The system just described is often referred to in Egyptological literature as a ‘‘redistribution’’ economy. This term is only appropriate in the weakest sense, of an economy where payments had to be made directly in kind, or by the assignment of income from a particular source, such as an area of productive land. In no way did the state collect production from the producers to return it to them as rations or wages. The term ‘‘redistribution’’ is then best avoided, for the false sense it creates of a central control over the physical movement of real income and goods at a low level, but also because it derives from a particular political-evolutionary theory about the working of ancient economies that is not justified by the data from Pharaonic Egypt. It is a difficulty that theoretical approaches focus on the structure of the economy, where the real problem for Pharaonic Egypt is to improve understanding of low-level economic practice (Fitzenreiter 2007: 1-8; Manning and Morris 2005: 163-204). The micro-economic imperatives and behavior of individuals provides a much more chaotic and varied picture than macro-economic generalizations based on deductive classification from any over-arching theoretical perspective. The contrast is seen, for instance, in the words used to refer to recompense in kind for labor. The term ‘‘rations’’ can deliberately give focus to hierarchy and structure, ties of dependence, and the concept of‘‘redistribution’’ from the top down. The term ‘‘wages’’ can imply an essentially commercial relationship between employer and employee. This argument belongs more to political philosophy than description of economic reality in Egypt, where payment for work, service, or goods has a sense of social reciprocity which is never calculated in the exact terms of piecework wages but which is hardly a thorough-going ration system.
The central state was never large or efficient enough to micro-manage the fiscal regime in Egypt but only to exercise authority over locally functioning structures. From the perspective of an ordinary producer, the state did not provide but took, and contact was focused on revenue demands and occasional conscription for particular projects. This core economy operated by the rules of subsistence behavior to ensure family security. It was, then, in personal interactions in the local community and in a local market in everyday goods that this subsistence economy operated, largely disconnected from the macro-economic concerns of the central regime. In contrast the elite economy was marked by very considerable accumulation of wealth associated with hierarchical control over agricultural production. This was characterized by conspicuous consumption, most clearly visible in major tomb - and temple-building projects, but also by a patron-client relationship, in which prestige and public approval derived from the maintenance of a social order expressed in the first place as prevention and relief of hunger and destitution. The focus on subsistence and prestige as overt driving factors in individual economic decisions should not, then, obscure the fact that these are really particular manifestations of the balance between supply and demand in the economy, at micro - and macro-economic levels, even if it may seem more convenient to discuss them in terms of a relationship between supply and consumption rather than classically conceived market demand.
Evidence for the working of the Egyptian economy - both textual and archaeological - is considerable in quantity, although it tends to be fragmentary, unprocessed, and can often seem intractable. In particular, it typically does not fit conveniently into an easy theoretical structure. Consequently the most productive advance in understanding the Egyptian economy is currently focused on micro-economic issues of detail, of complexity in the behavior of individuals, and on problems of the flow of resources between local production and central consumption rather than on problems of general structure. However, there is, in particular, a real need for more sophisticated attempts at quantification.
FURTHER READING
No recent monograph provides a full treatment of the Egyptian economy, and all writing is deeply influenced by the theoretical and ideological perspectives of individual authors. This leads to significant contradictions in the classification of Egypt as an economy, and sometimes in the interpretation of individual data. The primary modern account is Kemp 2006. Helck 1975 remains the fullest general survey. Janssen 1975b lays the basis for all later writing, and his classic work of 1975b lays the basis for understanding the market and its working. Warburton 1997 has to be used with care, in that much of its argument is from a polemical and theoretical standpoint. Particularly useful as context is Manning 2003c, and for wider ancient comparisons see Manning and Morris 2005. Individual issues are best approached through a series of recent conference publications, although these bring out fairly deep disagreements in theoretical approaches. For money and commerce see SAK 26 (1998), the publication of a colloquium ‘‘Handel, Hafen und Schiffahrt im alten jAgypten,’’ Grimal and Menu 1998, and Fitzenreiter 2007. For the agricultural regime see Allam 1994, Bowman and Rogan 1999, Menu, 2004, and Moreno Garcia 2005a.
World History
