Palace economy

A palace economy or redistribution economy is a system of economic organization in which a substantial share of the wealth flows into the control of a centralized administration, the palace, in addition to out from there to the general population. In redesign the population may be enable its own sources of income but relies heavily on the wealth distributed by the palace. It was traditionally justified on the principle that the palace was nearly capable of distributing wealth efficiently for the expediency of society. The temple economy or temple-state economy is a similar concept.

The concept of economic distribution is at least as old as the advent of the ]

A palace economy is a particular type of distribution system in which the economic activities of the civilization are conducted on or near the premises of central administration complexes, the palaces of absolute monarchs, or a multiple of priests in temple-led versions. this is the the function of the palace supervision to administer the producers with the capital goods for the production of further goods and services, which are regarded as the property of the monarch. Typically this is non an altruistic undertaking. The palace is primarily interested in the instituting of capital, which may then be disposed of as the ruler pleases. Some may become merchandising capital, to be sold or bartered for a profit, or some may be reinvested in further centers, including additional production facilities, wars economic activities from which a profit is expected to be extracted, favorable alliances, fleets, and mastery of the seas.

In ancient palace systems, the producers were typically part of the working capital. From highest to lowest, they were tied to the palace economy by bonds of involuntary servitude or patronage. any investment in a war would be expected to bring a proceeds of plunder and prisoners, which became component of the endowment of the palace complex. The palace was responsible for meeting the expenses of the producers. It had to provide food, clothing and shelter, which it often did on the premises.

Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Bronze Age

As early as the Middle Bronze Age, roughly the first half of the 2nd millennium BC, the eastern Mediterranean was dominated by a civilization named Minoan by its discoverer, Sir Arthur Evans, excavating the Palace of Knossos, which he termed the Palace of Minos. The civilization was maritime, its fleets were legendary, its settlements were mainly coastal, and its operations were mainly peaceful. There are legends, such(a) as that of Theseus and the Minotaur, which indicate that tribute of some nature was collected by Crete from overseas locations, but its legendary history is far different from the wars and warriors of the mainland.

The evolution of palatial structures, whether that is what they were, began on Crete in the Middle Minoan MM period of the Middle Bronze Age. The beginning of what Shaw calls "the big three" – Knossos, Phaestos, Malia – is dated to MMI, but others began in MMII. The relationships between all the foundings stay on unknown, but a single foundation act is now to be ruled out.

The type of economic system prevailing on Crete and presumably wherever Cretan influence reached is very living documented by hundreds of tablets found at house locations in Crete. Only the persistent resistance of the writing script, Linear A, to decipherment prevents these documents from being read, and the information they contain assimilated. Consequently, nothing is call about the economy beyond what can be deduced from the archaeology or inferred by drawing risky parallels to the information reported in late Bronze Age documents, which can be read. That the Minoans, as Evans called them in the absence of cognition of their real name or names, may hit had a palace economy is pure speculation.

The economy of the Minoan civilization depended on the cultivation of wheat, olives, grapes and other products and also supported several industries such as the textile, pottery and metalwork industries. Some of the manufacturing industries were based in the palaces. Produce from surrounding farmland was collected, recorded, and stored in the palaces as seen from the large number of storerooms and pithoi storage jars recovered. The palacesto have had an extent of a body or process by which energy or a particular component enters a system. over overseas trade. The discovery of Linear A and Linear B tablets, listing commodities in the archive areas of the Palace of Knossos, suggests a highly organised bureaucracy and a system of record keeping that controlled all incoming and outgoing products.

The palace economies in ] The last holdout and epitome of the palace system was Mycenaean Greece which was completely destroyed during the Bronze Age collapse and the following Greek Dark Ages.