Bairoch hypothesis

Elhanan Helpman - The mystery of economic growth (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004) 72-79

Evidence on Trade Policies

Trade volumes depend on endowments, technologies, preferences, and market structures, and on how these characteristics differ across countries. As a result, the trade volumes of some countries would be high and of others low even if all of them engaged in free trade. For this reason it is not apparent that growth rates should be positively correlated with trade volumes across countries. Moreover, even if one believed that trade promotes growth, one would not necessarily conclude from this premise that larger trade volumes promote faster growth. As a result, studies that examine correlations between growth rates and trade volumes cannot provide fully satisfactory evidence on the effects of trade on growth. It would have been more informative to study the mechanisms through which trade influences growth. But data limitations greatly restrict research of this type. As a result, growth economics—like many other areas of economics that face similar problems—has turned to the study of indirect relationships instead.

A great many studies have examined the impact of trade policies on growth. We have seen that growth theory does not predict a simple relationship between trade policies and growth. In some countries a restrictive trade policy may accelerate the growth of income per capita, in others it may slow it down. The way trade policy affects an economy’s growth depends on the economy’s characteristics, such as the type of products it trades on foreign markets or the human-capital intensity of its importcompeting sectors. Nevertheless, empirical studies do not provide estimates of the growth effects of trade policies conditioned on these characteristics. Therefore estimates that exploit crosscountry variations are best interpreted as average effects of trade policies on growth, similarly to the estimates of the effects of trade volumes on growth that were discussed above.

Bairoch (1993, chap. 4) argued that the European experience in the late nineteenth century does not support the view that protection is bad for growth. According to Bairoch, the liberal phase of European trade policies lasted from 1860 to 1892. In response to an inflow of cheap grain from Russia and the New World, some countries raised their impediments to trade. France went protectionist in 1892. The growth rate of its GNP increased from an annual average of 1.2 percent in the decade preceding the policy shift to 1.3 percent in the decade following the policy shift. Germany changed its policy in 1885, experiencing a rise in the growth rate of its GNP from 1.3 percent in the decade preceding the rise of protection to 3.1 percent in the subsequent decade. Sweden also experienced an acceleration of GNP growth around its policy shift toward more protection in 1888, while Italy experienced a slowdown in GNP growth around 1887, the year in which it went protectionist. In view of this evidence Bairoch noted that “it remains generally true that in all countries (except Italy) the introduction of protectionist measures resulted in a distinct acceleration in economic growth during the first ten years following a change in policy, and that this took place regardless of when the measures were introduced” (1993, 50).

O’Rourke (2000) examined more carefully the relationship between average tariffs and growth in the late nineteenth century. Estimating a growth equation with data for ten countries between 1875 and 1914, he found a positive effect of tariffs on the rate of growth of real income per capita, thereby confirming Bairoch’s argument. 26 Allowing for fixed country effects, his panel estimates imply that an increase of one standard deviation in the average tariff rate raised the annual growth rate by 0.74 percent.

Clemens and Williamson (2002) confirmed O’Rourke’s finding for a sample of more than thirty countries between 1870 and 1913. But they also found that the relationship was reversed in the post–World War II period. That is, in the postwar period high-tariff countries grew more slowly than low-tariff countries. Clemens and Williamson suggested that the reversal might be related to the average level of protection in the world economy. When a country’s trade partners have high tariffs, it can speed up its own growth by adopting a higher rate of protection. When a country’s trade partners have low tariffs, however, higher protection harms growth.

Figure 5.2 portrays the evolution of the average tariff rate of thirty-five countries from the late nineteenth century to the late twentieth century. 27 Tariffs were higher before World War I than after World War II, and they hit record levels between the wars. This intertemporal pattern of tariffs is at the heart of Clemens and Williamson’s explanation of the reversal of the relationship between protection and growth. Although they also provided econometric evidence in support of their hypothesis, note that in view of our theoretical discussion other interpretations of the evidence are possible as well.

The economies in the post–World War II period were very different from the economies in the late nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. In each of these eras there were important structural differences among countries. The structure of some countries could have produced a positive effect of tariffs on the growth of income per capita; the structure of others could have produced a negative effect. In each of these periods the econometric estimates measure the average response across countries of the growth rate to the rate of protection. Therefore we may interpret the evidence as stating that in the post–World War II period the channels through which protection hindered growth dominated, while in the late nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century the channels through which protection promoted growth dominated. This is a reasonable interpretation, but it does not help to understand exactly what were the dominant channels of influence in each of these periods. An understanding of this issue requires studying the relationship between protection and growth conditional on the characteristics that affect the nature of this relationship.

Apart from these difficulties, the study of trade policies is also plagued by other hardships. Although in the late nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century protection was predominantly in the form of tariffs, the nature of protection changed in the post–World War II period. As tariffs were reduced in the various negotiating rounds of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), countries erected ever higher non-tariff barriers. 28 For this reason the average tariff rate displayed in Figure 5.2 does not provide an accurate measure of protection in the late twentieth century. This fact led scholars of the post-World War II period to use a variety of additional indicators as proxies for levels of protection. These indicators include measures of real exchange-rate distortions, the size of the black-market premium on foreign exchange, the fraction of imports covered by nontariff barriers, and various institutional features of the economic regimes. 29 Other scholars used outcome indicators—such as the deviation of trade volumes from the predictions of trade theory—to measure the restrictiveness of trade regimes. 30 They all found negative effects of trade restrictions on growth.

There are nagging problems with these studies. Many of the problems were discussed by Rodríguez and Rodrik (2000). Trade policies are not entirely exogenous, they are often highly correlated with other policies, and they are too complex to be adequately represented by a single index of trade restrictiveness. The Sachs-Warner index is a good example (see Sachs and Warner 1995). It is a binary index, which assigned the value 1 when an economy was deemed to be open and 0 when it was deemed to be closed. An economy was considered to be closed if its average tariff exceeded 40 percent, or nontariff barriers covered more than 40 percent of its imports, or it had a socialist economic system, or much of its exports were controlled by a state monopoly, or its black-market premium exceeded 20 percent during the 1970s or the 1980s.

The Sachs-Warner index was found to be positively correlated with the growth rate of income per capita. According to the estimates, countries that were open grew faster—at a rate of 2.44 percent per annum—than countries that were closed. This impact is large indeed. As Rodríguez and Rodrik showed, however, the Sachs-Warner index is dominated by the criteria applied to state monopolies and the black-market premium. At the same time, black-market premiums are highly correlated with other government policies. Black-market premiums tend to be high in countries with lax macroeconomic policies, tight capital and exchange controls, and high levels of corruption. For this reason the estimated impact of this index on growth may not properly isolate the effects of trade policies, but may rather reflect the broader impact of government policies on economic growth.

Wacziarg (2001) corroborated this hypothesis. He developed a simultaneous equations model that allowed him to estimate the impact of trade policies on growth via six different channels: the quality of macroeconomic policies, the size of government, price distortions, factor accumulation, technology transmission, and foreign direct investment. That is, he estimated the effects on growth of the variables representing the six channels, as well as the effects of trade policies on each one of these variables.31 Combining these estimates enabled him to assess the impact of trade policies on growth

In the first stage Wacziarg estimated the impact of average tariffs, the nontariff coverage ratios, and the timing of trade liberalization according to the Sachs-Warner index, on the trade shares. He also estimated this equation without the timing of trade-liberalization variables. He then used the predicted impact of the trade-policy variables on the trade share as a measure of the restrictiveness of trade policies, in order to estimate its impact on the variables representing the various channels of influence on economic growth. When he used the timing of trade liberalization based on the Sachs-Warner index, he found that 63 percent of the effects of trade policies on growth were through investment, with technology transmission and the quality of macroeconomic policies constituting the other two important channels of transmission. Without the timing variables of trade liberalization based on the Sachs-Warner index, the effects of trade policies through the quality of macroeconomic policies disappear. In terms of the overall impact, Wacziarg estimated that in this case an increase of one standard deviation in the restrictiveness of trade policies reduces the growth rate of income per capita by 0.264 percent annually, a significant impact.

My view is that despite the many difficulties that exist in the literature, it is fair to conclude that the evidence favors a negative effect of protection on rates of growth in the post–World War II period. Importantly, there is no real evidence of a positive link for this era. But I also share the view expressed by Rodríguez and Rodrik that “it might be productive to look for contingent relationships between trade policy and growth. Do trade restrictions operate differently in low- vs. high-income countries? In small vs. large countries? In countries with a comparative advantage in primary products vs. those with comparative advantage in manufactured goods?” (2000, 317). To this list of contingencies I would only add structural features, which have been found in theoretical models to affect the link between trade policies and growth.

Notas

26. O’Rourke’s sample consists of developed European and non-European countries: Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

27. The countries are: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Burma, Canada, Ceylon, Chile, China, Colombia, Cuba, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, the Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Yugoslavia (Serbia). I thank Michael Clemens and Jeffrey Williamson for the data for this figure.

28. Little progress was achieved in the Dillon Round of trade negotiations in 1960–1961, but tariffs were reduced by 35 percent in the Kennedy Round (1962–1967), by an additional 33 percent in the Tokyo Round (1973–1979), and they were further reduced to just a few percent on trade in manufactures in the Uruguay Round (1986–1994).

29. See, for example, Dollar (1992), Ben-David (1993), and Sachs and Warner (1995).

30. See Leamer (1988).

31. Apart from the accumulation variables, all other variables affect growth through TFP. Although some of Wacziarg’s variables closely approximate the desired channel of influence, such as the share of government consumption in GDP as a measure of the size of government, others do not. Particularly unsatisfactory is the use of manufactured exports in total merchandise exports as a proxy for technology transmission.

Bibliografía

Bairoch, Paul. 1993. Economics and World History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Clemens, Michael, and Jeffrey G. Williamson. 2002. “Why Did the Tariff-Growth Correlation Reverse after 1950?” NBER Working Paper no. 9181.

O’Rourke, Kevin. 2000. “Tariffs and Growth in the Late 19th Century.” Economic Journal 110: 456–483.

Rodríguez, Francisco, and Dani Rodrik. 2000. “Trade Policy and Economic Growth: A Skeptic’s Guide to the Cross-National Evidence.” NBER Macroeconomic Annual 2000, vol. 15, 261–325.

Sachs, Jeffrey D., and Andrew Warner. 1995. “Economic Reform and the Process of Global Integration.” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, vol. 1, 1–118.

Wacziarg, Romain. 2001. “Measuring the Dynamic Gains from Trade.” World Bank Economic Review 15: 393–429.

Gredos 092 - Séneca - Epístolas Morales a Lucilio, I (Libros I-IX, Epístolas 1-80) 274-

 47

Trato humano con los esclavos

Lucilio, conforme pide la sabiduría, trata con bondad a sus esclavos (1). No como aquellos a los que humilla su compañia, que no  les dejan hablar (2-4). A los esclavos les hacemos enemigos por abusar de ellos, exigiéndoles servicios humillantes. Pero a veces se invierten los puestos -caso de Calixto-. Todos podemos ser esclavos (5-10). Hemos de tratar a los esclavos como quisiéramos que nos trataran los superiores. Todos podemos tener un señor. Nuestros mayores nos dieron ejemplo de convivencia familiar (11-14). A ningún esclavo hay que excluir por razón de su oficio. Son las costumbres las que cuentan. No vale la condición social. Hay nobles que son esclavos (15-17). Consigamos que los esclavos sean respetuosos: si respetan, amaran. Se les puede amonestar, no azotar. No obremos como los que fingen haber recibido una ofensa para causarla luego ellos (18-20). Lucilio debe perseverar en su buena disposición (21).

Con satisfacción me he enterado por aquellos que vienen de donde estás tú que vives familiarmente con tus esclavos. Tal comportamiento está en consonancia con tu prudencia, con tus conocimientos. «Son esclavos)). Pero también son hombres. «Son esclavos». Pero también comparten tu casa. «Son esclavos)).Pero también humildes amigos. «Son esclavos». Pero también compafieros de esclavitud, si consideras que la fortuna tiene los mismos derechos sobre ellos que sobre nosotros 493

Así, pues, me río de esos personajes que consideran una bajeza cenar en compafiía de su esclavo. Y jcuál es el motivo sino la muy insolente costumbre que obliga a que permanezca de pie, en torno al seííor, mientras cena, un tropel de esclavos? Aquél come más de lo que puede tomar; con enorme avidez fatiga su vientre dilatado, desavezado  ya a su propia función, para luego vomitarlo todo con mayor esfuerzo del que puso al ingerirlo. En cambio, a los infelices esclavos no les está permitido mover los labios ni siquiera para hablar. Con la vara se ahoga todo murmullo, sin que estén exentos de azotes ni aun los ruidos involuntarios: la tos, el estornudo, el sollozo. Con duro castigo se expía quebrantar el silencio con una sola palabra. Ellos permanecen de pie toda la noche en ayunas y en silencio.

Así acontece que hablan mal de su dueño esos esclavos a los que no está permitido hablar en presencia del dueño. En cambio, aquellos esclavos que podían conversar no ya en presencia de sus dueños, sino con los mismos dueños, cuya boca no era cosida, estaban dispuestos a ofrecer por ellos el cuello y desviar hacia su cabeza el peligro que les amenazaba. En los banquetes conversaban, pero en medio del tormento callaban.

Además, fruto de esa misma insolencia, se repite este refrán: tantos son los enemigos cuantos son los esclavos. Éstos no son enemigos nuestros, los hacemos. Paso por alto, de momento, otras exigencias crueles, inhumanas, como el abusar de ellos no ya en su condición de hombre, sino en la de bestias de carga. Cuando estamos recostados para la cena, uno limpia los esputos, otro agazapado bajo el lecho recoge las sobras de los comensales ya embriagados

Otro trincha aves de gran precio: haciendo pasar su mano experta por las pechugas y la rabadilla con movimientos precisos, separa las porciones. Desgraciado de él, que vive para este solo cometido: descuartizar con habilidad aves cebadas; a no ser que sea aún más desgraciado el que enseña este oficio por placer, que quien lo aprende por necesidad.

Otro, el escanciador, engalanado como una mujer, está en conflicto con su edad: no puede salir de la infancia, se le retiene en ella; y, a pesar de su constitución propia ya de soldado, depilado, con el vello afeitado o arrancado de raíz, pasa en vela toda la noche, que reparte entre la embriaguez y el desenfreno de su dueño para ser hombre en la alcoba y mozo en el convite

Otro a quien está encomendada la selección de los comensales, desdichado, permanece de pie y espera a quienes el espíritu servil o la intemperancia en el comer o en el hablar les permitirá volver al día siguiente. Añade a éstos los encargados de la compra que tienen un conocimiento minucioso del paladar de su dueño, que saben cuál es el manjar cuyo sabor le estimula, cuyo aspecto le deleita, cuya novedad, aun teniendo náuseas, puede reanimarle, cuál el que, por estar ya saciado, le repugna, cuál el que le apetece aquel día. Cenar en compañía de éstos no lo soporta y considera una merma de su dignidad acercarse a la misma mesa con su esclavo. Mas ¡los dioses nos asistan!, ja cuántos de esos esclavos los tiene por señores!

Sitta von Reden - Money in Classical Antiquity

 Sitta von Reden - Money in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge University Press, 2010)

Introduction

One of the surprising phenomena in world history is the success of money. Money is more easily lost than gained; it requires a host of laws, regulations and controls to work and have value; in the form of coinage it costs something to be produced; and – above all! – it makes people dependent on anonymous authorities such as governments, federal institutions and central banks. Money destabilizes wealth and social relationships, and transforms tangible, useful property into mere options for the future. While it has created immense riches for some, and reasonable well-being for many, it has also created more extreme forms of poverty and the most spectacular economic crises the world has ever seen. Rather less surprisingly, there has been much resistance to monetization, and many political thinkers whose views were influential in other respects had serious objections to the use of money. 1

There is the other side of the coin. As Aristotle in his imagined history of the origins of coinage writes:

When mutual help grew stronger and people imported what they needed and exported what they had too much of, coinage came necessarily into use. For the things that people need by nature are not easily carried about, and hence men agreed to employ in their dealings with each other something which was intrinsically useful and easily applicable to the purposes of life, for example, iron, silver and the like. Of this the value was at first measured simply by size and weight, but in the process of time they put a stamp upon it to save the trouble of weighing to mark the value (Pol. 1257a 31–8).

The thoughts of Aristotle still resound in a famous passage by John Stuart Mill (1806–73) defining the advantages of gold and silver coinage:

By a tacit concurrence, almost all nations, at a very early period, fixed upon certain metals, and especially gold and silver, to serve this purpose [of purchase]. No other substances unite the necessary qualities in so great a degree, with so many subordinate advantages… They were the most imperishable of all substances. They were also  portable, and containing great value in small bulk, were easily hid; a consideration of much importance in an age of insecurity. Jewels are inferior to gold and silver in the quality of divisibility; and are of very various qualities, not to be accurately discriminated without great trouble. Gold and silver are eminently divisible, and when pure, always of the same quality; and their purity may be tested by a public authority…To the qualities which originally recommended them, another came to be added, the importance of which only unfolded itself by degrees. Of all commodities, they are the least influenced by any of the causes which produce fluctuations in value. 2

Money in the form of gold and silver coinage was so successful, according to Mill, because it is portable, imperishable, divisible, stable in value and easily hidden. It made value measurable and comparable and thereby allowed more complex transactions to take place over time and distance. It facilitated exchange and reduced the costs of transactions. 3 Socially, it created greater trust in the justice of transactions as it provided a means of recompense for the supply of goods and services as well as compensation for injuries and injustice. 4 It transformed simple markets into powerful distribution mechanisms. In its early history in Greece it liberalized labour relationships, warfare and politics as well as having made possible the first Western democracy. 5 Its anonymity and exchangeability at the same time increased the freedom of individuals, and choice.

And yet, the counter-intuitive assumption that the success of money was not quite as predictable as the story of its success suggests helps us to focus on the conditions of its becoming one of the most powerful instruments of human intercourse. If we assume that people sacrifice many valuable objectives in order to integrate money into their everyday lives, and that governments have to invent many regulations in order to keep the value of their currencies stable and functioning, we can begin to think about the stories behind the history of money. In whose interest was it to use and improve the use of money? What kind of transactions benefited from money, and why? What kind of incentives, or incentive structures, supported the use of money? What rules of behaviour made monetary payment, monetary exchange and monetary wealth accepted forms of social interaction and status signification? Most of all, what political, social and cultural systems made certain forms of money acceptable and other monetary systems collapse? It soon turns out that in contrast to common perception money does not ‘do’ anything by itself. Through money the complexity of relationships, exchange and wealth increases as it links an ever increasing amount of transactions that without money are separate and distinct. But money is not a phenomenon unchanging over time. It develops as individuals, social groups and governments allow it to perform certain functions. Put more technically, money is ruled by human institutions, norms and social as well as political forms of organization. In order to understand the history of it, one has to understand the dependence of money on these institutions, norms and socio-political contexts.

Money and coinage

Some important distinctions need to be introduced before we explore the development of money. Money, in contrast to coinage, has never been deliberately invented (either by traders, citizens or states), but comes into being as regular transactions are made by means of the same medium. When rents are regularly paid in grain, or bride prices customarily rendered in gold and silver, these media become forms of money. When different kinds of payments are regularly made with the same medium, and this medium itself becomes a desirable object for the purpose of exchange, the medium takes over additional monetary functions. If an obligation is not discharged, but remains pending as a debt expressed in terms of one particular medium, this medium also takes on a monetary function. When a payment or exchange is made, a common standard by which different items are compared in value helps to assess the equivalence of the payment or exchange. When any of these forms of payment become institutionalized, that is, many people make them in the same way, money comes into being. For convenience, therefore, money can be defined by four basic, but interdependent, functions. 6 It is a means of exchange if people make payments for goods and services; it is a means of payment, if people pay taxes, rents and penalties; it is a store of value, if people keep it in a treasure box, display it at home, or put it in a bank account; and it is a unit of account, if people compare the value of different goods on the basis of that medium, or account for debts, future payments, and so on. Yet still today new functions of money arise. For example, when investment companies began to provide loans based on the virtual money of investors speculating on the profits of tax relief or changing interest rates, they introduced a new function of money (let's call it money as a means of virtual payment). 7 As institutionalized transactions change over time (bride price is no longer paid, transactions with virtual money become more popular), concepts of money fluctuate alongside changing forms of collective behaviour.

In the past, people often used different media for different monetary purposes. Gold and silver, for example, were used as stores of value, together with salt as a medium of small exchanges and animal hides for larger transactions. Grain was used for the payment of rents and taxes, while at the same time other objects were used as accounting units or for the comparison of value. 8 Such forms of money are sometimes called limited-purpose money as they lack the complexity of functions all-purpose money fulfils. Such moneys also lack the capacity to be transformed into other monetary functions (so-called fungibility) which some monetary theorists regard as the essence of money. 9 Yet once again, the fungibility of money is never total, nor has there ever been any evolution from limited to all-purpose money. For example, in antiquity human beings (such as slaves) could be bought with money, but education, political service and warfare only gradually became paid jobs – much to the regret of conservatives like Plato and Isocrates. For a time within the medieval period, sins could be absolved with money, whereas sacred relics were regarded as impossible to be traded commercially. In more recent years, it has been debated whether the conditions of human life, such as health, blood or fresh air should have monetary value and thereby become subject to some supply-and-demand mechanism. Human labour can be purchased like sex and pleasure, but we resent the idea that human

emotions can be obtained commercially. 10 Therefore, money is never used for

‘all purposes’ nor is it fully ‘fungible’. It is more helpful to consider money
within social and normative contexts that bestow upon it, and prohibit, particular
usages.

Moving on from the shifting sands of money, we find that there are special forms of money which are more readily defined. An exceptionally important one in Western history has been gold and silver minted into coinage. The first coins in ancient Greece were made of precious metal and carried an authoritative stamp which, as Aristotle accurately described, certified its weight and value. In principle, coinage can be issued by any authority, such as temples, individuals, states or firms, but in antiquity there was not much debate over who should have the right to coin. In ancient China, by contrast, it was an important issue whether governments or private entrepreneurs should have the right to issue coins. 11 Another issue not known from classical antiquity, but seriously considered in ancient China, was whether coins should be replaced by some other object or commodity. The fact that certain questions arose in one rather than another monetary culture shows that precious metal coinage, too, is not a natural consequence of monetary evolution, but a specific historical development.

There were also other forms of money than coinage in antiquity. In archaic Greece, for example, coinage was a departure from the use of silver and gold units of weight used as means of payment and exchange in many public and

private transactions. 13 In the fifth century BC, bronze and copper coins were a
departure from the exclusive use of precious metal as money. The shift from
precious to (some) base-metal coins was a conceptual challenge as the latter
destabilized the value of money that so far had been linked to what was assumed
to have universal value. In late-fifth-century Athens the emergency issue of
(silver-plated) copper coins provoked an outcry like a moral disaster. 14 It was
the practical solution to a pressing scarcity of silver, yet at that time raised the
question of the value of money. How far should the state (or citizens) have the
power to issue valid coins the value of which depended on political decision
rather than intrinsic value? Given that the debased coinage did circulate, there
must have been a new consensus, not acceptable to all, but generally promoted
by the collective citizen body, that monetary value could be based on political
decision rather than universal, or super-natural, qualities such as those residing
in gold and silver. The introduction of bank notes later in Western history
represents a similar transformation promoted by the combined power of state
authority and central banks. By this time, however, users had long become
accustomed to promissory notes on paper as forms of money beyond coins.
Cash-less forms of money such as transferable credit notes, cheques, or bonds,
which make possible storage and transfer of money by means of written or
electronic notification, have once again transformed notions of money, and
shifted trust in the stability of precious-metal value (e.g. Mill, above) to a rather
precarious trust in the stability of law and monetary regulation. 15

Money: terminology and culture

Given the historical embeddedness of money, it is unsurprising that neither the
Greeks nor the Romans had a term that precisely matches our word ‘money’.
Both languages had words for coins (nomisma/nummus), or cash
(argurion/argentum: ‘silver’), but the general terms chremata (resources) in
Greek and pecunia (‘cattle money’) in Latin differed from our word ‘money’
(deriving rather arbitrarily from moneta, a cognomen of the goddess Juno in
whose temple coins were sometimes minted). The Roman jurist Iulius Paulus
(early third century AD), who for legal purposes attempted to define money,
suggests that pecunia included not just coins but omnes res, all things. Thus he writes:

The designation pecunia does not only include coinage but absolutely
every kind of pecunia, that is, every substance (omnia corpora); for
there is no one who doubts that substances are also included in the
designation of pecunia
(Dig. 50.16.178). 

The fact that a lawyer felt the need to define pecunia beyond coinage shows that
commonly pecunia was associated with coinage as much as money is associated
with physical currency today. Similarly, when Aristotle discusses the art of
money-making (chrematistike) he distinguishes it from another kind of
chrematistike, the art of increasing the wealth of a household (Pol. 1257b40 ff).
For clarification he calls the latter ktetike (the art of managing property) but the
two were very close. This was so because chremata did not refer just to coins,
but to all movable objects a household contained. In the Nicomachean Ethics
Aristotle describes chremata as ‘everything the value of which can be measured
in terms of coinage’ (EN 1119b26). Beyond the superficial identification of
money with coins, both chremata and pecunia were broader categories, just as
nowadays money comprises more than coins, notes and plastic cards.

In antiquity, however, the concept of money was closely linked to valuable

objects (chremata/res). And so monetary value, too, was considered to be the price (time/pretium) of objects that were purchasable. Since both Aristotle and the Roman jurists were well acquainted with price variation, monetary value was clearly perceived as a social rather than intrinsic factor of objects. 16 Moreover, as in both Greece (by the fourth century) and Rome base-metal coins were minted, it was the stamp of the coin rather than the intrinsic value of precious metal that was regarded as constituting the value of money. Paulus, once again, argued that monetary value was created by the public stamp (forma publica) rather than the fact that coins had a substance (substantia). 17 Rather more provocatively, Pliny the Elder called money rerum pretia, the price of things (Plin NH 33.1). 18 Rerum pretium was the value bestowed upon gold and silver

in the first instance, but even in the case of precious metal was not beyond social

influence. Debates over monetary value took place within the contested
opposition between value by convention and represented by the power of
governments on the one hand, and universal, sometimes supernaturally defined,
value represented by the substance of metals and useful objects on the other. As
stamped coins were money only within the boundaries of one political system,
but monetary exchange took place across such boundaries, other valuable objects
– chremata, res, merces (commodities) – had to be conceptually included into the category of money.

The value of modern money is based on central banks, international civil and
banking law as well as technical conditions such as widespread literacy, the print
industry, and electronic data transmission. This has created greater reliability of
monetary transactions beyond national and political boundaries and thus brought
about a notion of money that is less dependent on the intrinsic value of objects as
opposed to state authority. Instead, concepts of money depend on the market, an
(almost) global monetary network of transactions, an equally global economic
culture, and central banks that fix exchange rates of national or local currencies.
In antiquity international capital markets and international laws did not exist,
while banks were run by private entrepreneurs whose international relationships
depended on their own business contacts. State and social power over the value
and supply of money were felt more strongly, while highly exchangeable objects
were readily included into the category of money. This does not mean that Greek
and Roman money had not fully matured. Rather, different forms of economic
and political organization, conditions of transaction, monetary institutions and
forms of law suggested a narrower and at the same time broader notion of money
than is current today.

Money in the ancient economy

While functions and meanings of money are dependent on a wide range of social
and cultural conditions, it is most strongly associated with markets and the
economy. An economy may be defined as the production, distribution and
consumption of things, each involving exchange, payment and storage of
valuable objects as well as relationships and institutions which organize these
activities. Indeed, as money has become the major means of interaction and
communication in the economy, it has also become its major signifier: any
relationship in which money is used is part of the economy, while monetary
relationships are regarded above all as economic ones.

Notas

Loss of nobility and trade

Andre Tchernia - The Romans and Trade (Oxford University Press, 2016) 21-23

IDEOLOGICAL PROBLEMS

Let us now go back to the book by the staunchest defender of the thesis that there was a large amount of covert activity, John D’Arms. Ever since he devoted his opening pages to Jean-Samuel Depont, the Intendant at Metz in the early 1770s, and to the man’s bitterness at having had a grandfather who engaged in maritime trade, the spectre of loss of nobility has hovered over discussion of the possible participation of senators, or even decurions, in commercial activities. 57 D’Arms’s idea that ‘Jean-Samuel Depont, Cicero, Tacitus, and Pliny have this in common, that they exhibit an attitude which might be described as one of moral disdain for traders and men of commerce’ justifies a stance of suspicion that, since D’Arms, has often been taken to be a conclusive demonstration. Let us now take a closer look at the validity of this analogy with France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Until a royal statute of 1629, reinforced by an edict in 1669, any nobleman who engaged in trade lost his nobility. Unless he entered the army, the magistrature, or the clergy, he could do nothing but look after his lands; and, so, much of his life was spent in idleness. The basic principle was that the origin and justification of nobility lay in bearing arms. Those who were opposed to the mercantilism of the seventeenth-century monarchy and its efforts to establish an aristocracy of commerce pointed out several times that engaging in trade, a practice that grew in times of peace, was at total variance with the mettle of a soldier. 58

Ideas prevalent in Antiquity were very different, since the elite exercised a role in governance. As says Plutarch at the end of his lives of Aristides and Cato, the man who has chosen political life, meaning someone who has devoted himself to the service of the body politic and civil society, must have no other preoccupation, οὐδεμίαν ἀσχολίαν, no other negotium than what is entailed in his political activities. 59 This was why he could not work. A senator’s wealth came from a supposedly regular flow of income into his purse: the product of his country estates and all their ongoing activities, interest from money lent, and in some cases rent from buildings. The attention he gave to such things would be only occasional. As sources of income, trade and long-distance transport provided neither the same facility nor the same security. They demanded constant attention and action, rapid reactions (the ταχυεργία mentioned in the speech by Censorinus quoted in my Introduction, 60 all very different from the type of activity that sufficed for the exploitation of the land, with its predictable and seasonal bearing of fruits, by the expectation of rents coming in, or the equally regular production of goods by one’s slaves.

This provides the key with which to read the oft-quoted text of De officiis, where Cicero develops an argument about the respectability of professions, artificia et quaestus, which in any case no senator would practise. As Cicero says in passing, his text has nothing whatever to do with any greater or lesser latitude afforded to senators’ engaging in trade. It does not deal with them. 61 Several criteria inform Cicero’s division of activities into either base or worthy of a free man (sordidae or liberales). First and foremost is unpopularity, which taints usurers and tax-gatherers. Then there is dependency, which is all the greater when the work requires less competence. Those who have nothing to sell but the strength of their arms (operae) stand below those who at least have a skill (artes); and, to be admitted to the liberal arts, intellectual ability is required, as in architects and doctors. The problem of trade comes up twice: its first mention defines what constitutes petty commerce and why it is beyond the pale; its second, by contrast, brings large-scale trade within the pale.

In the learned portrait of the trader given by Andrea Giardina (with such talent that it must chasten anyone who would attempt to do likewise), several pages stress the radical difference between the emporos, the great trader who sails the seas, and the kapelos, the retailer or shopkeeper, which he translates into Latin as tabernarius. On this matter, the most striking text is to be found in the passage from the Life of Apollonius of Tyana mentioned in my Introduction, 62 to the effect that one of the drawbacks of maritime trade is that, in seaports, one is constrained to rub shoulders with kapeloi. 63

The latter evince none of the qualities that are estimable in traders: courage, energy, and perseverance. In Cicero’s text, the contrast is based first on social utility: those who go in for large-scale trade supply products from far away; they play a role in bringing peoples together, which, as stated above, is one of the positive effects of commerce. They tend cities, as doctors tend patients. 64 However, those ‘who buy from traders to resell immediately’ do not suffer from delays and do not effect a significant transfer of goods from one place to another. They are considered to endow goods with no added value and to render no service to anyone. Hence, the only way they can make a profit is by lying.

On the other hand, the activity of those who engage in large-scale trade (and, if they are contrasted with those who buy from traders, it must no doubt be deduced that they buy from the producers) is not reprehensible. It becomes in fact praiseworthy on the day when they tire of their efforts, deeming themselves to be rich enough, leave the port, buy land, and set about cultivating it.

For our present purposes, let us note that large-scale trade dishonours no one; it is a quaestus as defensible as the artes liberales of the doctor or architect, one that is potentially highly respectable if one proves, by abandoning it, that one is free of the defects of traders and is capable of preferring the noblest source of riches, agriculture. As Giardina says, Cicero’s idea ‘rests on the premise that any outright condemnation of large-scale trade is impossible’. 65 Whatever the case may be, though, it is not seemly for senators to engage in it.

Notas

57 D’Arms (1981: 1–2, 7). For the importance of the analogy to D’Arms’s argument, and the way he used it, see Pleket (1983: 140; 1984: 4–6). Pleket’s general position is, however, quite close to that of D’Arms. D’Arms drew on a then recent book by the American biographer Robert Forster (1981). Schleich (1984: 39–42), has discussed the relevance of the analogy and its limitations.

58 Richard (1997: 37).

59 Plutarch, Cato ma. XXXI. 2 (354f ); cf. Nicolet (1988: 176). The principle derived from Greek discussions of the city state; see Aristotle, Pol. II. 11, 8 and 10 (1273a).

60 See p. 3.

61 Off. I. 150–1. The problem raised by the activities enumerated concerns iis quorum ordini conveniunt (151).

62 See p. 4.

63 Giardina (2002a: 327–35 (Giardina and Gurevič (1994: 20–9)). Philostratus, VA IV. 32. However, Rougé (1966: 270–1) has pointed out three texts in which the kapelos sails the sea.

64 Seneca, Ben. IV. 13, 3: Mercator urbibus prodest, medicus aegris.

65 Giardina (2002a: 333–4 (Giardina and Gurevič, 1994: 29)) also draws attention to the eulogy of traders in the preface to Cato’s De agricultura. Also Gabba (1988: 94–6 (1980)); Narducci (1989: 234–5, 257–65). Two and a half centuries after Cicero, Philostratus has Apollonius of Tyana admit that, in his bout of eloquence aimed at making the young Spartan aristocrat abandon his trade, he exaggerated his account of the drawbacks of maritime trade. Ultimately, the only argument of substance remaining is its incompatibility with the elevated status of his ancestors. See also D’Arms (1981: 23–4).

Bibliografia

D’Arms, J. H. (1981). Commerce and Social Standing in Ancient Rome. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Pleket, H. W. (1983). ‘Urban Elites and Business in the Greek Cities of the Roman Empire’, in Garnsey, Hopkins, and Whittaker (1983), 131–41.

Cicerón - Cartas, Tomo III - Cartas a los familiares (Cartas 1-173)

 4 (V 6)

(Roma, mediados o finales de diciembre del 62) 38

Marco Cicerón saluda a Publio Sestio 39, hijo de Lucio, procuestor.

Me ha visitado tu secretario 40 Decio solicitando en la entrevista mi colaboración para que por el momento no se nombre tu sucesor. Aunque lo tenía por persona honesta y por amigo tuyo, sin embargo a este hombre discreto no le di suficiente crédito cuando me decía que habías cambiado tan radicalmente de parecer, ya que tenía bien presente el tono de las cartas que me habías dirigido previamente. Pero, tras la visita de tu esposa Cornelia 41 a Terencia y la conversación que mantuve con Quinto Cornelio 42, he puesto cuidado en asistir a todas las sesiones del Senado y he desplegado toda mi actividad en relación con este asunto a fin de inducir al tribuno de la plebe Quinto Fufio 43 y a todos a los que te habías dirigido por escrito a que presten más crédito a mis palabras que a tus cartas. De todos modos el asunto en su conjunto ha sido aplazado hasta el mes de enero, pero resulta fácil conseguirlo.

Contagiado por tu entusiasmo, en el sentido de que tiempo atrás me habías manifestado tu deseo de éxito en mi compra de la casa de Craso 44, he adquirido precisamente esta mansión por tres millones y medio de sestercios 45 poco después de tu nota entusiasta. El caso es que ahora, te lo aseguro, estoy tan endeudado 46 que estaría dispuesto a participar en un complot si se me acogiese. Pero unos me rechazan llevados por el odio y abiertamente me guardan rencor como represor de la conjura; otros no se fían de mí y temen una trampa en la creencia de que no puede carecer de dinero quien ha sacado del atolladero al gremio de los prestamistas 47. De todos modos abundan los préstamos al seis por ciento. Además mi trayectoria me ha procurado un buen nombre digno de aval 48.

Tu casa y todos los edificios los he inspeccionado a fondo y los he encontrado en buen estado.

Respecto a Antonio, si bien todos lamentan el trato que de él recibo, sin embargo he asumido su defensa en el Senado con la mayor seriedad y diligencia, de suerte que la Cámara ha quedado fuertemente impresionada por mi autoridad y por mi discurso.

En cuanto a ti, desearía me escribieras más a menudo.

Notas

38 Sobre la fecha el único dato unánimemente aceptado es que sería posterior al 10 de diciembre. Shackleton en su comentario precisa que pudiera situarse en torno al 23.

39 La relación con Publio Sestio era cordial desde el momento mismo en que éste colaboró activamente en la represión de la conjuración de Catilina. Como cuestor del cónsul Gayo Antonio, evitó que los insurrectos se hicieran con Capua (Cíe., En def. de Sest. 9-11) y luego, siempre según Cicerón (En def. de Sest. 12), tuvo una intervención decisiva en el enfrentamiento final en Pistoya al convencer al cónsul Antonio para que cediera el mando del ejército a Marco Petreyo, militar de probada experiencia - Salustio, en cambio, omite toda mención al papel de Sestio (Conj. de Cat. 59-60)- . Como procuestor en el 62 acompañó a Antonio en su gobierno de Macedonia, desde donde solicita de Cicerón que interceda para conseguir una prórroga de su puesto. A esta demanda se responde en la carta presente.

Con posterioridad a los acontecimientos que aquí se mencionan, los destinos de Cicerón y Sestio seguirán cruzándose (vid. F. Münzer, «Sestius núm. 6», RE II A/2 (1923), cols. 1886-1890). Como tribuno de la plebe Sestio trabajó en favor del regreso del destierro del Aipinate (Cart, a Át. Ill 20, 3, y III 23, 2-4; En def de Sest. 70). Esta mediación le granjeó la enemistad de Clodio con el consiguiente hostigamiento de sus bandas armadas (En def. de Sest. 79) e incluso que fuera llevado por éste a juicio acusado de recurso a la violencia [de ui], proceso en el que sería defendido por Cicerón. Con posterioridad volverá a ser defendido por Cicerón de la acusación de ambitu (corrupción electoral) en relación con su candidatura a pretor en el año 52. En la guerra civil fue partidario de Pompeyo, lo que no fue obstáculo para que fuera perdonado por César y para que colaborara con él en la campaña de Asia Menor. Paralelamente a toda esta actividad más o menos política Sestio debió continuar con sus operaciones financieras, y así, por ejemplo, intervino como intermediario en la reclamación de Cicerón a su yerno Dolabela de la dote de su hija Tulia con motivo de su divorcio.

40 En el original librarius, que en latín designa de manera general al que se ocupa de libros, incluyendo tanto al copista como al comerciante, libre, pero también al escriba y a lo que hoy calificaríamos como secretario (igualmente en Cart. aÁt. X III19, 1).

41 Hija de Lucio Cornelio Escipión Asiático, cónsul en el 83, Cf. Cíe., En def. de Sest. 7,

42 Desconocido. Aparece de nuevo mencionado en relación con Terencia y con el préstamo a Cicerón (Cíe,, Cart, a Át. 1 12, 1),

43 Como tribuno de la plebe, Quinto Fufio Caleno intervino activamente en favor de Clodio en el escándalo de la Bona Dea (Cíe., Cart, a Át. I 14, 1, y 5-6; I 16, 2). Partidario de César, fue legado suyo en la Galia en el 51 (CÉS., G. de las Gal. VIH 39, 4) y luego cónsul en el 47.

44 Se trata de la primera mención a la casa de Cicerón sobre el Palatino que tantos quebraderos de cabeza le ocasionará. Por lo demás, el interés de Cicerón se comprende desde el momento en que fijar la residencia en una de las grandes mansiones del barrio aristocrático por excelencia, el Palatino, era un símbolo de la dignitas alcanzada. Plutarco (Cic. 8, 6) observa a este respecto que la compra de la mansión del Palatino tenía como finalidad facilitar la visita de una clientela que resultaba tan numerosa como la de Craso, gracias a sus riquezas, y la de Pompeyo, fruto de su prestigio militar. Sobre esta compra inmobiliaria y los avatares subsiguientes, vid. la introducción de J. M. B a­ños en Cicerón. Discursos IV, Madrid, Biblioteca Clásica Gredos, núm. 195, 1994, págs. 91-101.

45 El precio le parecerá a Cicerón comparativamente razonable (Cíe., Cart. a Át. 113,6).

46 El endeudamiento de la clase dirigente fue uno de los males endémicos de la República Tardía que, a este respecto, puede ser calificada de plutocracia más que de timocracia. Si bien el desempeño de cargos públicos había sido siempre algo honorario a expensas del propio interesado, el incremento de la competitividad encareció desmesuradamente los costes, hasta el punto de que se convirtió en una práctica habitual endeudarse, sobre todo en los primeros pasos del cursus honorum, con vistas a resarcirse finalmente mediante un gobierno provincial. Sobre este particular, vid. M. W. Frederiksen, «Caesar, Cicero and the problem of debt», JRS 56 (1966), págs. 128-141.

47 Asediados por la violencia y por la amenaza de novae tabulae, esto es, por la condonación de las deudas que era una de las demandas de los catilinarios tal como apunta el propio Cicerón en Cart. aAt. II 1, 11, y Cart, a su hermano Q. 1 1 ,6 .

48 Además de Sestio, Cicerón contó con algún tipo de favor económico por parte de su colega en el consulado Antonio, a quien en justa correspondencia terminaría defendiendo en el juicio por malversación de fondos durante su mandato al frente de la provincia de Macedonia. El trasfondo económico de esta operación inmobiliaria y la relación con estos personajes puede seguirse en la correspondencia con Ático (Cart, a Át. 112, 13 y 14), además de Fam. 4 y 5. Por otra parte, Aulo Gelio (X II12, 2-4) nos informa de que una buena parte del préstamo fue obtenido de Publio Sila, al que Cicerón tampoco tuvo ningún reparo en defender pese a que este pariente del dictador fue condenado y excluido del consulado bajo la acusación de ambitu en el 66 y pese a existir sospechas sobre su participación en la conjura de Catilina.