Why Barley and Wool Are So Important

In the beginning of The Administration of a Complex Economy, Liverani describes the various factors that led to a complete transformation in the Mesopotamian economic system in the third millennium. He begins by discussing the importance of barley and wool, two commodities that shaped these early economies. He formulates his argument by first describing the utilizations of both resources, and then continues by relating the specifics of these two resources to the whole scale economy. I think that he constructs his argument with more clarity and structure than the preceding chapters, and in doing so, he brings about an important point regarding the development of this new economy. Barley and wool may just seem to be two rather important commodities, but they essentially represent a gateway into a new realm of agriculture that is dependent on resources that can be easily stored and redistributed. These new innovations in agriculture led to developments in urbanization that, for the first time, relied upon the formation of a strong centralized administration.

As I read through this chapter, it seemed as if every economic innovation rooted from the persuasion of the community by the central agency to provide labor in return for the mere compensation for their costs of living. For example, Leverani once again discusses the importance of the temple in convincing farmers to donate two-thirds of their harvest when the costs of production were much greater than the one-thirds they managed to maintain. Personally, I feel that the combination of religion, politics, and economics can be extremely volatile, but in this case, it seems as if the central agency was devoted to using this surplus for social investment. Even when Liverani discusses the different aspects of trade, he concludes that merchants only looked after their best interests after accomplishing what the central agency told them to do. What we have here, is essentially the slow creation of a dominant, centralized government that is leading the way towards urbanization.