economies of the past.^9 These debates involve far more than minor
scholarly disputes. Differences of perspective result in part from different
conceptual approaches, as well as ideological ones. So the discourse on
historical economies cannot easily satisfy all those involved in the dis-
cussion. There will inevitably be aspects of complex social processes that
will not be resolvable by adopting any single approach.
Yet without a theoretical perspective and a conscious methodology, no
analysis can be achieved. How should historians organize research in
order to explore economic behaviour? The lengthy discussions of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth century brought about a measure of
agreement among historians from the German, British, and North
American traditions, namely that neither could the process of deduction
from a body of accumulated data, nor the development of concepts
based on specific cases (induction), be expected to produce appropriate
ways of understanding historical economies.^10 As econometric tech-
niques developed in the twentieth century, economists abandoned his-
torical perspectives to historians and sociologists, in effect postponing
the quest for long-term economic mechanisms or universal principles,
even though many economists assume that long-term, if not universal
economic patterns do exist.^11 The editors and some of the contributors
to the newCambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
(CEHGRW)have opted for one way of cutting this Gordian knot, namely
by adopting the general approach of the‘New Institutional Economics’,
particularly the form in which these ideas are presented in the works of
Douglass North.^12 Nevertheless, institutional approaches to historical
economies are not particularly new. Thorstein Veblen’sThe Theory of
the Leisure Class(1899) inspired several generations of sociologists
and socially-minded economists, who wanted to allocate much more
importance to social responses and to consumer attitudes. Although
several chapters in theCEHGRWare devoted to consumption, their
focus is overwhelmingly on the consumption of food, rather than of
(^9) Granovetter 1985, esp. 481–93, 499–503; Morris in Finley 1985 [1999] xxviii–xxxii,
with a discussion of Finley’s ideas, which can be critiqued as‘under-socialized’, as well as
‘over-socialized’.
(^10) Hodgson 2001, 79–177, with detailed discussion; cf. also the contributions to Rawski
et al. 1996.
(^11) Hodgson 2001, 232–57, 273–86.
(^12) Scheidel et al.,CEHGRW, 5 – 12 for a programmatic statement adopting the concepts
of‘New Institutional Economics’(NIE) as applicable for the remote past of Eurasia; ibid.
113 – 43 for a fuller exposition of the potential value of NIE as a theoretical set of tools for
ancient history by Frier and Kehoe; P. Bang’s review,JRS99 (2009), esp. 199–206 provides a
broader context for these ideas and their applicability.
90 Societies and economies