Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2019 July 22

= July 22 =

Economy during the time of Jesus
What is a good way to describe the economic system that Jesus lived in? I would assume it's vaguely capitalistic, in that people would produce their own goods (farming, ranching, trades) and services, which they would sell to other people. But capitalism is a modern concept- is it inappropriate to describe that system as capitalistic? Or am I totally wrong about how things worked? Staecker (talk) 18:20, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Terms that come to mind are traditional economy and agrarian economy. The way our article on the history of capitalism is written, the progression was (something)→feudalism (9th century)→agrarian capitalism (14th century)→mercantilism (16th century)→industrialization (18th century)→modern capitalism (19th/20th century). I’m not sure what predates feudalism in the timeline our article presents, but it’s pretty clearly not capitalism. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 18:37, 22 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Jesus lived in the Roman Empire. See main article Roman economy:


 * "Beginning in the early Roman Empire, the economy became monetized to a near-universal extent, in the sense of using money to express prices and debts, and a basic banking system was formed. Emperors issued coinage stamped with their portraits to disseminate propaganda, to create public goodwill, and to symbolise their wealth and power. " Dimadick (talk) 19:10, 22 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Ye, well, let's keep it simple.
 * Roman economy was agrarian, for sure.
 * It was also a slave labor economy for a huge part.
 * Was it capitalist? Our article begins with a definition: Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Characteristics central to capitalism include private property, capital accumulation, wage labor, voluntary exchange, a price system and competitive markets.
 * Which obviously apply (*) to Roman Economy; or, for that matter, any economy except the most primitive and the socialist (these both lacking private ownership, profit, price and wage system...). What is muddying the water (instead of helping) is the marxist idea of progression of the economy and the society (linked together) toward modern capitalism.
 * (*) While wage labor is certainly more in line with capitalism than slavery, a society doesn't stop being capitalist just because any amount of slavery (eg: ante-civil war USA)
 * Gem fr (talk) 21:14, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Bear in mind that the empire was not close to uniform in its scale of development, whether economically or culturally, and at the time of Christ, Iudaea was a cultural backwater that hadn't been part of the empire long enough to be integrated economically as much as many other regions were. Granted, some Roman innovations had penetrated to the point that Jesus' audience could understand these concepts:"''You wicked, lazy servant!' replied his master. 'You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed. Then you should have deposited my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received it back with interest.' [Parable of the Talents; Christ used a similar phrase with the Parable of the Minas] 'Show me the coin used for the tax.' And they brought him a denarius. 'Whose likeness is this,' he asked, 'and whose inscription?' 'Caesar's,' they answered. So Jesus told them, 'Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's.' [paying taxes to Caesar]"However, I suspect Andreu is referring to the more-developed areas like Italy, Greece, and scattered Roman colonies elsewhere; unless he specifically addresses backwaters like Iudaea or northwestern Hispania Tarraconensis, I don't think we can use his statement as the basis for describing the economy in which Christ or his neighbors participated.  Nyttend (talk) 23:26, 22 July 2019 (UTC)


 * There were definitely slaves in Roman Judaea, but I doubt whether there were many large-scale slave-worked plantations (latifundia), as existed in some other regions. In any case, the core of the Jewish population of Judea lived on roughly the southern half of what would now be called the West Bank hill chain (from Ramallah to Hebron or slightly north of Hebron), on terrain that was not particularly suitable for large-scale plantations.  There was a money economy, but it did not much resemble "capitalism" according to the classic definitions of Max Weber... AnonMoos (talk) 03:21, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Please also note that slavery in the Roman Empire was not the same as the modern concept of slavery. In the Roman Empire the "master" would work along side the slave in the fields or vineyard. The slave would become part of the family and was very rarely mistreated. Slaves earned wages and could amass a large fortune and could buy their freedom, becoming freedmen. Slaves were generally from conquered peoples and slavery was a way of assimilating new populations into the Empire. Take the populace into your home, educate them show them hat the Roman way is best and have their children grow up in your home without animosity toward the Empire. The children would also be your slaves but the children of freedmen (not freemen) would be Roman citizens and could own property, businesses and enter politics. Thanks Anton 81.131.40.58 (talk) 08:52, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Slavery in the Roman Empire was complex. Slaves were treated well in some cases. Others were treated horribly. Being sent to work in the mines was effectively a death sentence. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 04:29, 24 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Slaves had no guarantee of good treatment, and if they were held someplace where large numbers of slaves did hard physical labor (farms, mines, etc.) then they had little possibility of improvement in their situation. However, Roman slavery was still different from slavery in the American South (the form of slavery which many people now know most about) because there was no overall racial component in the way that modern people would understand it, and there were a number of recognized and customary paths to "freedman" status.  AnonMoos (talk) 04:55, 24 July 2019 (UTC)


 * You understand the point of the OP is about to describe the economic system that Jesus lived in, not about slavery, right? Gem fr (talk) 07:23, 24 July 2019 (UTC)


 * You were the one who raised the issue of a "slave labor economy", which applied to the Roman Empire as a whole to some degree, but probably much less to the province of Judaea... AnonMoos (talk) 08:49, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I am not certain if it relevant, but one of Jesus' alleged miracles involved the healing of a slave. See Healing the centurion's servant. The centurion calls the sick man "doulos", the Greek term for "slave". Dimadick (talk) 09:13, 24 July 2019 (UTC)