The Byzantine Economy

The Byzantine Economy
By Angeliki E. Laiou and Cécile Morrisson
Published in 2007
280 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 3/5

I cannot recommend The Byzantine Economy. It makes for an exceptionally dry read. The writing style isn’t bad. It isn’t good, either. Reading this book feels like a chore. I had a physical copy, and it took me about six months to finish. I would read a few pages, then my brain would hurt. I would stop for a few days, take notes, and read a few more pages. Progress was slow. But yesterday, while babysitting, I was finally able to finish it.


Usually, I just skip books that I do not enjoy. However, I made it to the bitter end, and even read the footnotes and endnotes. The information contained within is fascinating.

I really like something about this book. Many academic books try to “prove a point.” These books are unbearable, because they are arguing for something. As a result, they do not feel objective. Rather than learn about the topic of the book, you participate in a nitpicky academic debate. This book doesn’t try to prove anything. It just does its best at giving a factual and objective account of events. My trained eyes detect a slight Marxist bias coloring some of the analysis. However, because the book is very well researched, it never feels deceptive and the presentation of the facts drowns out the analysis.

This book would be completely unreadable to a lay person who doesn’t have extensive prior knowledge about Byzantine history. Unless you already have a good knowledge of which emperors did what, and when, then this book will be hard to read.

The Byzantine Economy is a fascinating early case study for a completely centrally planned economic system. Most economic activity was directly driven by the state. Non-state economic activity was subject to endless regulation, intervention, and taxation.

Although the authors would likely disagree with me, I really got the impression that the Byzantine state was exceptionally parasitic. Most other medieval governments that I have read about have been fairly pro-free market.

From the very beginning, the Byzantine Empire was a welfare state. Around 650 AD, the government distributed 80,000 “political breads” to keep families in Constantinople passive. Additionally, the export of grain was forbidden. The government explicitly regulated the economy to prevent the accumulation of wealth. Preachers preached an ideology of state economic control.

Over time, the Byzantines were forced to deregulate the economy. The loss of Egypt, Syria, Italy, and later the Balkans reduced the tax base. As a result, the government grudgingly gave up economic control.

Protectionism made the Greeks lazy. Instead of traveling the world to look for opportunities, they passively sat around and waited for Armenian, Arab, and Italian merchants to come to them. Over time, this slowly made them less and less competitive. Eventually, by the time of the crusades, the entire mercantile class came to be dominated by foreign Italian merchants.

Byzantine manufacturing was just as decadent. Initially, the Byzantines were major exporters of manufactured goods. However, protectionism meant that Byzantine manufacturers did not have to adapt to changes in demand. The state also created monopolies. As a result, over the centuries, Byzantine manufacturing became synonymous with low quality garbage. After the Italians began dominating trade, they also started dominating manufacturing. By the end of the empire, all high end goods were produced in Italy, and imported into Greece and Anatolia.

The decline and fall of manufacturing can be best illustrated by Byzantine silk production. Around 600 AD, the Byzantines somehow acquired silkworms from China. They started producing low quality silk. This production continued, even through the turbulent “Byzantine Dark Ages” in the 700s and 800s. Quality continuously improved, despite the fact that silk production was controlled by various regional state owned monopolies. However, over time, more foreigners in places such as Iran began acquiring the knowledge of silk production. This new competition proved disastrous. Instead of deregulating to create an incentive to adapt, the protected Byzantine monopolies were slow to change. Over time, Byzantine silk manufacturers lost out to cheaper and higher quality foreign competition. This started a death spiral. The monopolized silk manufacturers responded by cranking out lower quality silk to compete on price. The foreigners competed by producing the same lower quality silk at an even lower price. Then, the Mongols came, opening up the silk roads. By the end of the empire, the Byzantines lost knowledge of silk manufacturing, and could only produce extremely poor quality silk that could not be exported.

Agriculture also deteriorated. At first, the agricultural system was dominated by small peasant landlords, as was tradition throughout the Roman Empire. Over time, the landlords slowly consolidated power. Taxation was proof of ownership, and many landlords used sketchy means to expropriate their neighbors. Landlords who could contribute soldiers were exempted from taxes, further increasing the burdens on small farmers.

The price of grain was set by the government. Because the price of grain was artificially low, growing grain was not profitable. Instead of growing grain, farmers opted to grow cash crops such as olives and grapes. This created shortages, and led to famines. The government responded by banning the export of grain. Growing grain for export was one of the only ways grain farmers could remain profitable, because foreign states did not have the same price controls. As a result, banning the export of grain made grain farming even less profitable, further reducing the supply.

Reading through the pages, I cannot help but cynically suspect that the Byzantine economic system was covertly designed to trap the common people in poverty. This would have prevented the accumulation of power in the hands of nobles who could challenge imperial authorities.

Although this book doesn’t discuss the Islamic economy, I have read about it elsewhere. Early Islam had a dynamic free market economic system. Knowing what was going on in the Byzantine Empire does much to explain why so many peasants willingly converted to Islam, where they had a much better chance of competing against corrupt elites.

I took very heavy notes. Nearly every page in my copy has been annotated. This will make it easy to sift through the many boring parts to find the interesting facts.

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