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The Economic Complexity of the Western Roman Empire

156 points mikk14 3 days ago 38 comments

db48x 1 day ago | parent

Server died already?

KaseyKim 1 day ago | parent

impressive

geniium 1 day ago | parent

Wanted to read more on this

justin_dash 1 day ago | parent

Same here - I suppose this article did what it was supposed to do - give a short primer introducing the topic and if you want to see how they computed this look at the paper!

robertacion 1 day ago | parent

The last paragraph is a reference to Cato the Elder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthago_delenda_est

"As a third and final action point, I am of the opinion that Carthage must be destroyed."

mcswell 23 hours ago | parent

And now, Moskva delenda est.

smallmancontrov 22 hours ago | parent

Russia has been embarrassingly bad at conquering Ukraine, but it's truly incredible how thoroughly their talking points have conquered conservatives in the USA. They frame anything other than complete capitulation to Russian invasion as crazed aggression against Russia, as if Russia didn't send its conquering army out of its borders and couldn't withdraw that army at any time and be left alone.

MadrasTh0rn 21 hours ago | parent

Think about what you can see on a political level and now think what you don't see towards children education where Trump started his work in 2017

nickff 20 hours ago | parent

>"They frame anything other than complete capitulation to Russian invasion as crazed aggression against Russia..."

This has been common among many groups for a long time; I recall the GWB administration proposing a missile interceptor system based in Eastern Europe in the mid-oughts, and Democratic Party members in congress opposed it as 'provocative'. The (Liberal) Canadian government of the time opposed that as well as the Alaska based 'shield' as being 'aggressive'.

I suspect this has something to do with (politically self-identified) disempowered groups generally wanting to 'shoot down' initiatives, but the Trump administration seems to have a different motivation.

ted_bunny 19 hours ago | parent

Just like Iran has been aggressively being encircled by our helpless inmocent bases for decades? Can't believe people are still swallowing this imperial propaganda. A tale as old as time and people still refuse to learn from it.

smallmancontrov 18 hours ago | parent

No, those two things are not equivalent. Posture and capabilities are open to interpretation in a way that armies crossing a border and bombing your cities simply isn't.

nickff 17 hours ago | parent

Shipping weapons, ammunition, and other supplies to one side in an active conflict is much more 'provocative' than building a facility located hundreds or thousands of kilometers from the border of a potential adversary.

Most things which differ are not equivalent; pointing that out isn't helpful.

geysersam 16 hours ago | parent

In a security order based on mutual assured destruction, a capable missile defence system is a threat.

nickff 16 hours ago | parent

Lots of things are threats, including long-range stealth bombers, of which the USA already fields 19, and is manufacturing more. Attack submarines are a threat as well, because they can destroy SSBNs, which are the only credible second-strike credibility.

whywouldyoucare 19 hours ago | parent

Well, the nazis tried it with the Jews, now you are trying this with Russians.

I cannot but wish you the same end as that of your nazi predecessors.

kakacik 15 hours ago | parent

False equivalency at its best, apart from other missteps you make

whywouldyoucare 14 hours ago | parent

It would be indeed a "misstep" had I not reacted to an open call for the genocide of the Russian people. (Allowed by the way quite liberally on your "social networks" and here.)

As for "false equivalence", you are not a Russian, so it is really not for you to speak.

nkmnz 1 hour ago | parent

Well, the nazis tried it with the Jews, now the Russians try it with Ukrainians.

akkartik 21 hours ago | parent

I'll just leave this here: I think the destruction of Carthage was a great catastrophe. Both for the world from a humanitarian perspective and for Rome which squandered a lot of economic generativity.

zaubarari 19 hours ago | parent

If Rome had stayed a local power, could a divided Mediterranean have been even more dynamic than a unified empire? Perhaps rivalry between regional powers would have inspired greater human achievement. There certainly would have been wars, but not necessarily more than those the Roman Empire actually fought.

akkartik 19 hours ago | parent

Rome conquered many places without committing genocide. The fate of Carthage stands out even by the standard of the time.

soperj 13 hours ago | parent

Can you name some?

Genocide seemed to be part and parcel.

akkartik 13 hours ago | parent

Notice how few examples there are in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbicide#In_premodern_times, and how prominently Carthage figures. Or scan the years in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Razed_cities.

The usual approach of the time was enslavement and taxation. Because they were less effort and more reward.

5040 20 hours ago | parent

And speaking of Cato and economic complexity:

As his income grew, Cato also became a regular investor in commercial lending. Although a law from 218 BC banned senators from engaging directly in commercial shipping, Cato formed partnerships of fifty investors that backed the commercial operations of fifty ships. He fronted all of the initial capital and then lent money to investors that they could each use to buy a share in the enterprise. Cato himself entrusted one share to a freed slave who acted as his agent. He then profited from the trading activities as well as the interest on these loans, while following the letter of the law and limiting his direct exposure in case the cargo was lost.

robotomir 1 day ago | parent

So they estimate economic complexity by the number of discovered Latin documents or inscriptions. Wasn't Greek prevalent in the East?

yorwba 1 day ago | parent

Which is why the title explicitly names the Western Roman Empire, and the article briefly discusses data issues with Greek inscriptions near the end.

crefiz 1 day ago | parent

can't read it seems

bartnp 1 day ago | parent

No, based on the professions named within the inscriptions. If a province has relatively many professions that are rare for the WRE, then it's considered more complex. See the paper for the actual estimates, the map in the article does not show the complexity estimation

ianbooker 1 day ago | parent

They really do a lot to correct for bias, but is it enough?

I would suspect that a prosperous and thereby complex economy also has more resource to discover or document inscriptions. While they talk about researcher bias, they do not really mitigate this.

And yes, I searched the article and the extensive additional material.

Still a valuable contribution.

randysalami 23 hours ago | parent

I’d argue that a complex economy in a failing society is actually a sign of weakness. Lots of nobles and the likes wanting their cut of a pie that doesn’t really exist anymore. So all of that complexity is not really backed up by the reality and you just have a bubble. I can imagine all kinds of roles and professions that just exist to endow people. This also happens a lot in modern society.

I know this wasn’t actually your point but I just wanted to add.

esafak 22 hours ago | parent

For current info see https://oec.world/

https://atlas.hks.harvard.edu/

zormino 21 hours ago | parent

I'm curious if that third factor is just geography

davedx 21 hours ago | parent

That was my first thought. Playing Civ games and reading books like Prisoners of Geography makes it pretty explicit

AcerbicZero 19 hours ago | parent

Carthago delenda est.

whywouldyoucare 19 hours ago | parent

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Testaccio

It is 35 metres high now, 20,000 or so m^2, after 1500 years, and composed of ancient pottery fragments (the trade went sharply down after the 5th century A.D.)

Caesar reports of a wall more than 20 km long, several meters high, with a canal in front of it, constructed by a legion or two, I don't remember now exactly, in two weeks time. Maybe an exaggeration, but..

And the real question for me, is how they managed to do the logistics, with just the Roman numbers.. So the economical complexity should not be such a surprise, I suppose.

noosphr 17 hours ago | parent

>honored tradition of ignoring the fact that women exist and do stuff

Yes, they birthed and raised children.

As someone raising children, and having been a child myself, the erasure of children from the historical record by academics is far more egregious than ignoring what a fraction of women did.

decidu0us9034 14 hours ago | parent

What does this have to do with economic complexity? Could you elaborate? You mean like child labor? What's the fraction, how small is it? I don't get it. "As a former child" is hilarious though

JumpCrisscross 17 hours ago | parent

If this is your vibe, Erdkamp’s The Grain Market in the Roman Empire is worth a read.

It’s easy to project modern markets onto ancient empires. But proper capital market are just a break from ancient ways of thinking in ways that are surprising.