INTRODUCTION 29
the economy, even though it is nowadays subject to constant revision, has
bequeathed to scholars several misleading views about the alleged lack of
interest of the state in economic affairs – views that even today are scarcely
questioned. By contrast, the insights of New Institutional Economics stress the
link between the development of the state and the expansion of markets that
encourages economic growth.
One notion of Finley is that the state only concerned itself with securingan adequate supply of necessities.^132 This view has two components: first, that
the state was concerned only with imports and not with exports; and second,
that state interest in trade and markets was targeted only at grain, shipbuilding
timber and metals. Alain Bresson’s contribution to this volume (a translation
of an essay published in 1987) shows that even in the theoretical literature
of Aristotle and Plato imports are always associated with exports, and that
states took an interest in both. How could they otherwise have paid for their
imports? By comparing practice with theory, Bresson decisively shows that
Greek states were just as concerned with selling their surplus produce as they
were with importing the commodities they lacked.
Likewise, the notion that Greek states were only interested in the acquisi-tion of grain, timber and metals is rather simplistic: this minimalist approach to
the interest of the state in commerce omits a great deal. States such as Athens
(but also many others) invested a large amount of resources in developing the
infrastructure of markets and trade. For instance, the building of marketplaces
supports and encourages the growth of market exchange in several ways. First,
it helps to link up buyers and sellers. Buyers do not have to go from one place
to another in search of goods; they know that everything they want will be
available on a regular basis at a certain place (aside from seasonal variations),
which reduces the investment of time and effort required to supply their
needs. If the supply of goods in the market is large enough, buyers are able to
choose among different commodities provided by different sellers and com-
pare prices and quality to make the best purchase. Competition among sellers
helps to keep the supplies constant and prices low. As Douglass North has
observed, ‘Information costs are reduced by the existence of large numbers of
buyers and sellers. Under these conditions, prices embody the same informa-
tion that would require large search costs by individual buyers and sellers in the
absence of an organized market’.^133 Sellers too gain several advantages. They
too do not have to travel from place to place to find buyers; they know that
those wishing to purchase their goods gather at a certain place every day or at
frequent intervals. If farmers wishing to sell their produce do not wish to stay
in the marketplace for several days to find buyers, they know that they can sell
to retailers who will purchase their supplies (Pl. Resp. 371b–e). In some cases,
the polis supported retail trade by building permanent shops, which could be
rented out to sellers, or stoas, which afforded protection against cold and rain
in the winter and against the hot sun in the summer.^134