Customer Reviews

Warriors into Traders: The Power of the Market in Early Greece (Classics and Contemporary Thought)

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In this book, Tandy tells the story of the rise of the market economy in the Greek world. His version of this story is that Greece in the Archaic period (776-490 b.c.e.) underwent a transformation from a redistributive/reciprocal economy based on exchange obligations between neighbors and between chiefs and subordinates to one based on market exchange. Tandy makes a Marxist argument (though not particularly "half-baked," I think) that the rise of the market economy in cities in Greece allowed the upper classes (those who had surplus wealth) to enrich themselves in overseas trade while the poorer classes became indebted to them through a kind of economic attrition. Tandy also argues, contrary to many scholars, that Greek overseas colonization in this period was the result of economic/commecial expansion rather than population pressure. Tandy's third major argument is that epic poetry is a "tool of exclusion," in that elites used epic poetry as a kind of propaganda to disguise the fact that their society no longer conformed to the more "egalitarian" redistributive economy.

There are some flaws to Tandy's method: 1) the basis for arguing that there was a redistributive/reciprocal economy in the early Archaic period and Greek Dark Ages is mostly comparative evidence -- this is because there really isn't any good indigenous evidence for this kind of economy; 2) Tandy uses Hesiod's "Works and Days" as a model for a peasant perspective, which is a controversial move (Hesiod was probably not a peasant, but a gentleman farmer), and his general indictment of epic as a tool of exclusion is speculative (at least the kind of exclusion he's talking about; epic certainly excludes in other ways in that it advertises an aristocratic ethos).

I found his arguments for Greek colonization as commercial expansion rather than population export to be convincing; he analyzes patterns and sites of colonization, showing that colonies were generally founded on defensive, non-productive (agriculturally) sites first, and, in many cases, follow-up colonies would be founded in areas more amenable to farming. All told, there is much that is useful and interesting in this book, but the book's main arguments are ill-founded and agenda-driven.

Tandy's first three chapters get the book off to a great start. After a brief introductory chapter tracing the overall line of argument, he gets down to business with an excellent study of population growth in Dark Age Greece, presenting a broad picture buttressed by specifics from archaeological studies. In Chapter Three, he describes the establishment and growth of the Greek colonies, which were later to play such an important part of Greek society.

But from there it's all downhill. Chapter Four presents an extended theoretical discussion of social organizations, with applications to early Greek society. Tandy is attempting to establish that Greek society made a transition from a patronage-based system (in which material wealth flows down from the leader in return for loyalty flowing up) to a market-based system (in which the creators of wealth exercise direct control over its distribution). However, this subject has been handled in great detail in the anthropological literature, and I think that Tandy's treatment of it is weak. He's trying to fit existing theory onto the Greek experience, and while the fit isn't bad, he has to stretch it in a few places to make it work.

In Chapter Five he directly addresses the transition from the patronage-based system to the market-based system, and here his discussion descends into a hopeless muddle. Part of his problem is that he has completely missed one of the most important elements of the Greek transformation: the shift from a subsistence economy (relying exclusively on cereal production) to a market economy in which processed foodstuffs (wine and olive oil) are exchanged for cereals. This market-based approach is what enabled the Greeks to continue rapid population growth long after they had exceeded the cereal-based carrying capacity of their lands. There is no question that by the Classical period, many Greek cities were dependent upon grain imports paid for with wine, olive oil, and manufactures -- but Tandy fails to address this development.

The remainder of the book is a sad effort to justify his misinformed thesis. Tandy claims that the central driving force in Greek society during the eighth and seventh centuries was the conflict between the old aristocracy and the new market-based egalitarians. He claims that the Iliad and the Odyssey were promulgated by the aristocracy as a kind of propaganda to justify their elevated status, while Hesiod's Works and Days represents the growing power and resentment of the producing classes. Tandy seems to see the development of Greek Classical society as a class revolt by the proletariat against the aristocracy. But this conflict was not resolved in the eighth and seventh centuries -- they were still fighting this well into the fourth century! How can this class warfare have been the driving force of Greek development when it was never resolved?

The conclusion of the book betrays all the good work done in its early portions. Having presented Greek development as a battle between royalty and proletariat, Tandy concludes that the winner was nasty old capitalism!

I think that Tandy's analysis is weakened by over-reliance on close analysis of Homer and Hesiod. While these two are certainly the most extensive testimony we have on Greek society at the time, they cannot be relied upon as rigorous sources of fact. Homer's representation is a melange of Bronze Age and Iron Age cultures, mixing bits and pieces spread over several centuries. Using Homer to draw conclusions about eighth century Greece is rather like using Christmas carols to draw conclusions about the significance of partridges in pear trees in twentieth-century America. And while Hesiod does provide us with many specifics of his time, we must remember that he is in no wise typical of Greek farmers. Really, how many Greek farmers do you think could read and write at that time, much less compose verse for the ages?

Lastly, I especially resent Tandy's failure to deliver on the promise of his title. I expected an explanation of how Greek culture shifted from a warrior-led society to a trader-led society. Yet Tandy's treatment of the development of Greek commerce seems peripheral to his main argument. There are a few good bits and pieces, but he doesn't bring to bear the wealth of information we've been developing over the last few decades. The crucial element of ship construction and handling merits only a few lines and a footnote.

I still recommend this book for anybody interested in the forces that led to "the glory that was Greece". However, I'd suggest that you read only the first five chapters. The remainder of the book will only disappoint you.

This book deals with a very important issue: how classical Greece became a commerical culture under the influence of the Phoenicians. "Warriors into Traders" is the key point. However, Tandy spoils his treatment of this with the kind of sour, half-baked Marxism that is all too typical of American academics in the humanities today. He compares the "evils" of Greek commericalism, which was only responsible for all the glory of places like Athens, to the "evils" of the introduction of market ecnomies into Third World countries today. Unfortunately, most of the problems of Third World countries, if we mean by that poverty and tyranny, are due to the lack of market economies, not to their introduction. Tandy, on the other hand, inadverently draws attention to what was unique about the Greeks: that commericalization revolutionized Greek culture, which was something that did not happen to the Phoenicians, who were old hands at the business--unless we count the philosophers Thales and Zeno of Citium, reportedly ethnic Phoenicians themselves.