No Sargon of Akkad

@Admiral Matt

Regarding your translation of ‘liberty,’ my understanding of the Sumerian texts seem to point to a divine meaning of this. Principally, the first instance of its use within the Code of Urukagina, seem to point the definition of this word to be return to the mother, but in reference to the mother goddess of the earth and mountains, Ninhursag.

As well, what I have read, points to corrupt bureaucrats and vicious tax policy instead of simply predatory lending.
 
@Admiral Matt

Regarding your translation of ‘liberty,’ my understanding of the Sumerian texts seem to point to a divine meaning of this. Principally, the first instance of its use within the Code of Urukagina, seem to point the definition of this word to be return to the mother, but in reference to the mother goddess of the earth and mountains, Ninhursag.

As well, what I have read, points to corrupt bureaucrats and vicious tax policy instead of simply predatory lending.

Well, the corrupt bureaucrats and vicious tax policy enforcers (collectors) were probably, if not necessarily predatory lenders at the same time themselves, quite in close contact and alignment with those. I'd say it all compounded.
And it all sounds strangely familiar at points.
 
It would be either an extreme butterfly, or minimal. You have probably come up with the best test case for the question of whether history is determined by individuals or processes.

As far as conjecture, maybe an earlier and more powerful Assyrian Empire? They are the ones who eventually conquered the area, after all.
 
Well, the corrupt bureaucrats and vicious tax policy enforcers (collectors) were probably, if not necessarily predatory lenders at the same time themselves, quite in close contact and alignment with those. I'd say it all compounded.
And it all sounds strangely familiar at points.

Perhaps, simply making a case that gives the outlook to other perceptions of similar issues.

The concept of a private lender being separate from a state lender or taker of taxes, is arbitrary to say the least. This distinction that we create in modern days, likely was more minor in the days prior to Sargon or totally non existent.
 
@Admiral Matt

Regarding your translation of ‘liberty,’ my understanding of the Sumerian texts seem to point to a divine meaning of this. Principally, the first instance of its use within the Code of Urukagina, seem to point the definition of this word to be return to the mother, but in reference to the mother goddess of the earth and mountains, Ninhursag.

Well, it would be strange if the concept didn't have a divine meaning, wouldn't it? Barring brief and isolated portions of the Axial Age and modern era, how many human events didn't have some sort of spiritual justification, definition, or explanation? How many major events take place in the modern United States that aren't reframed in explicitly religious terms by faith-centered communities?

Like, (white) moderns have been wont to dwell on the Mexica applying religious significance to Cortez' arrival - oh how superstitious. But turn it around and it's obvious the conquistadors were equally preoccupied explaining events as having divine support and holy purpose. With few exceptions, isn't that just what people do? Practical politics include devout people; new policy is eased by appeals to traditional values.

As well, what I have read, points to corrupt bureaucrats and vicious tax policy instead of simply predatory lending.

Meh. If it were all caused by predatory lending, though, wouldn't it appear exactly as you describe? Bureaucrats are the most likely class to have capital free to make loans; corrupt ones doubly so. If it's bad, people would want help from the bureaucrats; if it's a crisis, they aren't getting that help. Tax revenue would be collapsing in such a scenario. Farmers might violently resist taxes that would mean losing livelihood, land, or family members to the next visit from their creditor. Better beat it out of them.

Look for the root cause. What fundamental had changed? Bureaucrats were corrupt before. Tax collectors would already have been empowered to resort to force. If a system is collapsing, there will be symptoms of it everywhere, but the newest symptoms are liable to be the most telling. Especially if people at the time were making a huge deal about them.

Two issues make that grade: soil issues and bad debt. And soil spoilage was an issue coming to a peak, really.

Records begin mentioning usury relatively suddenly. It wasn't there (or wasn't worth mentioning), then it was. Shortly after, we see a debt amnesty treated as a major political act - a component of reforms apparently both urgent and controversial. Then Sargon unifies the region almost overnight. A century later and debt jubilee seems to be a widespread practice in Mesopotamian governance. Ubiquitous. From there it spreads to neighboring regions, while continuously in use for roughly two thousand years, up to the Hellenic era. The principle gets enthusiastically incorporated into the Bible as a local-government reform.

It's obviously possible to read too much into it, but given the vast distance in time from us, a lot of dots do seem to line up in a certain shape. Given my reading of later periods, when governments and faiths tied themselves in knots over questions of usury and debt, I find the interpretation hard to avoid.
 
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ar-pharazon

Banned
If I may ask why did the practice of usury and what is debt bondage emerge?

And why in Mesopotamia?

I can see the consequences-social strife and the like but how did these things just come into being?

And could sargon's unification have been a way of dealing with the social and political tensions these practices brought on?
 
If I may ask why did the practice of usury and what is debt bondage emerge?

And why in Mesopotamia?

I can see the consequences-social strife and the like but how did these things just come into being?

And could sargon's unification have been a way of dealing with the social and political tensions these practices brought on?
Because Mesopotamia brought forth so much wealth that it could easily be allocated very unequally; because its societies grew so large there to sustain Great complexity, because later on, it experienced crises which were very serious but not sufficient to cause breakdown.

All that played into the hands of profiteers. And a corresponding culture always develops.
 
If I may ask why did the practice of usury and what is debt bondage emerge?

And why in Mesopotamia?

I can see the consequences-social strife and the like but how did these things just come into being?

And could sargon's unification have been a way of dealing with the social and political tensions these practices brought on?

In Graeber's Debt he discusses the possibility that it was a function of city-state governments trying to profit off the high-risk, high-reward trade with northeast Arabia and particularly India.

The concept is, IIRC, that the trade wouldn't have been affordable without government investment, but that the combination of extreme distance and political disunity made managing the merchants and sailors involved impossible. It would have been too easy to game the system - how are you going to prove that a ship didn't go down off Dilmun, or a local king didn't seize the cargo? So the theory goes it was all about taking risk off the books of the temple bureaucrats. You give money to clan X, that plies the river trade and has major holdings you could seize if it came to that. They give prior consent, setting collateral for the chance to multiply their wealth. Then no matter what happens to the expedition, the king takes his money back with compensation for his trouble. It's win-win often enough, and always sounds win-win on paper, so it becomes common practice. So the theory goes anyway.

It's...believable, at least. If something like that was how it got started, it's not hard to picture how it spread. First it gets applied more generally with government loans to wealthy families, individuals, some too-clever sorts realize the implications, and the practice proliferates. If it dawned on you too late how nasty compound interest can be, and you have money to make loans, offering loans at compound interest is a pretty obvious solution. People in those situations tend to even encourage those in their debt to do that sort of thing. Pyramid scheme explosion.

People and communities keep having to relearn why pyramid schemes are bad, that they don't work. But if it was literally the first time it had ever happened, the breaks would be off. Magical thinking rampant.

But really we don't know. I'd be very pleasantly surprised if we ever really get to "know" the answers to those questions, though.

Except the last. I won't belabor the point.

Because Mesopotamia brought forth so much wealth that it could easily be allocated very unequally; because its societies grew so large there to sustain Great complexity, because later on, it experienced crises which were very serious but not sufficient to cause breakdown.

All that played into the hands of profiteers. And a corresponding culture always develops.

I dunno. There's certainly a logic to that, but then we have to ask why it only seems to have been invented once, when those causative factors could be applied to almost every civilization.
 
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@Admiral Matt
And are we sure nothing of the kind evolved elsewhere, say in the IVC or in prehistoric China, or...?
We are halfway certain that Egypt developed differently, but that's about as much as we really know, isn't it? It could be explained by Egypt's more peripheral Position and less complex network of economic relations (if you want geography and economy as reasons; if you prefer political or cultural explanations, these are at hand, too, but they always beg the question of how THEY came about).
 
Pretty much anywhere else we know much about developed its complex socio-economic structures in chalcolithic and Bronze Age times was influenced by Mesopotamia. (it's a bit like Western Europe and industrial revolution)
The Sinosphere and Indosphere are, from historical times, known to have developed usury and anti-usury measures/movements, too. I specifically remember Graeber's comments about the role of Buddhist temples in these economies.
 
@Admiral Matt
And are we sure nothing of the kind evolved elsewhere, say in the IVC or in prehistoric China, or...?

Yeah this is very much absence-of-evidence territory, here. We know when people started complaining about it, or trying to regulate or fix situations involving it. And we know very little beyond that. Can't know many important things. The Indus people(s) had trade with Mesopotamia before the complaints about usury appear in the latter, so at least it's less likely both invented it. But we might speculate it spread from one to the other? Maybe we could argue that failure to adapt to sudden, civilization-wide debt crisis was what de-urbanized the upper Indus before the PIEs came down from Afghanistan?

China is less certain. We can't prove it wasn't invented in China. Most Chinese dynasties concerned themselves closely with usury driving the peasantry to revolt, and the Han dynasty was trading with India and Mesopotamia (who'd practiced it for ages), and had diplomatic contact with Rome (and Med politics had involved crippling, perennial debt crises since before the Persian wars).... But all the more obvious records postdate India and the West. It's really hard to find references to usury in China before Buddhism arrived. Chinese philosophies from the 100 schools doesn't seem as preoccupied with it, from what I've read. I can't handle original sources in Classical Chinese - I can barely manage newspapers - but I turned up nothing (though the history of the coinage was enlightening). Given that Buddhism institutionalized usury, placing it in the hands of monks who had pointedly forsworn the material world, it might even have been the vector into China.

Or not. Call it Mesopotamia-or-the Indus and maybe China. The New World went culturally / historically extinct, so we're not sure. No evidence in favor. Tahuantinsuyu economy tried to be unitary and highly managed; there was no sign they had something like that acting as an economic solvent. If the Mississippi or Amazonian civilizations used it we wouldn't know. No one is quite clear when or why the West Africans started doing it, I think? Hard to imagine learning it from the Arabs, but it was old hat in Carthage, and the locals used it during the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

It's at least plausible it was invented only once. Probable, maybe.

We are halfway certain that Egypt developed differently, but that's about as much as we really know, isn't it? It could be explained by Egypt's more peripheral Position and less complex network of economic relations (if you want geography and economy as reasons; if you prefer political or cultural explanations, these are at hand, too, but they always beg the question of how THEY came about).

Egypt is weird. It looks like they just decided not to practice usury, and flat out succeeded with little apparent effort in the historical record. Until they got conquered, anyway, at which point foreigners "normalized" them.

Pretty much anywhere else we know much about developed its complex socio-economic structures in chalcolithic and Bronze Age times was influenced by Mesopotamia. (it's a bit like Western Europe and industrial revolution)

True enough.

The Sinosphere and Indosphere are, from historical times, known to have developed usury and anti-usury measures/movements, too. I specifically remember Graeber's comments about the role of Buddhist temples in these economies.

How early do you know of it in use for greater China and greater India?
 
It's at least plausible it was invented only once. Probable, maybe.
How early do you know of it in use for greater China and greater India?
I'm really no expert on the topic.
And maybe you're right that both usury and anti-usury measures were indeed invented only once in Mesopotamia. (I just wanted to say that we don't really know.)
It wouldn't be the only thing invented only once and in Mesopotamia - so were wheels.
 
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