a similar characterization of nobles in England: They possessed land, resource-privileges, and capital equipment, but had to seek out labor. I suppose it should be no surprise, given the asymmetry between being able to own those things versus not being able to own labor in the form of slaves. (Though serfs can come close.) It's weird to imagine an opposite reality, a planet where ownership of land/capital/resource-rights is impractical or anathema, but slavery is normal and expected.

diogenes4 3y ago
This is central to the theory that modern financial markets (and certainly capitalism itself) originated in the wake of the labor market reorganization and mass migration symptomatic of the black death. The plauge had a multitude of effects on Europe, but chief among them was the severe contraction of the labor markets and the subsequent restructuring of of local and regional economies. Of course, events like the reformation and the thirty years war are just as influential, but relate less directly to the political economy.
pyinstallwoes 3y ago
The beginning of the Luddite revolution

mriet 3y ago

Sounds like it's related to Graeber's book, "Debt, The First 5000 Years".

Mistletoe 3y ago
Another book in this vein is The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest by Edward Chancellor if anyone is looking for one.
- throw0101b 3y ago
  See also Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50358103-money https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50358103-money And The Power of Gold: The History of an Obsession (2e has an intro from Volcker): * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/249245.The_Power_of_Gold https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/249245.The_Power_of_Gold With all the talk of the US dollar losing its status (highly unlikely due to no realistic alternative), How Global Currencies Work: Past, Present, and Future on the history of various previously predominant currencies is also interesting: * https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691177007/how-global-currencies-work https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691177007/ho...
  - rnk 3y ago
    There's no obvious alternative but there's nothing stopping other countries from using other currencies than dollars to do transactions, just the infrastructure that supports it. It feels like the dollar is more stable than other countries currencies, due in large part to our strong economy and strong military. China is big enough that they can probably do transactions in their currency, but any week they can significantly devalue it.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - throw0101b 3y ago
      > China is big enough that they can probably do transactions in their currency, but any week they can significantly devalue it. There are roughly as many CAD and AUD transactions as RMB/CNY: * https://data.imf.org/?sk=e6a5f467-c14b-4aa8-9f6d-5a09ec4e62a4 https://data.imf.org/?sk=e6a5f467-c14b-4aa8-9f6d-5a09ec4e62a... * https://www.statista.com/statistics/247328/activity-per-trading-day-on-the-global-currency-market/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/247328/activity-per-trad...

malfist 3y ago

This is fascinating. It's interesting that most of their loans don't seem unlike payday loans i.e. advances to produce a good or service.

everly 3y ago
Indeed - I did a double-take at the notion that creditors often wanted a borrower to default so they could then collect payment in the form of the debtors labor, basically debt-slavery. As you said, fascinating stuff.
- gwern 3y ago
  Where does he say that? He spends the end explaining that clearly most of the lenders had no interest in such a thing, many of the debtors wouldn't be good for labor, and lenders and always tried to take repayment in cash etc.
- bboygravity 3y ago
  Debt-slavery which interestingly was banned under Ceasar if I'm not mistaking.
  - Telemakhos 3y ago
    Solon, long before Caesar was ever born in Rome, abolished debt-slavery in Athens. There's a good book on Athenian banking: Cohen, E. 1992. Athenian Economy and Society: A Banking Perspective. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. He goes into interesting evidence for bank money (ledger entries not backed by coins, as opposed to metal currency), fractional reserve lending, and inflation in ancient Athens.
    - throw0101b 3y ago
      > There's a good book on Athenian banking: For a wider net, on the general legal framework(s) of that time, see perhaps Ancient Greek law in the 21st century, Perlman, Paula Jean, editor: * https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477315217/ https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477315217/ It turns out one of the largest banks in Athens was owned/run by some slaves: finance was not a 'respectable' profession—with farming/agriculture being the most 'noble'—so it was left to the lower classes and other riff-raff. Lots of slaves ran businesses, and the question often came up whether any associated debt belong to the business, the slave, or the slave's master (important when slaves were bought and sold).

082349872349872 3y ago

Does the shortage of labor discussed imply that some class was complaining "no one wants to work anymore" during the Ur III period at the end of the third millennium BC?

bbor 3y ago
No! Maybe, but seeing Sloth as the ultimate sin is definitely a mania that’s very heavily based in modern corporate capitalism. Consider some alternate (still very boomer) takes: “The gods have taken away the good workers!” “Women are taking the young men’s attention away!” “This is a bad year for work.”
- thechao 3y ago
  I was idly wondering, today, if the capitalism was supercharged by the Protestant notion of idle-hands are sinful-hands? The refrain for most of history was that land owners couldn't get any (read: excess) work out of peasant labor: once they had hit their sustenance & rent requirements they just stopped. The Protestant ethos would be to be as industrious as possible; and, I think, capitalism capitalized on that zeitgeist. I dunno... if I still had a Reddit acct, I'd Ask Historians.
  - softg 3y ago
    >I was idly wondering, today, if the capitalism was supercharged by the Protestant notion of idle-hands are sinful-hands? German sociologist Max Weber was wondering the same question about a century ago and wrote a whole book about it called "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism". The part where he talks about the Protestant notion of calling comes very close to what you described. I read it a decade ago so the details are a bit fuzzy but I think the gist of it was it's super difficult to get into the heaven in Protestantism (it's actually pre-determined in Calvinism I think) and one needs to devote themselves to some task to avoid sinful earthly distractions. Also charitable works are kinda meaningless because only through faith you can be saved. So you have all these people who work all the time and who do not spend that much on poor people or themselves which helps with capital accumulation. Also with that mindset business becomes an end into itself that should be pursued for its own good so Weber thought this fostered the separation of personal affairs and business iirc.

nologic01 3y ago

Its fascinating that script seems to have been invented to serve as a credit contracts database and to support associated accounting and taxation functions. The central role of bean counting in pushing information technology repeated in rennaisance with paper ledgers and was key also in early commercialization of computers (IBM). Somehow the thread has been broken as of recent, with blockchain almost a parody of progress. We mostly still emulate age old patterns. A visitor banker from Ur III would very quickly find their way to the bad loan books.