Introduction to SociologyEconomy Wikibooks, open books for an open world. You can imagine how it must have felt to be dropped off on an island to die. Such was the fate of thousands of inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands, beginning in 1. Hansons Disease better known as leprosy. Believing incorrectly that Hansons Disease was highly contagious, the Hawaiian government dedicated an uninhabited peninsula of the island of Molokai as a dumping ground for those infected with the disease feared by others. Southwest Airline Adopt A Pilot Program more. One by one, those infected were hunted down, torn from their families, and placed on a one way boat ride to Molokai, never to be seen again. What happened on Molokai is a story well documented by John Tayman in his book The Colony. Originally rife with violence, alcoholism, and conflict, Hansons Disease survivors eventually went on to establish a successful and thriving community. One part of their success was to develop an economy a cooperative arrangement where people pool their resources and labor and survive collectively. The story of Molokai is a story of the collective human struggle to not only survive, but to thrive. The colony disbanded in 1. IntroductioneditEconomy refers to the ways people use their environment to meet their material needs. It is the realized economic system of a country or other area. Braudel Capitalism And Material Life Pdf Reader' title='Braudel Capitalism And Material Life Pdf Reader' />capitalism. It includes the production, exchange, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of that area. A given economy is the end result of a process that involves its technological evolution, history and social organization, as well as its geography, natural resource endowment, and ecology, among other factors. These factors give context, content, and set the conditions and parameters in which an economy functions. Historyedit. A 6. Braudel Capitalism And Material Life Pdf Reader' title='Braudel Capitalism And Material Life Pdf Reader' />BC one third stater coin from Lydia, shown larger. As long as someone has been making and distributing goods or services, there has been some sort of economy economies grew larger as societies grew and became more complex. Capitalism is an economic system and an ideology based on private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Characteristics central to. The ancient economy was mainly based on subsistence farming. According to Herodotus, and most modern scholars, the Lydians were the first people to introduce the use of gold and silver coin. It is thought that these first stamped coins were minted around 6. BC. 2For most people the exchange of goods occurred through social relationships. There were also traders who bartered in the marketplaces. The Babylonians and their city state neighbors developed economic ideas comparable to those employed today. They developed the first known codified legal and administrative systems, complete with courts, jails, and government records. Several centuries after the invention of cuneiform, the use of writing expanded beyond debtpayment certificates and inventory lists to be applied for the first time, about 2. BC, to messages and mail delivery, history, legend, mathematics, and astronomical records. Ways to divide private property, when it is contended, amounts of interest on debt, rules as to property and monetary compensation concerning property damage or physical damage to a person, fines for wrong doing, and compensation in money for various infractions of formalized law were standardized for the first time in history. In Medieval times, what we now call economy was not far from the subsistence level. Most exchange occurred within social groups. On top of this, the great conquerors raised venture capital to finance their land captures. The capital investment would be returned to the investor when goods from the newly discovered or captured lands were returned by the conquerors. The endeavors of Marco Polo 1. Christopher Columbus 1. Vasco de Gama 1. Note that while these historical figures are often referred to as discoverers among dominant groups, there is ample archeological evidence suggesting that the places they found were visited by many other expeditions dating back to BC times and that many others attempted to conquer these same lands. Rather than a process of discovery, what separated them from earlier attempts was the devastating effects of massive plagues upon Native populations, which allowed them to conquer native lands that had fought off such assaults previously see Lies my teacher told me for summaries of many of these findings. Following these events, the first enterprises were trading establishments. In 1. 51. 3 the first stock exchange was founded in Antwerpen. The European captures became branches of the European states, the so called colonies. The rising nation states Spain, Portugal, France, Great Britain, and the Netherlands tried to control the trade through custom duties and taxes in order to protect their national economy. Mercantilism was a first approach to intermediate between private wealth and public interest. The first economist in the true meaning of the word was the Scotsman Adam Smith 1. He defined the elements of a national economy products are offered at a natural price generated by the use of competition supply and demand and the division of labour. He maintained that the basic motive for free trade is human self interest. In Europe, capitalism see below started to replace the system of mercantilism and led to economic growth. The period today is called the industrial revolution because the system of production and division of labour enabled the mass production of goods. CapitalismeditCapitalism is an economic and social system in which capital and the non labor factors of production or the means of production are privately controlled labor, goods and capital are traded in markets profits are taken by owners or invested in technologies and industries and wages are paid to labor. Capitalism as a system developed incrementally from the 1. Europe, although capitalist like organizations existed in the ancient world, and early aspects of merchant capitalism flourished during the Late Middle Ages. Capitalism gradually spread throughout Europe and other parts of the world. In the 1. 9th and 2. HistoryeditThe origins of modern markets can be traced back to the Roman Empire8 and the Islamic Golden Age and Muslim Agricultural Revolution91. A vigorous monetary economy was created by Muslims on the basis of the expanding levels of circulation of a stable high value currency and the integration of monetary areas that were previously independent. Innovative new business techniques and forms of business organisation were introduced by economists, merchants and traders during this time. Such innovations included the earliest trading companies, big businesses, contracts, bills of exchange, long distance international trade, the first forms of partnerships, and the earliest forms of credit, debt, profit, loss, capital, capital accumulation,1. Organizational enterprises similar to corporations independent from the state also existed in the medieval Islamic world. Many of these early capitalist concepts were adopted and further advanced in medieval Europe from the 1. A painting of a French seaport from 1. The economic system employed between the 1. This period was associated with geographic discoveries by merchant overseas traders, especially from England, and the rapid growth in overseas trade. Mercantilism was a system of trade for profit, although commodities were still largely produced by non capitalist production methods. While some scholars see mercantilism as the earliest stage of modern capitalism, others argue that modern capitalism did not emerge until later. Twenty First Century Historical Archaeology Springer. Link. Brodie, N. 2. The plunder of Iraqs archaeological heritage, 1. London antiquities trade. In Brodie, N., Kersel, M. M., Luke, C., and Tubb, K. W. eds., Archaeology, Cultural Heritage, and the Antiquities Trade, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, pp.