From the Alan Samuel essay in Ancient Economic Thought (PDF), page 224:
The Frankish leaders were not hostile to the cities and towns as institutions, but they did not in any way fulfill themselves through them, and royal inattention turned out to be a neglect of which the effects were not so benign. The cessation of public construction brought an end to the infusions of cash for materials and labor which represented an important source of income for urban dwellers in an economy which did not generate much money from town industry and commerce.
Keynes, at the end of Chapter 10 writes:
Ancient Egypt was doubly fortunate, and doubtless owed to this its fabled wealth, in that it possessed two activities, namely, pyramid-building as well as the search for the precious metals, the fruits of which, since they could not serve the needs of man by being consumed, did not stale with abundance. The Middle Ages built cathedrals and sang dirges. Two pyramids, two masses for the dead, are twice as good as one; but not so two railways from London to York.
3 comments:
I liked the Alan Samuel quote above, especially the second sentence:
The cessation of public construction brought
an end to the infusions of cash
which were an important source of income
for urban dwellers in an economy which did not
generate much money from town industry and commerce.
But I like it because it describes the economy that I know, our economy in our time. So if I was writing about the Frankish leaders I could write something similar, without knowing any facts about that time in history. I wouldn't want to do that.
But I do want to confirm what Alan Samuel has written. So I can have confidence in it. That's what I was thinking, in the proofread stage.
I have a quote in my old notes, from my son's 10th grade (high school) history textbook. The book was:
Paul Thomas Welty & Miriam Greenblatt, The Human Expression: World Regions and Cultures. fourth edition. Glencoe Division, Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, 936 Easewind Drive, Westerville, Ohio 43081-3374
("Easewind" could be a typo.)
On page 566 they wrote:
"From the late 400s through the 1000s--the early part of the period known as the Middle Ages--Europeans struggled to survive as monarchs, knights, and raiders divided Western Europe. There were few towns, little trade, almost no education, and almost constant warfare."
Okay, that's part of what I need. But there is nothing in it about "the cessation of public construction". I shall keep looking.
An excellent zinger, from the capitalism article at Britannica:
"The development of capitalism was spearheaded by the growth of the English cloth industry during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. The feature of this development that distinguished capitalism from previous systems was the use of accumulated capital to enlarge productive capacity rather than to invest in economically unproductive enterprises, such as pyramids and cathedrals."
Their choice of the words "pyramids and cathedrals" is not simply by chance. It is a reference to Keynes (from the end of chapter 10). And it is not only a reference to Keynes, but also a criticism of Keynes, I take it, as pyramids and cathedrals are described as "economically unproductive enterprises". It is not only a reference to Keynes, but also to shit on Keynes.
That's what makes it a zinger. That's what makes it good reading. I can appreciate that. And it may be the most widely missed zinger in the whole encyclopedic history of encyclopedias.
But let me make a point, here. The pyramids and cathedrals of the Britannica sentence are completed structures which served, perhaps, the religious and moral needs of the few, or the many, when those structures were originally built: but religious and moral needs rather than an "economically productive" purpose.
Implicit in Britananica's zinger is our common view today that "economically productive" is good, and "economically unproductive" is bad. We are led to the conclusion that building pyramids and cathedrals was "economically stupid". The smart thing would have been to expand the English cloth industry or some other productive industry.
But this conclusion misses the point that Keynes was making: that while having more pyramids or cathedrals than people need is NOT economically productive, building them IS economically productive because it puts money where money is needed to correct a monetary imbalance and alleviate problems arising from that imbalance. Problems like unemployment.
The zinger misinterprets Keynes to achieve the zing.
Quoting William Carroll Bark from Origins of the Medieval World, page 50:
"We may conclude finally that for the West commerce did not depend on gold but gold on commerce; that in the period between 200 and 700 the West largely used up such stocks [of gold] as had been held over from early imperial times, brought in by barbarians, or donated for some purpose by the Eastern Empire; and that the reason for this loss was the general economic decline of the West, including the decline of commercial activity. All the evidence suggests that the commercial decline was in process long before the Moslems appeared in Europe. It might be added that there is very little to support Pirenne's belief that the Moslems wished to cut off or did cut off Western trade; certain of the Merovingian rulers were much more reprehensible on this score."
I read that last part as: Some of the Merovingian rulers did much more harm to the Western economy than the Moslems did.
Or, to focus on the "second-source confirmation" that I'm looking for: Some of the Merovingian rulers did a lot of damage to the Western economy.
From the "Origins" book, specifically, a lot of damage to commerce and trade.
In comparison, from Alan Samuel, "the cessation of public construction", specifically, was "not so benign" but had harmful effects on the economy by cutting off "an important source of income". In the Origins book and in the Alan Samuel essay, both, Merovingian governance damaged the economy. I'll take that as second-source confirmation. Four months it took, four months to the day.
The quote from the book is followed by Note 70 which reads:
Pirenne, Mahomet, p. 111.
And, from the Bibliography:
Pirenne, Henri. Mahomet et Charlemagne. 2d ed. Paris and Brussels, 1937.
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