Introduction to the Project
With this second volume, “The Market and the Oikos” project ends; it had a gestation time of about a quarter of a century. Therefore, it might be of interest to introduce below in a few words a little about the background and the author of such a project. It’s also an opportunity to formulate some leading thoughts on this venture, in addition to those mentioned in the preface of volume one.
As in many previous publications I searched again for the fundamentals of world history as a consequence of advanced knowledge. Outside, the study things had been changed: after two European-caused world wars the European domination and that of its settlers’ off-shoot, the USA, had definitely ended and the world was decolonized (except the smallest corner of the Middle East). We entered a transitional phase which has sometimes been labeled as the era of the “Rise of the Asian Continent” or similar slogans. Countries in this continent had to search for new policies (e.g., “Should we follow the European-USA model or not?”).
These changes also led me to search for alternatives and, thus, to the “design from scratch” of a new socioeconomic history of the world and of the earth itself, since this European-USA domination was also in a large part executed by way of large-scale destruction of soil, water, and air in the former colonies. To conceive of this new socioeconomic history, therefore, I had to single out the old European fatal dreams of world domination from the British to the American Empire or from the French, Japanese, or Nazi German “world powers.” These notions originated in fact in the Roman Empire or in medieval Roman Catholic Europe and were inherited partly by the Protestants during the Reformation.
The aim of this project is, namely, to support present global scientific investigations which, in my view, still exist in an infant stage of development. Such research has to use knowledge from several disciplines, but this is not customary in the dominant trend of specialized research popular nowadays. Why I dared to start such a rather presumptuous project seems to be quite a logical undertaking.
Study and development work (see below) led to a first innovation: the combining of specific basic thoughts of Karl Marx and Max Weber who were antagonists in several ways. The former pointed to the practical and theoretical importance in world history of the antagonism between town and country. From the latter I learned that this could be explained by the market versus oikos antagonism. My thesis supervisor, Bernard Slicher van Bath, focused on
To return to Marx and Weber, they produced numerous texts to demonstrate the antagonism pattern and though it is not very difficult to find them, an introduction of a few will be given here.
The largest division (Teilung) of the material and spiritual labor is the division of town and country (Stadt und Land). The antagonism between town and country starts with the transition of the primitiveness (Barbarei) in the civilization, of the tribal organizations in the state, of the locality in the nation and this antagonism runs through the whole history of civilization until the present day …1
The basis of all developed division of labor is the separation of town and country (Stadt und Land) which are related to each other by the exchange of products (Warenaustausch). One can say that the whole economic history of society can be summarized in the movement of this antagonism, upon which we do not elaborate here.2
It is obvious that the internal movement of goods within … an oikos … is the antithesis of trade based on capital accounting … particularly to an ex-ante estimate in money of the chances of profit from a transaction. Such estimates were made by the professional traveling merchants.3
… the organization of industry on the basis of the oikos is found in all royal households in early times … It has also existed on seigneurial manors all over the world … the liturgical specification of functions was characteristic in Egypt, of the Hellenistic period, of the later Roman Empire, and has been found at times in China and India.4
… the oikos, as Rodbertus called it … is not simply any large household or one which produces on its own various products, agricultural or industrial; rather, it is the authoritarian household of a prince, manorial lord or patrician. Its domestic motive is not capitalistic acquisition but the lord’s organized want satisfaction in kind … even if market-oriented enterprises are attached to it.5
Notwithstanding these directions, both authors had their limitations. Time and again those of Marx were discussed in many earlier publications from 1978 onward, and it is not necessary or possible to repeat all of this in the present project, except in several indicated instances in volume 1. These limitations are related to his treatment of agriculture, the state, nomadism, and “third world” countries. Apart from a short discussion in one of my earliest books (1964), Max Weber’s writings were not discussed as they are now in the first part of volume 1 and in several of its chapters (5, 7–10).
In the tables of volume 1 and also in part I of the present volume, the most relevant details are mentioned; in chapter 13.4 a kind of conclusions of or basic considerations about the project are given. All are related to the following four fundamental findings:
The main result of the combination of town-country and market-oikos relations is the understanding of the basic design of societies: town versus country, with in between (or “above” them) the state (formed by institutions from monarchy to theocracy, or empire to dictatorship), which claims the “right to rule the other two.” They thus form a “whole” with three “parties.”
With “the market” (or other exchange mechanism) the very foundation and historical origin of “the whole” is given as a rather peaceful supply-and-demand mechanism
of all possible products and services; in developed form it is often ritualized as an inimical dichotomy and a long time later is realized as a nearly-never peaceful “whole of three parties.” The internal dynamic of this “whole” in its developed form is experienced as the negation of the founding market by the state, which is mostly perceived as a negation of the city (usually with the exception of capital cities) and the positive appreciation of the country as a consequence of the state’s appropriated “right to rule the other two.” The classical dichotomies are definitely replaced in this way by what could be called “tetratomies.”
The next important result from the confrontation with the given combination concerns the main characteristic of the given internal dynamic: it is based, supported etc. on the immobile and agricultural (oikoïdal-plant) features and is inimical to the mobile and animal based features; they are perceived as contradictions identical (at least in the inimical/strange/alien prejudices and ideologies) to market elements. In this volume 2 they are represented as plant versus animal relations.
To avoid misunderstandings about what readers can expect, some remarks are necessary.
The first is that the given design (the above mentioned four fundamental findings) is a result of detailed criticisms of European imperialist activities and their backlash in the so-called “motherlands.” In this sense the study could be perceived as still Eurocentric.
It is certainly possible and necessary to arrive at alternative results if relevant historical analyses are developed in the former colonial societies or if they are rediscovered, such as the earlier writings of Ibn Khaldun (ca. 1280) or of Wang Shizhen (ca. 1580).
Apart from these last examples, it still seems unavoidable for the inventors of these alternatives to compare their results with those from the design laid out in 1–4 above because the effects of European-American imperialism were/are everywhere virulent, largely, alas, as negative effects (see the present China-USA relations). One may expect that these alternatives are strongly related to dominant forms of solidarity in societies and to largely ritualized forms of indigenous aggression.
The second remark concerns the kind of project the reader is confronted with. It concerns by definition in time and place very different subjects in the framework of the given design. This is probably a bit confusing, but it is unavoidable to discuss many scholars and their works. I hope it is helpful that I have only chosen two of them, Marx and Weber, as my main sources of inspiration and that I provide many (new) definitions in the preface of volume 1 and
Next, a concerted attempt is made to redefine many established (historical) problems and scholarly opinions about historical hot issues: capitalism and state in theory and practice; city and country in Greek antiquity; settlers versus their “motherlands”; ancient Greece as animal-based and not plant-based culture; the invention of the European state by Roman emperors and the copycat popes; the ex-nihilo creation of enemies (Jewish this time) by the medieval Roman church-state after which the sects with that name had to disappear (or rather, be disappeared!) in late antiquity; the position of highly discriminated-against women and nomads throughout history, until the present workings of long outdated European imperialism in China; and so on.
Last but not least, while these redefinitions cannot be replacements of the usual detailed investigations, they are nothing more than new takes on the subjects at hand. Thus the reverse is practiced: the tables below and elsewhere are, in fact, summaries of related definitions and agendas for new research; (very) realistic descriptions have been introduced to replace the usual sociological and historical abstract models.
A Biographical Note
The present project started with my dissertation (1986) of nearly 700 pages with the title “Town and Country, Market and Oikos” (in Dutch). Before that year I had written publications about many other subjects, most of which could not be regarded as preliminary to this dissertation.
On the other hand, that was certainly not the case with two of my publications about the way environmental problems were studied in history (1974, 1975) and with two others about the analysis of town-country contradictions in the “third world” including China (1978). It is undeniable that the 1986 study had the function of summarizing my studies and my professional activities so far. However, it also became the fresh start of new scholarly and professional work.
The 1986 dissertation resulted from the kind of work I had done in the previous decade as senior officer in planning organizations in South America and Africa. The organizations concerned country-wide development programs including cost-benefit analyses of strategically important projects. In one case I had to redesign the organization of a whole state because excessive bureaucracy blocked even the most simple problems (and, therefore, also the implementation of this design!).
The publication background of the dissertation was quite tumultuous in several respects. It lead to a not intended but rather devastating attack on the work of the well-known classical hero-scholar and old-left Marxist, Moses Finley. Notwithstanding this, his many studies about the ancient Greek and Roman economy helped to develop detailed alternatives for ancient plant and animal cultures.
The friends of Finley, the Leiden-based classicist Pleket and his pupils Van Wees and Tuntler, did not accept my criticism, but failed to undermine my argumentation. It took about twenty-five years before Finley’s theories were all disproved.
After 1986, the Market-Oikos project disappeared behind other activities, for instance, participation in an international discussion about the Nazis’ many scientific studies (Westforschung) undertaken to support their occupation of foreign territories (2001); a book on the work of Hannah Arendt (2004); a large world history of the production, distribution, and use of opium from 1600 AD to the post–Second World War period (2012); and last, a book on the Dutch Shoah (2019) in which many Dutch scholars and the Dutch state-bureaucracy were criticized for their dubious performances at the time.
Also for these works I had, among other, to redefine the main concepts at stake, which became a typical element of the formulation of alternatives to established theories. So, when looking in all possible handbooks for definitions of “market” they were not very interesting (see preface Vol. 1). The result was a series of (very) general and dubious formulations as for instance: “market” is synonymous with “capitalism” or “money”; or, a market economy is “a term synonymous with some free economy and free enterprise” (New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought, 2000) in which an economy cannot be a “term” or an “enterprise,” let alone the absurd and typical Anglo-Saxon opinion that “a market” has to do something with “free.”
Better was the older German Lexikon zur Soziologie (1995) with market as meaning for exchange relations (not necessarily of an economic nature) between groups of persons (supply and demand, consumers and traders or producers) and their institutional preconditions. “According to Max Weber can we talk about a market if at least the persons of a group, including their chances to exchange, mutually compete.”
Now in part I, the introduction to volume 2 is presented and at the end, in the supplement (Ch. 13.4), ten “potential conclusions” of both volumes are given.
Acknowledgements
First and foremost I have to thank the editors of Ideas, History, and Modern China, the professors Ban Wang (Stanford University) and Wang Hui (Tsinghua University) for their acceptance of my rather complicated two-volume study The Market and the Oikos.
The texts in this second volume have a different status: most are new, others were published earlier, though not in English, and all have been—when warranted—carefully revised and strongly updated.
Since it concerns nearly always peer-reviewed material, the persons involved in the publications are too numerous and anonymous to be thanked. However, for four women who were important in some way or another during my whole life as scholar I have to make exceptions. First and foremost it is my beloved wife, Ingrid (1936–2021), mother of four children, who accompanied and supported me and us until recently. More specific, there are/were Evelyne Geny, editor of Dialogues d’histoire ancienne, CNRS, and Sascha Talmor (1925–2004), founding editor of The European Legacy, Routledge. Furthermore, I have to thank Alison Fisher of Amsterdam, who always edited my English texts through all the previous years. Her task is continued by others, mentioned in volume 1, and by Menno Grootveld, also of Amsterdam.
Chapter 2–5 is in a special way devoted to the fate of women in antiquity, and it is a symbolic act that in her comité de lecture Evelyne Geny’s opinion became decisive on top of twelve male-voters! The start of the long relation with Sascha and Ezra Talmor was as spectacular: a well-known French sociological journal Archive européenne de sociologie/European Journal of Sociology refused to publish my critical article on Max Weber, volume 1–5, because it was of the opinion that an authority like Max Weber could not be accused of antisemitism, whereupon Sascha immediately decided to publish it.
Others who assisted were recently acknowledged in my last two books Victims and Perpetrators 2019 and The Market and the Oikos, volume 1. There is one exception: from my first book in English language, Jew, Nomad or Pariah. Studies on Hannah Arendt’s Choice, from 2004 until recently, Marti Huetink, soon assisted by Patricia Radder, both of the staff of Brill Publishers, always stimulated my publications with many professional recommendations, without which they could not have been published. I also thank the staff of Brill-Boston, Qin Higley. Elizabeth You and Dove Morissette, for their assistance and patience during the Corona-period.
Translations: t, and Revisions: r.
Chapter 1.5. t. from “Un Mal Splendide: hommes et femmes dans une “Antiquité postféministe.” Dialogues d’Histoire Ancienne, 27(1), 2001, 7–43.
Chapter 2. t+r from “Landschap met koe,” De Koe van Troje. De Mythe van de Griekse oudheid. Hilversum: Verloren, 1995, 89–101.
Chapter 3. t+r from “De kleine akker van de goden.” De Koe van Troje. De Mythe van de Griekse oudheid. Hilversum: Verloren, 1995, 144–168.
Chapter 4. r. from The European Legacy: Toward New Paradigms. Haifa University, Israel.
Chapter 5. r. from “A Note on homogalaktes in Aristotle’s Politika.” Dialogues d’Histoire Ancienne, 21()2, 1995, 27–40.
Chapter 8. r. from chapter 4 of my Jew, Nomad or Pariah: Studies on Hannah Arendts’ Choice. Amsterdam: Aksant, 2004, 115–149.
Chapter 10 r. “Myth and Reality in the Archaeology of Ancient Israel.” Tijdschrift voor Mediterrane Archeologie, 18 (1996, 23–31).
Chapter 12, portions were published in my History of the Opium Problem. Leiden: Brill, 2012, 72–82 and other portions were published in Global-e. University of California, Santa Barbara: 13, 31-03-2020.
The quotations from ancient authors are from the relevant volume from the Loeb Classical Library, unless otherwise indicated.
| BDAG | Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, online; F. Montanari, edited by M. Goh, C. Schroeder. Leiden: Brill, 2015–2019. |
| CAH | Cambridge Ancient History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973. |
| DKP | Der Kleine Pauly. Lexikon der Antike in fünf Bänden. Edited by K. Ziegler, W. Sontheimer. München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1979. |
| GEL | Henri Liddell & Robert Scott, Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford: Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1982. |
| GM | Robert Graves, The Greek Myths. Complete edition. London: Penguin Books, 1992. |
| OCD | The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Third edition. Edited by S. Hornblower, A Spawforth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. |
| OED | The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Edited by W. Little, H. Fowler, J. Coulson, C. Onions. Oxford: 1936. |
Marx, Karl, Die Frühschriften, 379 ff. Comparable texts in his Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, 20, ff., 363–413, 739 ff., 909 ff.; Das Kapital, vol. 1, 371 ff., 527 ff., 650 ff., 741 ff.; etc. See also my volume 1, xv.
Marx, Karl, Das Kapital, volume 1, 373.
Weber, Max, Economy and Society, 100.
Weber, Max, Economy and Society, 149.
Weber, Max, Economy and Society, 381.