History of Economic Thought. Ancient Egypt and Babylonia (most important)

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History of Economic Thought. Ancient Egypt and Babylonia (most important)

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2. ANCIENT EGYPT AND BABYLONIA

On the territory of ancient Asia, large centers of civilization were formed, slave ownership reached significant development, and the first slave-owning states arose. Numerous historical monuments allow us to judge the origin and development of economic ideas.

In the example ancient egypt humanity has the earliest monuments of economic thought in the history of self-organization within the framework of state formations. The most important is considered "Instruction of the Heracleopolis king to his son Merikar" (XXI century BC) и “The Speech of Ipuser” (beginning of the 18th century BC). The first monument reflects the economic functions of the state, the “rules” of public administration, and methods of economic management, the mastery of which is as important for the ruler as any other sphere of art. The “Speech of Ipuser” describes the social revolution (“the common people of the country became rich”), the destruction of the centralized control system and the consequences of this. The main idea of this speech is to prevent the uncontrolled growth of loan operations, debt slavery and usury in order to avoid the enrichment of commoners and the outbreak of civil war in the country.

For the first time in world history, the author proves that social inequality is quite natural, since people are unequal by nature. Delivering his speech allegedly before the king of Egypt, he was indignant at the fact that as a result of the coup, the slaves began to "own their mouths", the poor received the property of the rich and the latter had to work.

In Babylonia - an ancient eastern state located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the most famous are two collections:

1 )laws of King Eshnunna (XX century BC), in which economic issues were interpreted;

2) laws king of the first Babylonian dynasty Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC), or code of laws, which operated in this country in the 18th century. BC e. In accordance with it, in order to avoid the destruction of natural-economic relations and a threat to the country's sovereignty (due to the weakening of state structures and the army from reduced tax revenues to the treasury), extremely strict legal norms were introduced. The most interesting for characterizing the economic thought of Babylonia are the articles that reflect the protection of citizens’ property, the rules of rent, hiring and usury, so that “the strong do not oppress the weak,” and provide for various forms of state regulation and control of the economic activities of the population.

Some examples of legislative guidelines in the code of Hammurabi:

1) anyone who encroaches on someone else’s private property, including a slave, is punishable by slavery or the death penalty;

2) for untimely payment of debts, neither the tsarist soldiers nor other citizens are no longer deprived of their land;

3) the period of debt slavery (of a wife, son, daughter, father) should not exceed 3 years, and the debt itself is canceled after serving the sentence;

4) the limit of a cash loan cannot exceed 20%, in kind - 33% of its initial amount. Trade is treated as a normal phenomenon. Many articles were devoted to its regulation, the hiring of artisans and the slave trade are allowed.

Author: Tatarnikov E.A.

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