NES Economics Thread

[Masada]

Yes that would be possible, very possible (historical points aside, in an economist not a historian ). It would have a reasonable impact on the trading patterns of Europe, conceivably the Bulgarians could become quite important, in so much as they would pull in Italians (later on), Byzantine traders and anyone else with a hankering for silk. But that would only be the start, one could if one were thinking on his feet make much more use of the grain trade (Crimea *drools*), and be in a position to control trade heading south through the Rus and heading north (read slaves for the most part). And with a reasonably large city base, you would actually have something to pour your money in that would grant a return… you would probably be avoiding luxury for luxuries sake. I’ll answer the rest when I get back.

 

[Dachs]

As for Huns, well, that's a tough one. Okay, the thing is to bribe them off and accept their nominal sovereignty until they go away or to defend from the fortified cities until they decide to go after something juicier, like Rome.

I guess that could work. The existence of such a Dacian state (sorry, didn't read clearly enough) would incidentally have really interesting side effects on the Gothic migrations, especially that of the Greuthungi and Tervingi. But as soon as the Goths are gone, south into the Roman Empire, these Dacians have a good window of four decades or so before the Huns move into the Pannonian Plain, which is plenty of time to rebuild and be ready.

 

[das]

would incidentally have really interesting side effects on the Gothic migrations, especially that of the Greuthungi and Tervingi.

That's also a consideration.

But as soon as the Goths are gone, south into the Roman Empire, these Dacians have a good window of four decades or so before the Huns move into the Pannonian Plain, which is plenty of time to rebuild and be ready.

Which was the idea. And after the Huns, the Avars would be a walkover by comparison, though the kingdom might not survive for much longer. Then the cities would work with the Bulgars much like surviving Roman cities worked with barbarians elsewhere; the Bulgar state was closer to western barbarian states than most other early medieval Eastern European formations anyway.

 

[Angst]

Subscription post, will edit tomorrow.

 

[das]

*bump*

Masada, what say you about the economic effects (both long term and short term) of arbitrary construction of new cities in the middle parts of the 1st millenium BC (the examples are plentiful)? Actually, when is that a viable option? And what are the pre-conditions for new cities to arise "naturally" (i.e. without state coercion) in a region with extant cities?

 

[Masada]

Hmmm…

Well assume for one moment you have a likely site for a city, the reasons I can think of that would make a monarch create a new city would probably be tied to either its defensive value, strategic value or existing agricultural, industrial or trade value and there are bound to be other reasons.

It’s not uncommon in history for a strong defensive point to have a city or a large fortress built either to stabilise or anchor an existing line, to create a new one, to offer a strong point or to exert the rulers influence. What is a defensive consideration reaps benefits for the population, since it is probably a given that if a region requires some form of improved defence it probably isn’t safe. A population in the region knowing the danger might well relocate themselves to relative safety of the city or fortress. I do remember more than a few strong points which were initially just fortress’s morphing steadily as the situation remained dangerous into fully fledged cities because of the improved safety aspects (there are fewer places in the pre-industrial world safer than living next to soldiers, in most cases). That’s a plausible means of a city both developing on its own around some central strongpoint, and a city being constructed (I do remember that during the bronze age collapse, cities and settlements went from being constructed in accessible areas well suited for trade, to being constructed in hard to access easily defensible points, much the same happened with the collapse of Rome, Venice was not built on a marsh distant from the coast for no particular reason).

Strategic considerations for a monarch are important as well, the Greeks had a true mastery of the strategic placing of cities, the Athenians got aggressive to maintain their grain link with the Black Sea and the Spartans to maintain their routes to Sicily (whether or not they were constructed with that implicit reason in mind, I’m not sure, suffice to say strategically they were horrendously important), likewise there are examples of other states throughout history constructing cities to control or influence especially bodies of water, although certainly in a desert region like the Middle East (with constrained trading routes) they would have fulfilled a similar role (building around oasis’s has a long tradition or so I gather). Strategic considerations would have played a part, certainly points where tax were handled or administered would have drawn people, where a large body of people are stopped for a long period of time, and where by necessity a body of troops, officials and all the various hangers on stationed is sure to draw in shopkeepers, farmers and other civilians to minister to their needs. The inflows of cash, and good in lieu of payment (typically as a general rule between 10-20% of the value of the cargo) had a positive effect, in that corrupt officials would “park” their proceeds where they served, that the state itself would have return some of the funds for the continuing maintenance of the infrastructure, pays etc. Many cities are on the confluence of trade routes (there is I think a clear distinction between those that are on the confluence of trade routes and those that are not), it has been noted that along a trade route at either end one has the cities which produce the goods of interest and one has the cities which consume the goods of interest (typically the later does much of the refining or acts as a middleman to the region) in the middle there are generally hubs for supplies, and hubs for taxation. The one handles supplies and tends to found in fertile areas, the other tends to be found at choke points which quite often are the same as the fertile areas (for the Middle East think Oasis and the like).

Those tend to be “relatively” safe bets, people will tend to move towards safety if the region is dangerous, and people will tend to be drawn to strategic areas because they are so attractive from a renter’s (economics jargon: For a tax collector, or someone living of the fruits of others) perspective, easy money tends to draw people… since people tend to be careless with others money.

Now these are the real gambles, you do something new, or improve upon something pre-existing be it industrial (in the form of weavers for instance) agricultural (to open up more land), or trade based (maybe to poach a new route or to expand upon an existing one). These are the hardest to gauge, if the market doesn’t want it then it should die (of course monarchs have coercion on their side), but the flipside is that government is the only entity with the means of building a new city and making use of its benefits. A classic is to take an existing industry, build a new city, throw a group of the professionals your after into it, and hope they start up a new branch of that industry in your new region or area. This was tried a lot, maybe not as a city but certainly on a region by region basis, silk is a classic, there were uncounted attempts to found new silk industries by almost everyone in Europe and the Middle East at some point, everyone tried it… they would scoop up silk weavers from where ever had silk weavers, build the necessary workshops, do everything and wonder why it failed quite often. By nature it’s a hit and miss project, government at that time had few means of checking the viability of a project (aside from educated guesses from some of those in the know) so transplanting industries is a difficult prospect, but not impossible, I do know that Viticulture was successfully transplanted to more than a few areas where it previously did not exist reasonably early on (if anyone is aware of the requirements of Viticulture one would see why it rapidly led to city developments, it requires irrigation, a large labour force relative to other crops which works seasonally, a large initial outlay as well as a period of waiting while the trees mature etc), winemaking, olive oil making, silk manufacturing etc all require much the same, a city can develop around this enterprise. Agriculture is a similar subject, if one is to open up a new region of rich agricultural land, one could found a city with which to service future farms, or a city is likely to appear to service the needs of the existing farmers either or is possible. Trade is a similar impetuous to growth, it spurs demand for goods and services which might not have previously existed, and you might just end up with a long network of interconnected cities relying on the servicing of a given trade route.

Kind of mixed it up abit… hope its alright (honestly very little has been written on this)...

There do however tend to be two schools, the build and they will come school (which tends to get it wrong most of the time, but that trick does sometimes work), and the let everything work at its own pace school (they also tend to get it wrong since nobody can fund the creation of a city)… I tend to think it lies in between, the state has a role in increasing the infrastructure, but it tends to be difficult to completely construct a new city from scratch (I typically think that private dwellings were likely built privately, in a scratch built city, typically by the very labourers building the place (for themselves), followed by an increasing swell of people as whatever purpose it was built for fulfils itself, of course that purpose could never fulfil itself and it could steadily empty) but I have to note that the jump from being a town to a city is really a sliding scale which a town can do on its own away from government assistance… kind of a complex problem, I hope that provides at least some help.

I will note that the majority of cities built by decree, i'm guessing declined or collapsed with the abscence of the Monarchs gaze, i doubt that many of them were in optimal places and could be expected to survive being left alone.

 

[Masada]

(This is a subject not commonly taught in economics 101 etc, for that matter I have only ever read a single paper on the subject, and lo and behold I can’t find it).

I'm currently scrabbling to find something of use.

 

[das]

there are bound to be other reasons.

One reason is the existence of traditional urban elites in the older, "naturally formed" cities; the developing tendency towards absolute monarchies brought their interests and the interests of the monarch in direct opposition, and one reasonably widespread way out was to find a new city, preferably in some site where it would bring some other advantages as well.

Ofcourse, what you have mentioned also happens, sometimes in connection to the above, but probably more often for other reasons listed.

Anyway, thanks. So, trade+safety, with considerations of trade predominant in more stable times and considerations of safety predominant in more turbulent times?

By nature it’s a hit and miss project

What would determine that, exactly? If economic demand is present and the know-how is available, then I would think it would mostly boil down to technical difficulties such as climate, and ofcourse funding (and, by connection, corruption).

but I have to note that the jump from being a town to a city is really a sliding scale which a town can do on its own away from government assistance… kind of a complex problem, I hope that provides at least some help.

Well, the jump from a town to a city is doable, but I think a more important question here would be the emergence of the town (or possibly the jump from a village to a town).

EDIT: There is another thing that has been bothering me for a while now; it has to do with war-time trade in the ancient world. Given that state control in most ancient states (the exceptions are just more notable) was often quite disorganised, whereas the understanding of international relations was markedly different (read: underdeveloped and ambiguous), would war between two states necessarily destroy or at least utterly marginalise trade between their subjects? Considerable damage is inevitable - even without state activity aimed specifically at halting commerce with the enemies, war would mean more banditry and at the same time more taxes, not to mention drastically lowered security. But on the other hand, there is considerable banditry even in peace time (see the complaints at Tel Amarna), not to mention that warfare is often endemic, implied and undeclared (and so might also die down without a formal peace treaty before being renewed by a new round of campaigning), and some trade routes are too profitable for everyone to give up on them so easily. Also, the ruler could probably halt trade in his capital, confiscate foreign goods and crack down on the black market, but in other cities under his official reign trade would be more difficult to halt, especially since it would go directly against the interests of the already not-too-loyal traditional urban elite. The larger and more advanced bureaucratic empires such as that of the Achaemenids might do it without much fear, since by that point an entirely different political system with a different social support base detached from the traditional communities has come into being, but, say, the king of Urartu would be hard-pressed to do it, especially if north-south trade happens to become a considerable factor in his prosperity. Ofcourse, I suppose that wars along highly profitable, persistant trade routes would either result in the unification of the area or the relatively rapid end of the war due to mounting dissent and expenses, but still, is this assessment correct or are there some other considerations I have ignored here?

 

[Masada]

As to your first response:

I’ve always tended to be led by the literature to the conclusion, that the traditional urban elites benefited immeasurably by having an Absolute Monarch, and that their interests were almost always aligned.

For one thing these urban elites tended not to be traders, they tended to be absentee landlords, who centred themselves in urban polities not for any financial reasons (though that might have played a part), but instead to be close to the political pulse of the polity. If anything the Absolute Monarchs were just the largest absentee landlord with taxation and law making power, the interests of the Absolute Monarch were thus directly inline with the urban elites, they had a vested interest in maintaining the status quo with regards to land ownership (there primary income source at least initially). After a while it becomes noticeable that the urban elite began to move away from being independent landlords towards becoming dependants of the state. Families in Egypt, Babylon etc, routinely reoccur throughout the records in government service, in Egypt through tombs, in Babylon through commercial documents, all of which strongly indicate wealth correlating with high office (this did change slowly, glacially, probably tied to increasing power of the bureaucracy as the states grew in size and complexity). That is with regards to the urban elite being absentee landlords (which tends to hold well for the hydraulic societies which by nature favour highly an inverse pyramid for landownership, by virtue of the high costs associated with maintaining the infrastructure).

If the urban elites are traders or craftsmen or medium-small holders, which tended to happen in what is now Syria, Jordon, Israel etc, there is a strong penchant for either limited monarchy or a council of some sort forming to administer the state. It helps that these societies were rain fed which by virtue requires far less capital and organization to manage compared to the irrigation systems (the impetus for an absolute monarch goes out of the window). It also helps strongly that the land in the regions is either marginal, or heavily interrupted (the hills of Israel) which tends to strongly favour smaller landholdings, its much more difficult to build a powerbase out of a large number of small holders, that to build a powerbase out of a small number of oligarchs, let us not also forget that marginal land or heavily interrupted land strongly necessitates crop diversification (which has been linked to reduced dependence on the state, and on divergent interests between landholders) all of which make it even more difficult to centralise power. Besides trader and craftsmen have a vested interest in constraining the power of a monarch or government in general, the Code of Hammurabi was a severe constraint on economic growth (some serious arguments about that, the relative stability it would have bought might have outweighed the dead weight loss of some of its provisions, limiting the ceiling of loans is not a good idea ditto with grain prices, although there is strong evidence that the rates were routinely changed (at least in times of serious need, the price rose by some 400% during a particular siege of some city compared to the normal rate (for the life of me I cant remember where I got it, from one of the dozen books on my desk atm&#8230), at the very least the government had a vested interest in clamping down on predatory actions from merchants and craftsmen who were for the most part not a favoured group, price gouging, extortion, usury and the like have a long history.

I certainly believe that power struggles between factions led to the founding of new cities, but founding a city with a small number of oligarchs in direct competition to a large centrally controlled city would seem to me to be madness (a King who did not chase his cash cows would be a double fool, for allowing a competitor and for fleecing his own treasuries). Greece has a great history of founding cities because so and so had a fight with so and so (at least in mythology, I’m not sure on the historical accuracy, but it certainly seems possible) but I don’t think it holds at least rationally to me that the majority of cities were founded in a similar way (the literature doesn’t mention this at all, at least what I have my hands on, if I have time I’ll go digging in the journals and try and find something). Certainly in Greece and areas where central governance was not strong then it is highly plausible that cities were founded not more than a few miles from each other in the safety of a neighbouring valley purely as a tax dodge.

Notice: My apologies I think I might have misread, and assumed you were using the above reason as the majority case, you might not have…

Yes I think in the long run, trade and safety are the major reasons (but the first cities to develop would probably have been founded not just for safety reasons (a major consideration) or for the trade reasons (a small market early on can grow to a large market rather quickly). We can also deduce though that Malthusian logic can be applied, to found a city or any population centre requires one simple thing food. If your farmers can produce more than they consume, they can feed specialists, a village can begin to form when the first farmer in the long run produces more food than he and his own can consume, he then trades this surplus or stores it. Once this farmer’s productivity has risen beyond what he can store (time constraints and storage limitations) he is forced to trade or have it waste away. To use Adam Smith, a single person can make but 3 nails a day, a single blacksmith can make 60 nails a day (not the exact numbers but the principle stands), the division of labour. So it pays the farmer to trade his goods to someone else who has a comparative advantage in something, for instance another farmer can make 5 nails on his own a day, 2 above the nails that of which the other farmer can make. Not quite enough yet for the second farmer to branch into a trade, but add another four or five dozen farmers with a surplus and then the blacksmith even in lean years is likely to be able to churn out nails uninterrupted. The rate of farmer to specialist would initially have been high, but with each increase in production of food some of that would have gone to supporting additional specialists, while most of it would have gone to increasing the general population (so yes growth in a sense was possible, before Malthus kicked in, or at least a steadily rising percentage of specialists, although there would have been a point at which the land could not be farmed any more intensely, and adding any further specialists would have caused the system to break down in food shortages&#8230.

Trade is fairly apparent, during the high times of the Bronze Age, cities were built to maximise trade, not a single Minonian city during the good times was built in a defensive spot (I would need to fact check this) but during the collapse the settlements moved further and further up into the hills as it got increasingly dangerous. The Dorian Greeks likewise built cities in fairly indefensible areas (relatively speaking to what they could have built them in) while the Mycenaean’s built them in more defensible locations. Egypt, well they didn’t build many if any of their cities defensibly (maybe owing to their inability to do so) but also probably owing to the relatively stability of the region for most of its history. The Fertile Crescent Empires oscillated between the two (as much as it could) cities on the periphery seem to me to be on balance built for defensive considerations, while the internal cities appear too built to maximise trade and access.


As to your second point, government at the time had few means of checking demand, they can only basically ask the merchants (and you can guess their response! Yes please we need it, guess who profits best of any capital works). Climate and other issues had a lot to do with it to, but it also boils down to viability, one cannot check if a given region can support 20,000 people very easily, water, food, sanitation and the other essentials might block settlement. It’s more of an issue of not being able to test an area before you judge it to be suitable (test in a meaningful way that is).


As to your third point I think I have covered it in my response to the first post. I do however tend to note the following (from geography I think), typically villages (contain the bare essentials, and many small farms) which feed into towns (which take up excess food from the villages, and provide larger services), which feed into cities (which take up an increasing amount of extra food and provide the largest services) it can make quite an interesting lattice shape, with cities in the middle, with towns emanating outwards, and villages emanating outwards from those. It’s not a set in stone rule, but it tends to hold well.


I’m guessing trade continued on virtually uninterrupted during war, symbolic cuts might be made, but it would not surprise me to find out that merchants just false flagged (pretended to be from city Y not X) and continued on as before just taking a diversion around the combat areas (which are limited by geography and logistics anyways). Payments of bribes would have solved the rest, but yes in larger centrally controlled states with a deeper fiscal pocket, it would have been much harder, but even then false flagging and choosing a different city to trade in might have got one around it… and trade even on a normal basis was dangerous, there is an interesting theory bouncing around that private merchants themselves seldom travelled (not universally but in a few areas this holds relatively well) but actually just paid agents to do the job, the capital was advanced, a return contract was required properly affixed from a reputable or temple source (there have been a few of these found in various places) and of you go, that agent might have been a family member etc. Not to mention most trade was a centralized operation anyway, although it appears that barring a few of the more silly instances, private merchants just purchased licences and there was no other consequence (even then one could conceivably just wriggle around the restrictions with the right mix of bribes, a modified trade route and false flags).

 

[das]

I’ve always tended to be led by the literature to the conclusion, that the traditional urban elites benefited immeasurably by having an Absolute Monarch, and that their interests were almost always aligned.

Often, but not always; it depended on the specific case. I agree that what you have said holds true for the classical hydraulic societies (though I can't agree about the nome aristocracy being dependents of the state, as such; by the time the political system you mentioned had emerged, the nome aristocracy had already become a force in its own right that just happened to exploit its position further by integrating itself into the centralised state apparatus when such existed and was profitable), although even in Egypt during the New Kingdom the Pharaoh often acted directly against the interests of those entrenched elites in order to fortify the new military-bureaucratic elite that was more dependant on the monarchy and so more loyal to it. It is arguable whether the whole Aten affair was a part of this struggle or not (incidentally, another example of a new capital being founded for this reason), but even without it the monarchy and the urban elites often quarreled.

However, I was rather talking about the peripheral states where a different socio-economic model had emerged. To wit:

If the urban elites are traders or craftsmen or medium-small holders, which tended to happen in what is now Syria, Jordon, Israel etc, there is a strong penchant for either limited monarchy or a council of some sort forming to administer the state.

This is the way Assyria was initially, and back then the hereditary, but non-absolute monarchy indeed fought for the mercantile interests of the urban elites. But constant and often successful warfare led to the rise of a military aristocracy that had entirely different interests and was much more loyal to the isshiak, who became sharru with the support of the new elite and despite the opposition of the old. From then on, relations deteriorated further, despite occasional efforts at mending relations; the constant warfare, in the meantime, damaged commerce and led to higher taxes, which meant clashes with the elites of the cities that used to have tax exempt status. For this reason the Assyrians moved their capital elsewhere several times; to stay in the old city of Ashur was to basically grant the urban elites a home field advantage, whereas anywhere else (but especially in a new city, such as Kalhu) the sharru's hands would've been untied by comparison and it would've become a much more secure bastion of power. Roughly similar things had happened even earlier and further south; Sargon the Ancient did not found Akkad from easy living - a monarch whose power was built through war and whose main support base consisted of veterans who wanted to be rewarded would inevitably clash with the established urban elites, and the fact that he was originally an usurper probably did not help either, so clearly he needed a new capital city if his new world order was to survive. Rebellions drove the wedge further. There are some reasons to think that something similar might have happened in Elam; the type is pretty similar, and, at the very least, that would seem to be the most likely explanation for the foundations of new capitals, though those did not generally last long as opposed to Susa.

I think something like that happened in the northern kingdom of Israel as well; from Shechem, which seems to have been something of a political center for the tribal aristocracy and whatnot, to the new (?) city of Samaria, and it happened when royal power was finally consolidated primarily due to demands of warfare.

I agree that it only makes sense with certain types of states on a certain path of development at a certain point in their history, but those specific cases are particularly significant to me and my project, given its focus, chronological and otherwise.

but founding a city with a small number of oligarchs in direct competition to a large centrally controlled city would seem to me to be madness

Not completely sure what exactly did you mean by "small number of oligarchs" and "centrally controlled", but while there are certainly short-term disadvantages, if they are overcome and the city takes off well (which will happen if the city is reasonably well positioned; which was often hit-and-miss), the royal power would be this much stronger and more secure, which is always something to strive towards for an ambitious king in a society that is not quite hydraulic in its basis. Anyway, yes, it often failed quite horribly. I'm not saying it's necessarily a very good idea; just a reasonably widespread one, and sometimes successful, at least in the short term.

but I don’t think it holds at least rationally to me that the majority of cities were founded in a similar way

I'm not saying that the majority of new cities in the 1st millenium BC (much less before) was founded in such a way; that would indeed have been ridiculous. This move only made sense in the specific, albeit widespread, scenario of the clash between the old urban elite and the new military aristocracy+the absolutising or absolute but insecure monarchy, and even then could not have accounted for the construction of the many cities built to facilitate and control trade and/or to secure a frontier. It still was probably a reasonable percentage, though.

The Dorian Greeks likewise built cities in fairly indefensible areas (relatively speaking to what they could have built them in) while the Mycenaean’s built them in more defensible locations.

Uh, are you sure? I don't exactly remember anything about this off hand, but wouldn't that directly contradict your logic, given that the Mycenaeans were in the Bronze Age and before the Dorians?

(maybe owing to their inability to do so)

Three words: relative geographic isolation. Although by the time in question this sort of changed, and by the wars of the 7th century BC the Delta was choke-filled with fortresses.

Climate and other issues had a lot to do with it to, but it also boils down to viability, one cannot check if a given region can support 20,000 people very easily, water, food, sanitation and the other essentials might block settlement.

Was there no easier/less expensive way of expanding a new "industry" other than developing previously underdeveloped and sparsely settled regions? Or did I misunderstand something?

with cities in the middle, with towns emanating outwards, and villages emanating outwards from those.

Only, ofcourse, historically the development would go in the different direction: from villages to towns to cities. What would be relationship between towns and cities, anyway? Do they simply connect more distant villages with cities (economically speaking, ofcourse), or are they specialised in some more specific services, at least in a more developed and specialised economy (miner towns and the similar come to mind, naturally, but what about craftsmen? Or does it simply make more sense for the cities to be the primary centers of craftsmanship)?

 

[Dachs]

Perhaps a far less contentious question here, but I'm wondering what would be the best way of simulating a state running on a national debt in a NES given a Shadowbound-like economic system. Would it be adequate to simply put aside a fraction of the Income for debt payments and have that number change based on how much money a given government is borrowing? Or perhaps state the national debt in the stats as well as the interest at which the monies have been borrowed, then manually manipulate each turn? (Probably the most work intensive for all involved.) Should there be some worldwide measure of how much money can be borrowed (silly question, I guess, but I am in need of clarification)?

Although by the time in question this sort of changed, and by the wars of the 7th century BC the Delta was choke-filled with fortresses.

Dachspmg, Pharaoh of Egypt of the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty?

 

[das]

Sadly (because an obsessive-compulsive Pharaoh littering everything with fortresses would've been pretty awesome), it was less due to central effort and more thanks to the Libyan migrations and the local nomes (and contending dynasties) deciding to take measures against that, everything else and, most importantly, each other. Lower Egypt consisted of 20 nomes, those were divided between various regional groups, dynasties, tribes and factions, and everyone and their horse felt obliged to build something nice and fortified. I'm not going to depict that on the map if it happens (oh, who am I kidding?).

 

[Dachs]

(because an obsessive-compulsive Pharaoh littering everything with fortresses would've been pretty awesome)

An obsessive-compulsive Pharaoh who has read a time-traveled and translated version of Vom Kriege too many times, and who has also somehow heard about the Carolingian projects in France and the English in Wales.

Lower Egypt consisted of 20 nomes, those were divided between various regional groups, dynasties, tribes and factions, and everyone and their horse felt obliged to build something nice and fortified.

Taking that sort of stuff out of the government's hands, while it does get the job done, prevents the government itself from using the fortresses for more than just a safety net. Political disaster. Was this a manifestation of the power of the nomes at the expense of central authority or was it in itself a growth of their ability to ignore the pharaoh (or a combination of the two I guess)?

I'm not going to depict that on the map if it happens (oh, who am I kidding?).

You did last time.

 

[das]

Was this a manifestation of the power of the nomes at the expense of central authority or was it in itself a growth of their ability to ignore the pharaoh (or a combination of the two I guess)?

The former plus what Pharaoh? Or, more precisely, which Pharaoh? As if Egypt was not disintegrating well enough under one dynasty, by this point it made the Carolingian inheritance policy look like Bismarck.

 

[Dachs]

The former plus what Pharaoh? Or, more precisely, which Pharaoh? As if Egypt was not disintegrating well enough under one dynasty, by this point it made the Carolingian inheritance policy look like Bismarck.

Oh, haha yeah. Oops.

 

[Disenfrancised]

@Masada: Whilst the 'tragedy of the unregulated commons' is an important factor in 'overfarming', I think it pales in comparison to the effects of environmental degredation and longer term climate flux. Even if each resource territory has a unitary manager, they wouldn't (until recently) have the knowledge/capacity not to overwork it with the obviousness of the degrading effect being dependent on wider climate shifts/have sudden onsets within one year - see the recent example of the American Dust Bowl.
Additionally:
1) if sustainable use of the territory has a time cycle longer than someones working life then the knowledge of how to run it is just not going to accumulate.
2) Most places in the world have climates that are not constant over the multi-century range (as we see-saw in and out of little ice ages), so even with the best management in the world you are probably going to find you have an excess of population as the conditions shift for the worse. Indeed one of the posited reasons for the dominance of Europe between 60 and 45 degrees north is its sheer climatic stablity with deep soils and consistant rains - once you had the deep plow and plant technology to exploit it, no matter how much you screw up with mismanagement or war the environment will be bouncing back within a year or three.

 

[das]

Disenfrancised, since you've mentioned climates, is there any kind of a chart or timeline or something for those climate shifts in the ancient world? I've pieced together some general details, but it's sort of sparse and generalised. Any more specific information would be appreciated.

 

[Masada]

@Dis

I agree but few NES's cover long climatic episodes, and the Tragedy of the Commons does help to explain environmental degradation, certainly your point one is partially valid, but knowledge does accumulate down generations, it accumulates surprisingly well, I’m sure we have a farmer in this thread (other than myself, I’m about two generations removed), not taking my own example (I can give you about 600 years of my oral tradition from home) who can tell you what happened in his great grandfathers time or even further back. I can tell you anecdotally that in my travels in the third world I have run into farmers who have been well aware of historic disasters and have built redundancies correspondingly into what they do (or at least an ancestor has), taking as an example a farmer I got talking to in Bali; I could not deduce why anyone would build a house at the top of a river valley (we are talking a 100 meters or so above the bottom fields which were incidentally his, the path was basically vertical downwards, my vertigo sense was quivering), he politely informed me that some probably 400-500 years ago a large flood went through which killed most of the people who built there houses above the “conventional” flood line, it didn’t matter that the event was 400-500 years in the past they would not as a community build their houses any lower. One could plainly see (at least for me) the normal flood level, on the granite walls opposite, and lo and behold way above the rest of the weathering was a series of lighter weathering which to me looked like a series of historic flood lines corresponded beautifully with past large events recorded in this gentleman’s oral tradition (he could read I think, and his children certainly could, but his ancestors well he’s no fancy la de da nobleman). Although I agree that the curve can be beyond the lifespan of a single individual, or the collective memories of many generations,

In the long term everyone is screwed one way or another anyway…

As to your second point, I don’t think I have ever said you can “manage” your population, assuming you have some climatic episode of doom, the only way I can conceivably seeing your state doing better than most you had a really large positive check on population just prior (such that your population hasn’t re-grown), a gigantic war, a huge prolonged famine, or a large plague would do it (providing your whole society then didn’t just collapse). I think I expressed the inherent difficultly in controlling population in a Malthusian world to Das, but maybe I didn’t suffice to say you can’t very well. One of my favourite positive checks is the VOC for the Netherlands, it killed approximately 5000 out of the 35,000 a year mortality rate (that alone would have made the Netherlands on the balance of averages wealthier per person, 1/7th of its dead were young males, by how much it would have made them wealthier I don’t know) [Will need to check this figure when I have access to my books, memory not exactly performing spectacularly atm].

@Das and Dach’s (I blame factual the Greek example is particularly egregious screw-ups, on being tired, and without access to my papers )

Who administers the taxation and runs the government, the wealthy elite? (most of the time, though I do agree that the military-bureaucratic elite were more loyal, and if you had one you used it; interestingly I wonder exactly how you create a military-bureaucratic elite in the first place… does one pick say the younger sons of the wealthy elite, being literate and educated, take them under the wing and make use of the otherwise landless younger sons and then does one make use of their sons etc?).

One of my secret goals has been fulfilled, I wanted someone to say “to wit” and I’ve managed it

As to your second point, no that’s fair enough, you’ve provided two very strong examples, but are what kind of length are we talking about for turns, since in a 50 year game your Egyptian example would disappear beneath the sands, while in a 100 turn even more would have fallen etc… (it would also help me write my answers, what’s white noise and what’s not is really a matter of time frame )

As to your third point [and fourth], I was tired when I was writing that (I’m surprised honestly I didn’t make more horrible mistakes, my thoughts were running in tangents ) But you caught the gist of it.

As to the fifth point, yes yes it would, tiredness and no access to my sources ftw!

Sixth point noted, I was really losing it at this point…

Yes there was, we were dealing with the founding of new cities, one can just expand the area under tillage, change the crops under tillage, plant crops suitable to marginal areas in marginal areas and the like, etc. There are always food considerations though; every acre taken out of food crops needs to be made up somewhere else with yield (just a general rule).

As to your seventh point, there are some craftsmen which are going to be in your average farming villages and towns (to a varying degree) blacksmiths, carpenters, etc and other professionals who are tied intimately to farming are going to be heavily prevalent in farming towns and villages. Trading towns and villages will have a different emphasis, they are likely to have carpenters, blacksmiths as well (but with a different emphasis, perhaps for repairing carts, or for repairing tack etc), and they will also certainly attract a varying degree of traders, middlemen, lawyers (eventually), actuaries (priests(?)), and other which tend to get attracted to trade (in most cases there will still be farmers, one cannot be to distant from ones source of food, generally), government posts will attract yet more “paper-pushers”, weigh stations are apparently also prevalent at the period, money changers, and well the oldest profession in the world follows soldiers like a glove (or is that the other way around), etc. I’ll use the linen industry for an example of Industrial sprawl, I do know that Egyptian peasants typically “spun” (not sure on the exact method) the linen fibres into thread and often made their own cloth which they used themselves or on-sold to others. That would have used up the majority of the linen fibres, but any spare would have been already been thread (in the highest quality garments I’m led to believe they did not turn them into thread that was done much more carefully and with care). Anything for export would have first probably gone to the towns or villages to be turned into cloth, then the dyeing (which tends to be fairly costly and not all together easy to do) would have been done in the cities (with certain cities specialising in one colour or another). Anything suss about that paragraph is my fault… but as a general rule cities tended to handle the finishing of goods, the villages and towns quite often handled the initial non labour intensive or capital intensive stages. Certainly specialisation was also possible, mining towns are a good example, one finds typically that either existing agricultural production was bolstered or farmers followed in the wake of the mining enterprise. Horribly general unfortunately


Yes Das, I require each and every fortified position, settlement and internal division of the nation marked...

 

[das]

I can tell you anecdotally that in my travels in the third world I have run into farmers who have been well aware of historic disasters and have built redundancies correspondingly into what they do

That's not quite the same as an extended overgrazing cycle, though. The analogical lesson that people would learn from it (or, rather, the disaster that comes at the end of a cycle) is to get the hell out of Syria.

(providing your whole society then didn’t just collapse)

I've got the feeling that might be the most important consideration here. Too good a "positive check" might be enough to cripple the harvests, which can be fatal for a suitably large and complex empire.

Who administers the taxation and runs the government, the wealthy elite?

Depends on the situation; in your typical Oriental empire, the bureaucracy is likely to start out as a separate, possibly even pseudo-meritocratic elite, and then gradually merge with the old elites: the bureaucrats will accumulate wealth and lands and/or the traditional aristocracy will infiltrate the state apparatus. The Han Empire is the best example of how those mechanisms work.

interestingly I wonder exactly how you create a military-bureaucratic elite in the first place…

What you said seems fairly likely. Another way I could think of is to fight a lot of wars in a society that is not yet fully stratified (i.e. using your citizen-soldiers, for the lack of a better term) - wealth would be accumulated by plunder, and veterans would be rewarded with conquered lands (as an example), thus creating a new power base. That's what Sargon did, not to mention many later examples, including ones within Dachspmg's jurisdiction.

but are what kind of length are we talking about for turns,

25 years, at least until things get Classical.

And I'll introduce maintenance fees for fortresses. Let's see how would you* like your dot-pecked nations then!

*not you, Masada, but other people who know who they are

 

[Masada]

Noted, I'm fairly sure if we look back a great many barbarian eruptions can be linked to economic and environmental stresses caused by common property ownership exacerbated perhaps by a drought or some such calamity... I would be interested to know if there is a correlation between climatic troubles, and an invasion of barbarians into civilized regions… (there will I’m fairly certain and it has more in it that serendipitous timing or a conscious desire by the barbarians I’m sure).

Just to have fun I think ill show exactly what are virtues and vices in a Malthusian society (at least as far as per capita wealth is concerned) apparently…

Virtues: Fertility limitation, bad sanitation, violence, harvest failures, infanticide, income inequality, selfishness, indolence.

Vices: Fecundity, cleanliness, peace, public granaries, parental solicitude, income equality, charity, hard work.

As to the fortress problem, I’m just going to deduct a portion of revenue, and have fun playing out the consequences of having too many fortresses… I quite like regional land grabs, reluctant soldiers, and a weakening of central control (not quite in this terms for my NES, and yes I’m making progress)

EDIT: Also thinking about your problems Dachs and Bananalee

* how high you tax
* how good you are in-game
* how much you invest in economic technologies
(* and occasionally in-game events)

Though of the 3 preconditions of growth I find none that would neccesarily highly correlate with growth, it ain't taxation there is some fairly strong evidence that lower taxation rates do not strongly correlate with growth and high taxation rates need not strongly correlate with low growth... how good you are in game is getting there (defining good is the key issue ), and well technology can just feed Mathlus and much as I like new growth theory technology in itself is not all that important at this stage .