Un(der)employment in Bronze Age Egypt: Anachronism or Insight?

Abstract

Based on the productivity of ancient Egyptian agriculture, a discussion of economic theory, per capita GDP, economic growth, and agrarian economies through history, this paper tries to isolate the relative roles of land, labor, and grain in the economy of Ancient Egypt. There is little room for full employment in an agrarian economy; in Bronze Age Egypt the labor of a small fraction of the population would have sufficed to nourish all. Aside from services, an agrarian economy cannot expand employment much. Increasing productivity is counter-productive and none of the wealthy agrarian economies grew organically into an industrial economy. Govert van Driel pointed out that in agrarian ancient Mesopotamia there was no place for the market or silver, although both were present (as is claimed for Egypt). Overcapacity, trade, underemployment, and finance allow an understanding of the ancient economies, economics and economic growth; the impact of using modern economic thought based on production (and not economic behavior and activity) results in a flawed theory that must be revised.