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Document Details : Title: The Economic Institutions of the Byzantine State Author(s): MANIATIS, George C. Journal: Byzantion Volume: 86 Date: 2016 Pages: 205-259 DOI: 10.2143/BYZ.86.0.3180826 Abstract : This study analyzes the design of the array of diachronically fashioned economic institutions that aimed to ensure the orderly operation of the Byzantine economy. The findings demonstrate that the organization of the Byzantine economy encompassed the institutions of private property, individual initiative, private enterprise, price-making markets, and free exchange. The institutional setup gave free rein to private initiative and allowed the dynamism of the market forces and the price mechanism to play a key role in economic activities. The state maintained law and order, national security, and to a degree a stable political environment, funded the nation’s physical and institutional infrastructure. The authorities did not interfere with the firms’ organizational forms and operations, decision-making process, and price-setting policies appreciating the impracticality and unworkability of such interventions. A legal framework and an enforcement mechanism were in place reducing uncertainty, making it possible and profitable to engage in economic exchange. Statute law protected private property and derivative rights – the foundation of the empire’s civil society and market economy – and ensured the enforcement of lawful contracts, set norms of business behavior, and instituted standards for the orderly conduct of commercial transactions, promoting private initiative and economic growth. |
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