New at Reason

January 8, 2007

Christopher Faille reviews Avner Grief's book on trade in medieval times.

Comments

clone12|1.8.07 @ 2:51PM|#

Christopher Faille claims that the Maghrib informal enforcement institution could be a sufficient substitute for modern day courts and government, and see the decline of the Maghrib system as a "road not taken".

But we do have a modern day equivalent of the Maghrib system in the form of corporate arbitration. And the fact that the arbitration system exists without the corresponding disappearance of the public courts system suggests empirically that the two aren't substitutes as much as they are compliments, given the present state in technology and society.

|1.8.07 @ 6:00PM|#

clone12:

Well, except for the fact that so many of the arbitrations are mandated by non-negotiable contracts, or "contracts of adhesion". The Maghrib system sounds voluntary and involves parties of relatively equal power.

Some arbitration agreements now *are* between equal parties, and to that extent what you say is true.

clone12|1.8.07 @ 8:22PM|#

My sense is that the informal punishment of the Maghrib system whereby a Jew is completely shut out of his own tribe probably represented a bigger financial and security loss to the participating Maghrib trader than any arbitration system can ever mete out, relatively speaking.

as such, I'm guesing if you have the same system today, the deterrence effect that comes from this ostracism will be diminished enough that it would represent a non-trivial degredation to the system's efficacy.

The analog I can think of off the cuff is Excommunication, which in 12th century was sufficient to get Henry II to toe the line, but not enough to bring some Catholics to settle their doctrinal differences with the Vatican today. While excommunications in the 21 century does not involve parties of equal power, the less powerful party is relatively unaffected by the issuance.

|1.9.07 @ 6:44AM|#

A criticism of Faille's argument that I see is in the cognitive limitations. If one cannot remember everyone that one might do business with, one cannot track their reputations either. Technology can certainly help increase one's cognitive powers, but not without limit.

It appears that the Maghrib only had to mentally track the other Maghrib and their own local goyem traders. That was certainly a mentally tractable number of people. Once they were compelled by market forces to deal with and track the Italian traders who started showing up, they may have exceeded their cognitive limitations to accurately apply rewards and punishments, or to accurately convey their judgment to the local market.

Overall, I find Faille's arguments very compelling. I just wish the that the cognitive factors were addressed.

DeepSouth|1.9.07 @ 9:37AM|#

Ebays "Seller Reputation" feature is a near exact modern equivalent.

|1.9.07 @ 12:32PM|#

1. punishments can only be implemented in areas where one's authority runs. See uses of banishment in Italian city states.

2. What also held together Renaissance Italy (and in fact, a lot of Western Europe) was the fall-back system of Roman Law, which was what was referred to when any of the local statutes were'nt applicable.

3. I really don't see the difference between one overriding state implementing a set theory of law, and a whole bunch of self-governing organizations all deciding together to collectively implement the set theory.

4. If you libertarians can explain what a "perfectly libertarian" society looks like and how it will not turn into a Warlords-of-Somalia scenario, I'd have more respect for your opinions.