Talk:Ancient economic thought

Economics of Mahavira

"Economics of Mahavira is still unknown for the world. It has all the necessary components to solve economics problems as well as to restore world peace. His economics includes both materialism and spiritualism. It is necessary for us to understand his principles and put them into practice."

This seems a bit odd, should wiki be advocating that we practice the economic teachings of Mahavira? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.155.193.127 (talk) 13:38, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Capitalist market economy

Someone should go through the first paragraph of "Capitalist market economy" and make sure it jives with the sources noted. I checked for any reference to credit cards in "Islam, the Mediterranean and the Rise of Capitalism" which is cited here, and it doesn't talk about credit cards at all. I'm worried the other items listed here also came out of thin air 24.9.165.170 (talk) 19:22, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Ancient Chinese Thought

I have fuzzy memory of seeing a quote from some ancient Chinese person which echoed remarkably closely Adam Smith's, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." I would love it if someone can pull up information on that and make it less fuzzy. Cretog8 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 20:39, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

More on ancient Sumer

The earliest of the early known economic (written) laws... and texts. Earlier collections of laws include the codex of Ur-Nammu, king of Ur (ca. 2050 BC), the Codex of Eshnunna (ca. 1930 BC) and the codex of Lipit-Ishtar of Isin (ca. 1870 BC).

Perhaps you could put in that picture as well; is itjust the Codex Hammurabi that this stuff comes from? Wikidea 22:33, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

The earlier ones were about 3 hundred years earlier or so... but.. The best preserved one is Hammurabi. They, all of them, contained codified economic laws. Even usury... inheritance... amount of taxes... fines in money for bad conduct.. etc.-- . We have the actual thing itself written in stone, instead of bits and pieces of references in stone or clay to the earlier ones.

http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/index.html

Mesopotamian Texts Archive ... Here is another link to it... along with some of the other important texts of the time. Enuma Elish is a mind boggler. That is when religion was invented. It can be tracked as we know it... right to there. skip sievert (talk) 01:45, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Aristoteles and marginal utility

The claim about Aristoteles and diminishing marginal utility is perhaps a bit too strong. There is little question that Aristoteles is at least at the cusp of the notion, but I don't know of where he claimed not merely that an abundance of something could render it no longer a good (or possibly even a bad), but that within the range over where the substance were still a good it would be put to successively less important use. I'd be thrilled if someone could identify such a passage for me. But, if no one can, then I think that the article needs to hedge. —SlamDiego_←T 03:19, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I've seen the same in a book by Fusfeld (had I cited a reference there from him?) but when I tried to find which part in Aristotle, I couldn't figure out which part he was talking about. I trust Fusfeld more than myself, but do you know what he might have been alluding to - or anyone else? Wikidea 11:41, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

In Bk 7 Ch 1, Aristoteles writes

For, whereas external goods have a limit, like any other instrument, and all things useful are of such a nature that where there is too much of them they must either do harm, or at any rate be of no use, to their possessors, every good of the soul, the greater it is, is also of greater use, if the epithet useful as well as noble is appropriate to such subjects.

This is so close to a statement of a notion of diminishing marginal utility that I'm inclined to believe that he recognized it. However, it's not impossible that he presumed constant usefulness up to some point, followed by an immediate decline to uselessness or destructiveness. I suppose that, in some sense, even that would constitute a theory of diminishing marginal utility, but still some distinction ought to be made between it and one in which distinct, significant results are derived for the range over which the substance remains a good. —SlamDiego_←T 12:40, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that, and good on you. I think it's pretty likely that Aristotle wasn't thinking about anything to do with the theory of marginal utility in the way we think of it today. He was thinking about what he said. So my humble suggestion is that you could just put that quote in itself, and then say that some scholars (e.g. Fusfeld) have said that Aristotle came up with the idea before it was reincarnated in the 1870s. Wikidea 17:21, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I would quite agree that Aristoteles wasn't working-out any implications of the sort pursued by economists of the modern age. But neither did Lloyd, who nonetheless produced a fine, unambiguous statement of the principle.

I'll wait a bit, and then I'll take your advice unless either someone produces better support (or effects the change that you suggest). —SlamDiego_←T 04:02, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I've dropped-in the quotation, and weakened the intepretive assertion. I've {{fact}}-tagged the assertion, as it needs a citation of DRF or somesuch, and I don't have any such reference at hand. —SlamDiego_←T 23:47, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

No! Don't fact tag, and wait for someone else to change it. The whole point is that you can edit it yourself, isn't it? I thought you'd come up with an excellent source: just change the paragraph to reflect what you've found. Nobody's going to argue. :) Wikidea 16:44, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, I think that it should have a link to a reference such as Fusfeld or somesuch, otherwise the interpretation would seem to constitute “original research”, albeït perfectly sound “original research”. And, I just don't want to invest in tracking-down the resource that originally informed that section of the article nor something equivalent to that resource. Anyway, I won't argue with removal of the tag. —SlamDiego_←T 19:49, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

In any case, I happened upon appropriate references for this bit (while I was researching another matter), and so have slightly expanded it and tacked-on some references. —SlamDiego_←T 03:08, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Removal of Capitalist market economy section which discussed Islamic Islamic origin of economic structures

I have a section which (1)fell outside of the scope of this article as it dealt with economic practice rather than thought, and, more seriously (2) contained a number of false claims and original research placing the origin of specific economic structures in the Islamic world. These claims are false as many of these structures listed were present in Roman times, and in some cases date to as early as the 2nd millenium B.C. See my talk page for details: User_talk:Dialectric#Islamic_trade.2Feconomics_section Dialectric (talk) 04:43, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Based on this diff, it appears that Jagged 85 (talk · contribs) is responsible for at least some of this content. He has not responded to my question, and it appears that he's getting notified of other people disagreeing with his scholarship as well. Something to look into. II | (t - c)

In response to II, I was indeed responsible for writing most of that section, or at least the first paragraph of it, some 2-3 years ago. However, at the time I made that edit, nearly all the articles dealing with those economic structures made it seem as if they were modern concepts that had no precedent in ancient or medieval times. There was hardly anything on ancient or medieval contributions to those economic concepts, hence my assertion at the time that their "earliest" known appearance was in the medieval Islamic world. In hindsight, now that there does seem to be some information on earlier precedents in ancient times, maybe it was unjustified to claim that their "earliest" known appearance was in the Islamic world. Other than that, I don't see much else that is inaccurate about it, as most of those economic concepts did indeed exist in the medieval Islamic world. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 20:27, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Of the sources used, the only one freely-available is Timur 2005. This is used to support the statement that one of the "innovative new business techniques" introduced by the Caliphate is "startup companies". If you actually read Timur 2005, you'll see that starting on page 4 he discusses the Roman origins of corporations. Clearly startup companies existed long before the 8th century, and in fact Timur 2005 is largely about the origin of corporations (which is not identical to a startup company) in Roman civilization and its lack of existence in the Muslim world. I can't see how you even read the article, and it makes me skeptical as to whether the other articles are cited correctly either. II | (t - c) 05:28, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Timur does use the term "start-up" in reference to the Waqf trust organizations on page 14. In other words, when I added "startup company", I wasn't referring to a corporation, but rather an organization. I was pretty much using the terms "organization" and "company" interchangably. As for the other sources, I haven't checked them in years, so I don't remember much about what they said. I'll try look for them again and check them out when I have the time, although that could take quite a bit of time. Regards, Jagged 85 (talk) 07:40, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

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Issue with Justinian Institutes

"In Institutiones, the principle of just trade is stated as "tantum bona valent, quantum vendi possunt" ("goods are worth as much as they can be sold for").[43]"

This quote doesn't seem to exist in either the Latin edition or the English.

The English edition.

The Latin edition.

Unless the Latin is wrong or Chrome's ctrl + F function failed me, at no point does the phrase occur. For now, I'm going to remove this quote, but if anyone finds it, please let me know (I really would love to be corrected on this - it fits my general ideas for the history of price very well).

Iateapietod (talk) 02:00, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

References

Plato needs to be rewritten

The subchapter about plato is incoherent and poorly written. 2A00:A200:0:81B:DD58:3CA9:7EDD:1F4F (talk) 11:05, 18 March 2024 (UTC)