Book reviews |
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| Authors: | Tom Brass |
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| Institution: | 1. Victoria University of Wellington ,;2. School of Modern Languages and European History , University of East Anglia ,;3. Centre of West African Studies , University of Birmingham ,;4. School of Development Studies , University of East Anglia ,;5. School of Oriental and African Studies , University of London ,;6. Jesus College , Cambridge |
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| Abstract: | Taking issue with the thesis (advanced by Weber, de Ste Croix, and others) about the link between unfree labour and economic decline in ancient society, Banaji claims that between the fourth and seventh centuries the eastern Mediterranean was characterized much rather by economic growth and the emergence of productive aristocratic landowners employing 'free' wage labour. These 'new' agrarian classes become in turn 'evidence' for the presence in late antiquity of early capitalism. The sources for such a reinterpretation, however, are either incomplete or wholly lacking. Locating capitalism in ancient society also reproduces the claim made by cliometricians that capital and labour are ever-present, historically non-specific and thus 'natural' economic categories that cannot be transcended. |
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