stands in contrast to the views held by many historians of ancient Mesopotamia who
- without regarding the theoretical implications – apply unconsciously their experiences
with today’s market-oriented economy to ancient economies (Stol 2004 : 904 – 909 ).
Several statements made by Polanyi to substantiate his theory are no longer tenable
(Renger 1984 ). Nevertheless, the question remains whether such arguments affect
his entire theory concerning marketless trading, modes of exchange, the ways the
populace acquires its daily necessities or, more generally, the character of ancient
economies. This appears not to be the case. One also has to reckon that quite a number
of scholars of different theoretical and factual orientation have emphatically insisted
on the difference between ancient or premodern economies and modern economies –
some of them long before, others after Polanyi’s theory was subject to dispute. And
they have shed doubt on economic theories that conceive and analyse ancient economies
as well as peasant economies in terms of neo-classical market-oriented economic theory
(Renger 1994 b). One should just mention Thorstein Veblen ( 1899 ) and Siegfried
Morenz ( 1969 ) applying Veblen’s ideas to the economy of Ancient Egypt, Victor
Kula ( 1976 ) offering an explanation of the feudal economy in Poland in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, disregarding neo-classical market theories. Based on his
experience in developing countries, Chris Gregory ( 1982 ), a representative of traditional
political economic theory, also argued in this direction. Moses Finley ( 1985 ) explained
the economy of Ancient Greece in Polanyian terms. Douglas C. North ( 1981 ), the
Nobel laureate, who basically adheres to positions of neo-classical economic analysis,
concedes that several phenomena of ancient economies defy an explanation in neo-
classical terms. Nor should one forget Wallerstein, Godelier or Sahlins.
Of interest in the present context is the impact Polanyi has had on the study and
conception of the economy of ancient Mesopotamia. Under A. L. Oppenheim’s direction,
Sweet wrote his Chicago dissertation ( 1968 ) ‘On Prices, Moneys, and Money Uses in
the Old Babylonian Period’. As indicated not only by the title but also expressis verbis
in the introduction, the dissertation was a case study with respect to Polanyi’s theories.
Oppenheim, himself, refers approvingly to Polanyi, although he is more cautious
regarding the non-existence of markets all over the Ancient Near East when he states
that ‘one gains the impression that the institution of the market was at home outside
Mesopotamia, in Elam, and in Anatolia... In Mesopotamia it seems to represent a
late development... and was clearly of limited and marginal importance’ (Oppenheim
1977 : 129 ). The central concerns of Polanyi were what he termed marketless trading,
administered trade and the role of ports-of-trade. For him the overland trade of
Assyrian merchants from Assur with Cappadocia (twentieth–eighteenth centuries BC)
constituted a striking example of administered trade. Klaas Veenhof ( 1972 ) could
falsify Polanyi’s assumptions regarding the Old Assyrian trade with Cappadocia as
administered trade on the basis of a more intimate knowledge of the primary sources,
now more plentiful than at the time when Polanyi formulated his theses. It was only
in the 1980 s that Polanyi’s theories became an issue for those studying the Mesopo-
tamian economy. Some were approving, others sceptical or even extremely critical^1
towards Polanyi’s tenets. Vargyas ( 1987 ) argues from a viewpoint that is basically
determined by neo-classical theory and without taking cognicance of the critique
voiced also by economists, that a different approach is needed when analysing pre-
modern economies. The critique of Polanyi’s tenets by Gledhill and Larsen ( 1982 )
neglects the analytical value of Polanyi’s paradigm regarding the concept of
— Johannes Renger —