Economic Growth in Ancient Greece

[NobleSavage]

Stanford Classics Professor Josiah Ober has long suspected that some of the long-held ideas scholars had about the ancient Greek world could be wrong. Thanks to his innovative digital research project, he now has the data to show it.

Ober says there was previously a developing and crystallizing consensus among classical scholars that there was little to no economic growth in ancient Greece – as was the case in most societies of that time.

But instead of portraying a static, poor Greek economy, Ober's new findings have shown that from about 1000 to 300 B.C., classical Greece had impressive rates of economic growth that were unparalleled by its contemporaries in antiquity.

So why was ancient Greece so prosperous compared to its contemporaries? 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.

"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."

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/june/greek-economy-growth-061115.html

It seems like the world is rushing in the oposite direction towards centeralized systems. I'd rather pay more taxes to my local and state government and less to the federal government.

 

[bilby]

Decentralisation makes a lot of sense when communications are slow. Big political regions in the ancient world were limited by (and predicated on) communication systems that allowed the authorities to learn what was going on, and to respond to the news, in a timely fashion.

One way to do this is to have a huge communications infrastructure - like the Roman Empire's roads, or the British Empire's telegraphs and railways.

The other approach is to decentralise, and to delegate decision making to people who are reasonably geographically close to the events that need a response - like the Greek city states.

Today, I can find out what happened on the opposite side of the planet within a second or two, and my response to that event can be communicated to a person on the spot in real time. The developed world of the 21st century is, in a very real sense, far smaller than any ancient Greek city state.

I would argue that the world is not heading the opposite way to that described in the OP; Rather both the modern superstate and the Greek city state are sized such that communication across the leader's jurisdiction is fast enough to allow him to have some chance to control events as they unfold.

 

[barbos]

bilby, stop embarrassing Stanford Professor with your critique.