[spudlyo]

It's interesting that commerce/business was this sophisticated in the Bronze Age. I guess it's not that surprising given the famous customer service complaint[0] cuneiform tablet to Ea-nāṣir about receiving the wrong grade of copper ingots and his servant receiving rude service.

It's also no wonder that the thing a theory describes exists long before the theory itself. We had language well before we had grammarians, and we had music long before music theory existed. Adam Smith didn't invent moral sentiments or market economics, just as Pythagoras didn't invent music. The article weirdly makes a big deal out this.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complaint_tablet_to_Ea-n%C4%81...

[cwnyth]

Everyone points to Ea-nasir, but that's a meme. Meanwhile, Diocletian outlawed price gouging and standardized prices across a variety of goods:

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

From Polanyi, Finley, and Weber to Austin and Malkin, we've come a long way in recognizing the sophistication of ancient economic thought.

[spudlyo]

We are about ~300 years closer to Diocletian than Diocletian was to Ea-nasir. Too bad he didn't have access to Adam Smith, who could have told him that price fixing wouldn't work and might have pointed to Roman currency debasement as one of the major causes of inflation. Of course greed is always a factor I suppose.

[cwnyth]

Fair! Chronologically, at least, Diocletian's time is closer to us, though not technologically or population-wise. And by Diocletian's time, inflation was already out of control. If anything, the political stability that came with Diocletian's reforms actually helped bolster the economy, though it wouldn't last, as soon the center moved to Byzantium, leaving Rome (and Italy) to whither and die over the next century.

[dosisking]

I guess Diocletian was the first Communist, before there was such a thing as Communism.

The price fixing was a failure, as would be expected. I am not sure if 'sophistication' is the right word to describe it.

[WalterBright]

> we've come a long way

See "Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Controls" which shows that humans are very slow learners.

https://www.amazon.com/Forty-Centuries-Wage-Price-Controls/d...

[psychoslave]

You forget to mention life and biology, earth and geology, universe and cosmology.