Baetica Felix: People and Prosperity in Southern Spain from Caesar to Septimius Severus

7. The Nature of Economic Growth in Roman Imperial Baetica: A Theoretical Perspective

chapter seven  The Nature of Economic Growth in Roman Imperial Baetica: A Theoretical Perspective All nonslaves in the province will have seen a general growth in their per capita income and accumulated wealth during the period c. 25 b.c. to a.d. 170.1 There is no decisive evidence for a substantial growth in the population of the province between the Julio-Claudian and late Antonine eras. It is in the Julio-Claudian and, particularly, Flavian periods that we see a remarkable proliferation of productive rural settlements. Thus agricultural production that can increase either at the intensive margin (that is, through greater inputs of capital and labor, in part through an expanding population that results in net diminished productivity per capita), or at the extensive margin (that is, by bringing more land into use) would a priori have increased at the extensive margin .2 But abundant evidence for the presence of slaves, as well as productive investment in farmsteads and their associated equipment and infrastructure, such as dams, cisterns, and irrigation canals, means that the inputs of capital and labor also saw substantial , if perhaps irregular, increases in Baetica during the Principate . Per capita income, consequently, would have increased in Baetica in the period from c. 25 b.c. to a.d. 170, on any reckoning . Jongman’s explanation for inhibited growth in productivity —as opposed to total production—and thus per capita income during the Principate is a brilliant tour de force that has no relevance, it is evident, for Baetica. Jongman, following Lipsey 171 07-T2419 2/18/03 12:18 PM Page 171 et al., writes of “changes in factor supplies (labor, capital and land)” versus “increasing factor productivity (output per unit of factor input)” as elements of growth.3 Jongman argues that as factor productivity through technological innovation is mainly a feature of modern economic growth, and aslandwasatapremiumandthepopulationhighinCampania,“percapita” incomes were, on average, low and did not grow during the Principate. It can be argued that for a substantial length of time in Baetica, all three factor supplies making up the production function were increasing, whereas Jongman ,arguingfromthecaseofpeninsularItaly,wouldemphasizethatatmost two can supply further marginal doses, insisting that in the “real world the supply of at least one of the factors is usually more or less fixed.”4 Further, the contribution of slaves to increasing accumulated wealth or capital and income is ignored by Jongman. Jongman takes as a premise the existence of a mass of tenants living at or just above subsistence who represent the great majority of the inhabitants of Pompeii’s territory and its rural workforce.5 I will return to the question of subsistence. But Jongman’s thesis is universalizing : the coloni of Pompeii represent, by implication, the rural free of the Empire as a whole. But do they really? Did Pompeii’s diversified cereal agriculture and viticulture depend fundamentally on the labor of coloni? The unfortunate fact of the matter is that we do not really know the status of that Campanian town’s agricultural workforce. In essence, Jongman adopts as alternative conceptual models to explain Pompeii’s economy Jan de Vries’ peasant versus specialization models. De Vries originated these models to explain the transformation of Dutch agriculture during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In both models, the trigger is population pressure and/or growth. The two models, following Jongman’s summary, are worth outlining briefly. In the end, Jongman describes Pompeii’s (rural) economy in terms of the peasant model. In the peasant model, peasants see a reduction in the size of their holdings. Their labor productivity declines, as a static amount of land must feed a high or increasing population. The peasants may need, moreover, to supplement their income with day labor. The price of food rises. Peasants have no marketable surplus of food. Peasants’ purchase of non-food items decreases. The result is an increase in social inequality as powerful interests retain or expand landholdings. Rents go up. Many peasants are forced to lease back land. In this model, as summarized by Jongman, urban crafts production is limited to satisfying elite demand for consumer goods.6 It is striking how Baetica Felix 172 07-T2419 2/18/03 12:18 PM Page 172 similar all this sounds to the traditional historiography on the agrarian crisis of second-century Italy and the Gracchan response. In de Vries’ specialization model of peasant response to high prevailing...