The Ability in Antiquity of Some Agrarian Societies to Avoid the Malthusian Trap and Develop

Clement Tisdell and Serge Svizzero ()
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Serge Svizzero: CEMOI - Centre d'Économie et de Management de l'Océan Indien - UR - Université de La Réunion

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Abstract: This article presents a simple economic theory (and associated evidence) to explain how some early agriculturally based preindustrial societies developed despite most of their population being subject to Malthusian dynamics. Their development depended on a dominant class limiting its membership and extracting an economic surplus which it could use (among other things) to accumulate capital and advance knowledge thereby adding to this surplus. The evolution of urban centers facilitated this development process. Extraction of the agricultural surplus prevented increased population from dissipating this surplus and curtailing development. Examples are given of early economically extractive and non-inclusive societies which were long lasting. Their persistence is at odds with the views of some contemporary development economists about the development prospects of these types of societies.

Keywords: institutional economics; Malthusian trap; Neolithic development; population dynamics; social inequality and development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-08-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo and nep-his
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.univ-reunion.fr/hal-02145482
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Published in Forum for Social Economics, 2017, pp.1-26. ⟨10.1080/07360932.2017.1356344⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02145482

DOI: 10.1080/07360932.2017.1356344

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