Several years ago, the renowned medical doctor John Ioannidis, Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, wrote an article in the Greek edition of the Huffington Post to express his dismay for a lack of interest that domestic researchers allegedly show in the study of Greece, its history, its language, and the original ideas it gave birth to, that have fertilised human civilisation.
I wrote to him to explain that this was not the case, at least not from the perspective of economists, economic historians, political scientists, and others in the social and behavioural sciences. And to prove my point I sent him a volume of papers we had edited back in 2011 from an international conference held in Athens the year before to honour the 2500 years from the Battle of Marathon. But now, in the face of the book I am about to review, I have another, if not stronger, proof to submit.
For some of us, research economists working for decades in Greece, have done all it takes to study the economy and democracy in classical Greece, and particularly Athens, and do so while building solid bridges with our colleagues abroad, so that the study of the ancient Greek economy and institutions continues long after we are gone.
The proof I am talking about is none other than the accolades that accompany the publication of this book “The Economy of Classical Athens: Organization, Institutions and Society”.
Because, how often is it that one writes a paper or a treatise in a scientific field and then meets the fortune to have a tot-top scholar in the same area vouch for its contribution?
I take it that it is rare. Yet here we have not one but three such scholars, i.e. Paul Cartledge, Carl Hampus Lyttkens and Thomas J. Figueira, putting their stamp of acclaim on this book, while additionally the latter, world renowned economic historian with piles of well cited papers and books on ancient Greece, even writing an exquisite introduction. I am thrilled to be in their company and very pleased for the opportunity to explain why I find that the ancient Athenian economy, as documented here, is much-much closer than I thought to the structure of the economy that the great classical economists observed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, mainly in England and France.
The gist of the book is clear. There was rule of law, great protections for private property, speedy and unmitigated enforcement of contracts, a trustworthy city-state backed medium of exchange to carry out commercial transactions, and a network of financial institutions that intermediated between savers, investors and the city-state administration whenever social circumstances called for bridge funds. Today, in the presence of these conditions, a student of economics anywhere in the world, having completed Economics 101, would envisage the emergence of a free market economy.
By reference to our current state of knowledge, the only emphasis missing is the time which might be required for shifting from the so-called market period, within which prices adjust to allocate existing quantities, to the long-run, which entails a period sufficiently long to permit the reallocation of productive factors from the present to other uses as firms move in or out of the market under consideration, depending on their profit expectations. No doubt then, having from a 4th century BCE observer this piece of solid testimony regarding the properties of market-based allocation of resources, it is reassuring about the structure of the economy that prevailed in ancient Athens at the time.
The book and the voluminous literature on which it draws an exercise in intellectual curiosity or, perhaps, a process of learning from the past on how to devise best approaches for solving current problems?
As I stated already above, I believe firmly that it is the latter. But now I can reinforce this view with an example. In recent years Greece faces in the Aegean another equally or even more potent threat than the Persians. To defend itself, it buys from abroad all sorts of weapons, spending enormous amounts of funds that are needed elsewhere. Kolliniatis (2024) suggests that Greece ought to adopt the doctrine that Themistocles conceived to save Athens, and at the same time lay down the conditions for its economic development by expanding the defence industry. Just think of this challenge. Within 3 years, that is from 483 to 480 BCE, Athenians managed to build 200 triremes, upgrade those they had already in place, and deploy all of them ready for combat in the pivotal morning of September 20, 480 BCE, when the powerful Persian navy appeared in the straits of Salamis. To achieve this miracle, the economy of ancient Athens had to be transformed from agrarian into one based on commerce, handicraft, and services. Greeks today should to the same. Thus, by applying the doctrine of Themistocles to the current circumstances of Greece, Dr. Kolliniatis ascertains why this book is very timely as a call “back to classics” for tackling the problems that beset not only Greece but all contemporary Western type democracies.
*George C. Bitros is an Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at Athens University of Economics and Business
