Peter Fibiger Bang
Agrarian Empires – between market and tribute

In this introductory article the history of the modern conception of the large historical agrarian empires is traced back to the works of Montesquieu and Adam Smith. The author points out how present scholarship is still struggling to reach a better understanding of the agrarian empires within the basic theoretical framework provided by these and other theorists of the 18th century. The result has been an unfortunate ambiguity in our understanding. Most of these empires are conceived of as historically rich and complex economies characterised by a high degree of urbanisation, yet at the same time the empirial or tributary structure is described as predatory and destructive causing stagnation. This conceptual split between "market and tribute" is due to the fact that these empires are normally compared with the early modern capitalist European economy. Thus scholarship has tended to look for explanations why these rich societies were unable to produce an industrial revolution. However, capitalism and the industrial revolution can hardly be viewed as the destined outcome of history. It seems increasingly clear that it was the result of a number of contingent circum-stances. Thus there is no failure to explain. Therefore we should cease to view market and tribute as opposites and rather try to establish a positive relationship between the agrarian empires and the considerable economic development which we can in fact observe in them. This can be achieved by shifting our point of comparison away from Europe and instead try to compare the empires internally and would thus enable us to establish a clearer understanding of their institutional workings.