P.S. I see your referred Polanyi, I've seen some things in the past few years that thoroughly and irrefutable refute most of the parts of his thesis regarding bureaucratization during his time
Yeah, I am not surprised. Polanyi saw what he wanted to see. I will have to read Silver - it may be that I have read bits of him already, years ago… or a similar work. But it would be good to read cover to cover.
I never realised that the sumerians had debt and equity investments, and therefore not only tribunals but interest calculations, security, etc.
I even wonder if the dark ages started with Christianity and the religious ban on interest. To close a loop, that idea was partly inspired, probably not innocently, by some of some of Helen Dale's writing, who also introduced me to yours 😆!
Hahaha! You know Helen and I were co-bloggers for years?
So, the Mesopotamian city states DEFINITELY had a concept of interest. This created problems at time. They also had debt-bondage, so the debtor had to sell themselves into slavery for three years, or sell their wife or children. Consequently, Mesopotamian Kings made themselves popular with debt forgiveness measures (wipe the slate clean). Hammurabi had at least four such forgiveness instances in his reign. One thing I note is that ancient societies had a rate of interest which makes my hair stand on end…
I think our society keeps finding things, then losing things, then finding things again…
To a degree, yes, recent examples include roman concrete (maybe rediscovered now), Damascus steel (definitely rediscovered), how to make cassette tapes (technically I think one company in Japan still knows this but we do not), how to have a civil argument (possibly only ever esoteric knowledge), how to mind one's own business and liberalism 😆.
But the last two aside, I do hope that we are overcoming this!
I'm starting a copper shipping business called Ea-nǎşir Pty Ltd. Customer feedback must be carved in stone tablets.
I think you have a competitor: https://thac.or.th/biggest-fraud-ever-swiss-received-painted-stone-instead-of-copper-from-turkey/
Wonderful Katy. I have written about customer complaints but have done nothing as thorough as this.
Well written! There's a great book by a guy named Morris Silver titled 'Economic Structures of Antiquity' that does a great job of covering much of this: https://www.amazon.com/Economic-Structures-Antiquity-Contributions-Economics/dp/0313293805
P.S. I see your referred Polanyi, I've seen some things in the past few years that thoroughly and irrefutable refute most of the parts of his thesis regarding bureaucratization during his time
Yeah, I am not surprised. Polanyi saw what he wanted to see. I will have to read Silver - it may be that I have read bits of him already, years ago… or a similar work. But it would be good to read cover to cover.
I never realised that the sumerians had debt and equity investments, and therefore not only tribunals but interest calculations, security, etc.
I even wonder if the dark ages started with Christianity and the religious ban on interest. To close a loop, that idea was partly inspired, probably not innocently, by some of some of Helen Dale's writing, who also introduced me to yours 😆!
Hahaha! You know Helen and I were co-bloggers for years?
So, the Mesopotamian city states DEFINITELY had a concept of interest. This created problems at time. They also had debt-bondage, so the debtor had to sell themselves into slavery for three years, or sell their wife or children. Consequently, Mesopotamian Kings made themselves popular with debt forgiveness measures (wipe the slate clean). Hammurabi had at least four such forgiveness instances in his reign. One thing I note is that ancient societies had a rate of interest which makes my hair stand on end…
I think our society keeps finding things, then losing things, then finding things again…
To a degree, yes, recent examples include roman concrete (maybe rediscovered now), Damascus steel (definitely rediscovered), how to make cassette tapes (technically I think one company in Japan still knows this but we do not), how to have a civil argument (possibly only ever esoteric knowledge), how to mind one's own business and liberalism 😆.
But the last two aside, I do hope that we are overcoming this!
Oh minding one’s own business! Everyone has forgotten how to do that. Hopefully rediscovered soon… but social media doesn’t help.
I always wanted a sword of Damascus steel!