by Yoram Barzel
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Product Description
This book models the emergence and evolution of the rule-of-law state. The protector or ruler is assumed to be self-seeking. Individuals will install a protector only after they create institutions to control him. Organized protection engenders legal institutions that enforce rights. A "state of nature" then gradually turns into a rule-of-law state. Individuals employ both the state and other third parties for enforcement. The fraction of agreements that the state enforces determines its scope. Rule-of-law states encourage market transactions and standards that facilitate trade. The larger the domain of the state's ultimate enforcer, the greater the advantage of scale economies to contracting. This force may explain the creation of rule-of-law empires.
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Average Customer Review:
2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Theory-based fantasy, 2006-03-27
If you like the fantasy models of economists who know virtually nothing of non-capitalist economies or pre-state societies, this book is for you. If you are interested in actual information (empirical data) on what the earliest states were like, how their economies worked, and how they might have developed, then try some of these works instead:
--- Earle, Timothy (2002) Bronze Age Economics: The Beginnings of Political Economies. Westview Press, Boulder, CO.
--- Feinman, Gary M. and Joyce Marcus (editors) (1998) Archaic States. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe, NM.
--- Hansen, Mogens Herman (editor) (2000) A Comparative Study of Thirty City-State Cultures. The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, Copenhagen.
--- Johnson, Allen W. and Timothy K. Earle (2000) The Evolution of Human Societies: From Foraging Group to Agrarian State. 2nd ed. Stanford University Press, Stanford.
--- Smith, Adam T. (2003) The Political Landscape: Constellations of Authority in Early Complex Polities. University of California Press, Berkeley.
--- Smith, Michael E. (2004) The Archaeology of Ancient State Economies. Annual Review of Anthropology 33:73-102.
--- Trigger, Bruce G. (2003) Understanding Early Civilizations: A Comparative Study. Cambridge University Press, New York.
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