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Conclusion
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Conclusion 173 This book has attempted to show, within a few pages, how the ancient Greeks conceived of their economic activities and organized them within the framework of their cities. Describing characteristic features, sector by sector, it has endeavored, where possible, to sketch the evolution of production and trading, which seems to have been closely linked with the political changes and upheavals of the ancient world. A number of conclusions may be drawn from this rapid overview of the scene. The first conclusion is really a general impression that emerges from a long-term view: over the centuries, production and trade certainly seem to have increased in the world of the cities. To be sure, progress was slow and irregular, passing through both highs and lows, and it always varied from one region to another and one social level to another, so it is not possible to quantify it. Nevertheless, that progress is detectable in a wide range of factors: demographic growth; the diffusion of minted money; the diversification of trades; the progress of urbanization, means of transport, and security, and also of reading, writing, and scientific knowledge; and the ancient world’s progressive opening up to large political systems, culminating in the advent of a kind of golden age, thanks to the pax Romana. That is why certain scholars have tried to apply at least some modern criteria to the economic growth of the early Roman Empire in particular. Others, on the contrary, have strongly emphasized the limits of that growth, and several have even concluded that the economic development of the ancient world was a failure, above all because the cities, as public bodies, along with the Hellenistic kings and the Roman emperors, all remained indifferent to the material possibilities of their world and failed in the task of exploiting them for the greater good of all. Certainly neither of those schools of thought have been short of arguments. But the very concept of growth is problematic. It cannot, in all seriousness, be applied to the ancient economy, even within the limits of one particular place or one particular period. In the first place, even the most elementary information is almost totally lacking. How and within what framework, for example, can we evaluate notions such as the gross domestic product or the standard of living of individuals? Furthermore, and above all, recourse to such recent concepts is manifestly anachronistic, for, consciously or not, it is basically inspired by the Formalist school of thought. We know full well that, even if the Greeks, both individually and collectively, could demonstrate know-how and inventiveness in meeting the needs of themselves and those around them, and in improving their tools and endeavoring to become richer, neither their philosophers nor the citizens, who were responsible for collective decisions, 174 / Conclusion [18.189.170.17] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 19:55 GMT) ever conceived of economic activities as a whole, with a view to promoting growth and general well-being. A second, far more obvious conclusion is that the economy of ancient Greece was marked by great diversity and even by contradictory features, not only from one region or city to another, but in its very structures. On the one hand, it is clear that there were long periods when nothing much changed, which must, without passing any value judgments, be described as archaic or primitive. These were periods when agriculture predominated and the constraints of the natural environment were considerable , as were those of technology, of warfare and violence, and of the slow pace of movement and transport from one place to another. By reason of their fragility in the face of unexpected and imponderable events, production and trade would frequently falter. These periods were marked by a number of common characteristics: the conservatism of both mind-sets and institutions, in particular in the thinking of philosophers and the attitudes of citizens in their collective decisions; unequal rights and social conditions between citizens and foreigners, men and women, the free and the nonfree; and the exploitation of a servile and dependent workforce. For centuries, many cities remained small peasant country towns, more or less inwardlooking and faithful above all to traditional life. Although these are the ones that we know least about, they probably represented the great majority of Greek cities. On the other hand, in other cities—the classic examples are Athens and Rhodes—where interactions between private initiative and public interventions produced a dynamic effect, a number...