throughout every phase of the Uruk period, the expansion is perhaps best conceived
as an organic process of action and counteraction, wherein individual Uruk (city) states
scrambled to colonize specific areas of their periphery, or to found specific strategic
outposts tailored to local conditions within that periphery, in order to secure access to
the critical lines of communication through which coveted resources were obtainable
and, equally important, to deny their local southern rivals such access.
CONCLUSIONS: SMITHIAN GROWTHWorking with assumptions ultimately derived from Marxian conceptions of history,
economic historians generally contrast “ancient” and “modern” modes of economic
growth as inherently different. The former is characterized by the self-limiting growth
of largely agricultural regimes with stable or, more commonly, declining output per
capita as they expand, Malthusian constraints on population density, and a slow or
stagnant rate of overall technological advance, and the latter is characterized instead
by self-sustaining growth based on increases in both income per capita and total
output, ever-receding Malthusian constraints, and ever-accelerating technological
progress (Clark 2007 ).
While roughly correct in its general outlines, this broad-brush characterization
ignores one important pre-modern exception that is quite relevant to the under-
standing of what Daniel Potts ( 2004 ) aptly referred to as “The Uruk Explosion.” This
exception is what the historian Jack Goldstone ( 2002 ) terms “Smithian Growth.” As
Goldstone ( 2002 : 324 ) explains it, Smithian Growth is similar to modern processes of
growth in that “gains from specialization produce higher productivity and hence higher
incomes per capita as well as total growth. These gains can come from specialization
across different societies that accompany increased long distance trade, from regional
or urban/rural specialization accompanying increased domestic trade and urbanization,
or from increased occupational specialization accompanying increased population
density and local circulation of goods and services.” However, Goldstone warns us that
Smithian Growth, unlike Modern Growth, was not self-sustaining in the long run, and
ultimately amounted only to a series of bright but temporary “efflorescences.” This is
explained, he argues, by the fact that Smithian Growth was not commonly accom-
panied by major productivity-enhancing technological advances and therefore ceased
when trade was interrupted or, eventually, when initial gains from trade-related
specialization reached a plateau, reestablishing (though at a higher level) growth-
limiting Malthusian constraints.
In Goldstone’s view, then, in the aggregate, pre-modern growth is sharply punc-
tuated: short phases of fast growth follow closely in the heels of episodic and locally
notable increases in trade, specialization, and population agglomeration but give way
eventually to longer and more typical periods of much slower growth or even
stagnation. These transitions, he notes, are not without consequences. Historically,
significant decreases in income per capita can lead to a loss of political legitimacy, to
rebellion, the rise of alternate religions or ideologies, and an intensification of all
manner of conflict as self-defined factions within a declining society compete over its
waning resources (Goldstone 2002 : 325 ).
Uruk Mesopotamia can, in my opinion, be fittingly characterized as a case of
Smithian Growth as defined by Goldstone. While correlation is not causation,
–– Guillermo Algaze ––