Spyros I. Asdrachas Economic History of the Ottoman Domination in Greece

8/13/2019 Spyros I. Asdrachas Economic History of the Ottoman Domination in Greece

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P roblem s of E conom ic H is toryof the P er iod o f O t tom anD om inat ion in G reeceby SPYROS I . ASDRAC HAS

In the follow ing pages w e w ill attem pt to present certain of the hy po-theses around w hich our research shou ld, or could, revolve, with referenceto the econo m ic mecha nisms of the period of Ottoman d om inat ion,* andw ith the Greek ma inland te r ri tor ies** providing our m ain focus . Theecono m ies under study are principally peasant econ om ies. The existenceThis essay has been published in Greece by Melissa as the introduction to avolum e of studies by several authors, edited by Spyros I . Asdrac has, enti t led 11 oixo-

voii.twil0111Balxav LxiSv xcop v a-cu xp6v 60o.)p .ccv vx% x uptccpx ictc (ca ' -t0' cetchac) [The Economic Structure of the Balkan Countries in the Age of theOttoman Domination (15th-19th Centuries)]; it was also published separately inthe May 1979 issue of 0 politic. The English translation is published here for thefirst time by permission of the author. [Asterisks denote translator's notes.][Due to technical reasons, some Turkish and Slavic letters have not beenreproduced as they are written, but rather as they approximate Roman characters.]* I've rendered the term Turkokratia, literally Turkish rule used inEnglish in political and social histories of the periodby the straightforward term Ottoman domination. The term refers to the Greek historical experience ofOttoman dom ina t ion , and the per iod i t cover s is conven t iona lly dem arca ted by thefall of Constantinople in 1453 and the beginning of a modern Greek state in 1821.See John A. Petropulos, Introduction, in Hellenism and the First Greek War

of Liberation (1821-1830): Continuity and Change, Thessa loniki, Insti tute for Bal-kan S tudies, 1976, pp. 20 ff .** Greek mainland territories stands for UXab tau% x65pog, which ap-pea rs to hav e no un am biguous equivalen t in Engl ish . The dis t inct ion es tabl ished bythe term is not between mainland and surrounding islands or peninsulas. Rather,is sets apart regions histor ical ly and dense ly inhabited in continuity by Greek popula-tionsroughly the area taken up by the modern Greek statefrom other regionscolonized or traditionally inhabited during different periods of Greek history, AsiaMinor in particular. On the eve of the revolution of 1821, excluding Greek urbanconcentrations throughout the Balkans and the Near East, Peloponnisos, StereaEllada, and the immediately surrounding islands, define, in most accounts, thecen ter of these Gree k mainlan d ter r i tor ies , a t leas t in the sense of even tual ly provi-d ing the m ain thea te r s o f the w ar o f l ibera t ion .

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6OURNAL O F THE HELLENIC D IASPORAof a num ber of centers of ha ndicraf t production or shipping act ivit ies ,even of co mm ercial centers, instead of negating, on the contrary confirmsthe peasant character of the economy: the ma ximum percentage of goodsthat become exc hange values derives from the agricultural sector. W hatw e need to inves t igate i s wi thin which m ode of product ion and un derwh at conditions a part of the products becom es com m odities.W ithout depar t ing f rom the Ot tom an gene ra l case , which i s , o fcourse , also valid for the peasan t econom ies of the Greek territories, agri-cultural production cou ld be described as surplus-yielding * fam ily pro-duction subject to the realization of tax reven ues** and, to som e extent,ground-rent.*** The first form of revenue, taxes, w hich can also be speci-fied as revenu e of the feudal type, is extracted from all agricultural pro-duction regard less of the form of land tenure, and is not revoked in thosecases w here the rights of possession or landow nership lead to tenantry,****i .e . , the real izat ion of grou nd-rent . The tax reven ue and, in pa r t , thegroun d-rent belongs to the Ottom an state, w hich redistributes it to thefunctiona ries of its military and bureaucratic app aratus, as well as to thereligious foun dations charg ed w ith public services. It is paid in kind, and

* Surplus-yielding, i.e. , agricultural outputs excee d subsistence levels.** The s t ra igh t fo rwa rd te rm tax revenue w as se lec ted over the am biguousterm fiscal rent to render cpopo Xoy no) r tp6no8og ( roue fiscde in ProfessorAsdrachas's French usage). The reader may wish to bear in mind the doubleaspec t of this form of app ropriat ion of the surplus-prod uct : i t i s a tax preciselybecause of its character as an economic relation (charged by the state); on theother hand, i t par t akes in tha t com m on e lem ent in var ious types of ren t , wh oseapprop riation is that econo mic form in which landed property is realized (Capital,III, Internat ional Publ ishers , p. 634). No fu rther a m pl i f icat ion o f this dist inct ionis possible without entering into a substantive discu ssion, including the spe cificities,variances , and t ransform ations of the Ottoman socia l form ation, which are , in any

case, suggested in the e ssay to the extent that they bear upon i ts inquiry. Rem ainingon the s ide of the t ransla tor 's task part icular ly s ince th is responsibi li ty involvedpresen t ing to an Eng l ish-spea king au dience the a uthor 's penet rat ing contr ibut ionto a la rge ly unfam i lia r f ie ld o f resea rchw hen conf ron ted w i th a cho ice be tweenrela t ive c lar i ty in English and re tent ion of the a uthor 's s ty l is tic com plexi ty , an a t-temp t was m ade, if possible, to favor the form er. In spite of that , the specific lengthof paragraphs in the essay has remained as in the orig inal . On the se lection of taxrevenue, as well as on some subsequent points involving issues of term inologicalc lar i ty , the t ransla tor is indebted to a d iscussion w ith Professor Ross Thom son oft he Graduate Facul ty of the New School for Socia l Research , who i s , o f course ,innoce nt of any end uring den sit ies in the translation.*** An argum ent on the charac ter of th is ground -rent ( s tanding for Eyysto;npOnoaoc or yascr i tp6coaoc ) , specif ical ly wh y it is pre-capi ta l ist , fo l lows la terin the essay. A ful ler grasp o f several of these points w i ll no dou bt be faci li ta tedby recal ling the analysis in chap ter X LVII on the Genesis of Capi tali s t Ground -Rent in Capital, vol. III.**** Tenan try , rende r ing the term ecyp ol lmcm il c6p.6aal i, s tands for thatm ode of ho lding or cultivating land, by the tenant pea sant, through a relation ofcontract that provides the ow ner of the land w ith ground-rent


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Economic History of the Ottoman Domination in Greece 7is proportional to output, or it is appropriated in m oney form and is rela-tively stable, while it is limited in the form of labor and exc hangeable intom oney.* Ground-rent is generally paid as rent in kind and is proportionalto output an d , in a f e w c a s e s , i t i s e xt r ac t e d i n t h e f o r m o f m o n e yent.In the m ethods of approp riation of the surplus-produc t, ground -rent re-presents a constant m ode, but it becomes particularly extensive in the lateeighteen th and early nineteenth cen turies in the Greek m ainland territories.Taxes appear to incorpo rate pre-Ottoman tributeso r, on the contrary,to continue certain exemptions in such a way as to result in some m inori-t ies in the p easant p opulat ions taking adva ntage of the d is tr ibution oftaxation or avoiding bearing i t in its entirety. These divergence s, how -ever , wh erever they e xist , are no t adequate enoug h to differentiate thebasic m echanism for the extraction o f the surplus-product.T h e M i n i m u m L i m i t o f M o n e ti z at io n o r M a x im u m L i m i to f Forced Co m m odi f ica t ion o f the Peasan t Eco no m y**

From the prev ious encom passing formu lation, it follows that in pea-sant econom ies the natural and the mo netary sectors coexist; the latter isdefined in its minimum dimensions by the relative position of tax revenuein money form*** against tax revenue in kind. In other words,to the extent that we are see king the m inim um lim it of the m onetizationof the peasant econom y at the level of direct family production, we m ust,as a con sequence, refer to the extra-econom ic exactions that imp ose thism inim um m onetization, and w hich result from the tax com pulsion, i.e.,the paym ent of taxes in m oney form . Thus, in those cases where w e canreach an estim ate of the forced m onetary sector, the minimum m onetiza-t ion simp ly expresses the limits beyond w hich m onetization could leadto the real iza t ion o f m ixed incom es, that is , the real pa r t ic ipat ion ofthe direct produc er in the m arket.**** The significance, therefore, of the

* It i s obvious that , to the extent tax reven ue const i tutes a type of rent (asindicated in an earlier translator's note), one could have also spoken of laborrent (tax in labor form), rent in kind (tax in kind), and money-rent (tax inm oney form ). In other words , the dis t inc t ion be tween the forms of tax revenu e andgroun d-rent only attempts to avoid con fusion, and carries no analytical im plication.** Thematic headings, subdividing the essay for greater accessibility, wereprovided by the translator.*** Tax revenue in money form, as the precise sense of the technical term acac optxt rcpdo o8o6 (li terally differential rent or reven ue ) in the original, hasbeen used to avoid confusion w ith established m eanings, in English-language po liticaleconom y, of differential rent.

**** Mon etizat ion ( rendering ixxpliiaTtcp.k ) is used in i ts pol i t ica l econo m ysense of in troduct ion, es tablishment , and gen eral izat ion of m oney e xchanges in aneconom y. The m ore awkw ard m one ta r iza t ion i s som et im es a l so used to conveythe same relation. The other significant term in this analytical sequenc e, forced ,w hether character izing mo netizat ion or co mm odificat ion, specif ies these relat ions asresul t ing from extra-econo m ic com puls ion ( taxat ion) .


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OURNAL OP THE HELLENIC DIASPORAstudy of the tax system becom es apparent in order to show n ot only thedegree o f exploi ta tion of the peasan try , but a lso the con sequences oftaxation up on the p ossibili ty of interna l differentia t ion w ithin peasantsociet ies and, by extension, upon the p otent ia l role of mo ney a s a factorin peasant production.To assess the ma gni tude of the tax revenue in m oney form , we hav eto abando n the form al re la t ion o f product ion and taxat ion, and arr ive a test im ates with reference to the aggregate m agnitudes of taxat ion w hichburden peasa nt populations, regardless of wh ether these mag nitudes referdirect ly to p roduction i tself or are distr ibuted between those w ho reap thetax revenues and the state. The paym ent of taxes in mo ney is realized w iththe com m odification of part of the surplus; consequently, personal or othertaxes m ust be studied in con junction with the p ossibili ties of existence ofthis surplus. Put dif ferent ly, we n eed to exam ine wh at the consequencesof the agg regate of taxat ion are upo n the surplus .'Taxes paid in mo ney prov ide, as we hav e noted, a sufficient indicationcapable of de l im i ting the m inim um of the m onet iza tion of peasant eco-nom ies , w hich coincides wi th the m aximum of forced com m odif icat ion,i .e . , that com m odif icat ion w hich do es not tend to the acquisi tion of netm one y incom es, but to the fulf il lm ent of extra-econo m ic exact ions .' Inthis process the direct producer p art icipates in a type of m arket (w hich w em ust def ine em pir ical ly) w ithout being in a posi t ion to be inf luenced byi t and respond to i ts potential invitat ions. The m oney incom es he acquiresthrough contac t wi th it do not lead to an econom y of m ixed incom esw hich, in i t s turn , wou ld a llow the in t roduc t ion o f m oney exchanges tothe interior of peasant econom iesbut are intended for the payme nt of histaxes. W ithin this perspective, probable mo tives for the e xtension of pro-duction or the improvem ent of productivi ty are canc eled. Since, however,this unqual if ied form ulat ion c an o nly be useful as a ge neral m ode l , i t isnecessary to inquire to w hat extent there are d ivergences in real ity, andto w hat extent these divergences respond to real market s timulat ions, orrepresent ada ptations to the p otential of the land u nder cu ltivation an d at-tem pts to escape the impasses of defici t * cul t ivat ions.

1Let me be allowed to cite: Spyros I. Asdrachas, Waco) Lap,o1 ecrpotLx%otxov oli ,tocc a t tv Toopx oxpa -c(c4 (ts '-cat ' a t .) [Mechanisms of the Peasant Economyduring the Ottoman Domination (15th-16th Centuries)}, Athe ns , Them elio , 1978; Sources et problemes d'histoire economique de la Grece pendant la dominationottomane, Annuaire de l'Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, IVe Section, 1975-1976, pp. 477-499; loc. cit. 1976-1977, pp. 435 ff., and 1977-1978, pp. 473-503(the latter in print); Aux Balkans du XVe producteurs directs et marche,Etudes Balkaniques, 6/3, Sofia, 1970, pp. 36-69.

2 0n forced commodification, see Witold Kula, Teoria economica del sistemafeudale. Proposta di un modello, Torino, Einaudi, 1970, pp. 42-43. [Translator'snote: An English translation of this Polish work has appeared under the imprintof New Left Review Editions: Witold Kula, An Economic Theory of the FeudalSy s te m.)* De f ic i t cul t ivat ions ( EA.Xstpa tcxk xcaX L6pysteg ) in the sense of being


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Economic History of the Ottoman Domination in d feeceAll these w ays of approach m ust be weighed against multiple factors.

The consequence s of taxation must be weighed a gainst the rate of depre-c ia tion of m oney and the m ovem ent of pr ices . Mo re spec if ica l ly , it i snecessary to show to w hat extent the relative s tabil ity of taxes in m oneyform is counterbalance d by the grea ter adaptabil ity, to inflation, of taxeslevied by the s tate and, also, to w hat extent this gam e of a daptat ions an dcou nterbalances in its ent ire ty doe s not , in the last analysis, ma inlyinvolve the d is tr ibut ion of the surplus-product betw een the s ta te and i tsfunctionaries, or between the state and the ow ners of usury-capital , ratherthan involve ch ang e of the cond itions of produc tion at the level of cult i-vators. Tenan try relat ions must also be w eighed as m uch a gainst taxationthat burdens the peasant fam ily as against yields that can be obtained ona typical unit of land cu ltivated by the pea sant fam ily. The results of allthese coassessm ents can lead us to the est im ation of cer ta in mag nitudescapable of dem onst ra ting w hether i t was poss ib le w i th in the sys tem forthe condit ions of its overcom ing to be form ed.To arrive at this type of inquiry, we have reco urse to source m aterialthat is heteroge neo us and, in practice, scattered: est ima tes of produc tionby fam ily production units according to tax assessm ents (m ainly from thefifteenth and sixteenth ce nturies) ; and evidenc e about spe cific cases tha tm ust be coassociated with m ore ideal or typical evidence (e.g. , informa-t ion about the tax burden of a region in conjunction w ith ideal est imatesof the p rodu c t ion of a u ni t of cul t iva t ion, or the reve rse). As i t i s t ruein general, on such occasions the d emo nstrat ive value o f evidence and,consequent ly , the va lue of conclus ions is dependent upon the w ay inw hich the p roblem is posed , i .e . , the con nect ive re la t ion tha t obta insbetween the evidence from the sources and the research hyp othesis. Other-w ise , noth ing rem ains but the ident i f ica t ion of h is tory w i th the m ostparticularized em piricism.The Realization of Ground-Rent or the Formationof Large Landed Property

As w e hav e no ted, ground- rent cons ti tu tes a form para lle l to taxa-t ion in the m ode o f appropr ia t ion of the surplus-produc t . Ground -rentcan be ex t rac ted f rom a land of sm al l or la rge extent ; in te rm s of i tsconsequences upo n the direct cul t ivator, how ever, i ts effects are, theoret i-cally, the sam e. This is the ca se becau se, for tenantry relations to be in-t roduced o n the basis of sm all landed p roper ty, it m eans that there is noavailability of lands 3or po ssibil ity of econ om ic choice on the part of thelow-yield and unable to meet typical surplus requirements, specifically in termsof the production of the principal crop, i.e., cereals. Peasant strategies in such cases,intended to satisfy both subsistence needs and tax or ground-rent exactions, arereferred to later in the essay.

3 Availability of lands socially: uncultivated lands that belong to an aggre-gate of private lands do not establish an availability able to reverse the tenantry


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10 JOURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORAcultivator. In practice, nevertheless, the realization o f grou nd-rent co r-respond s to the forma tion of large landed p roperty. In this respect, thefollow ing is indicative: whe rever the O ttoman system of redistributionof tax revenues anticipates the possibility of tenantry relations on the basisof small or medium production units nam ely, in the case of bassa cift l igi ,i .e . , the reserv ed seigne urial ( timariot ) landsthese relations donot appear to predo m inate. On the co ntrary, the reserved lands tend tobecom e assimilated w ith lands that exc lusively yield tax revenue, an dground -rent is substi tuted by a form of corae, called paraspor (that canprovide the ow ner of the land w ith a gross product equivalent to one-tenthof the gross production of a un it of cultivation), which, howev er, does nothave the cha racter of a tenantry relationship. 4

In the process of formation of large private landed property w e havethe coincidence of m ultiple factors that extend ov er a broad time scale.First, we enco unter the m ethods of transgressing the strategy of the Otto-man statewhich was opposed to the formation of large private landowner-relation. In this respect, implantation provides a g ood ex am ple of the reinforceme ntof la rge landed proper ty o r o f the deve lopment o f land th rough non-econom ic in -vestment . Compare the I talian example, as presented compact ly by Ruggiero Rom ano, Una tipologia econo m ica, Storia d Italia, I: I caratteri originali, Torino, Einau di,1972, pp. 273-278.

4 0n bassa ciftligi, see also: Vera Mutafcieva, Kam vaprosa za ciflicite vosm anskata imperi ja prez X IV-XVII v ., Istoriceski Pregled, 14/1(1958), pp. 34-57 (in Greek translation: I. Th. Lam psidis, Rep t To0 CiTrii,wro c T63v Toup/txtem oetc ,cilv '00colaccvixtv Akoxpw roptav xccrdt. .rav '-IZ atOva., Ae),Ttov /Acc6LxilcBt,61.toypa cplac ( On the Matter of Ciftlik in the Ottoman Emp ire during the 14thto 17th Centuries, Bulletin of Slavic Bibliography), no. 29, The ssaloniki, 1970,pp. 83-117);N Beldiceanu, Biens m ona st iques d 'aprbs un registre ot tom an deTrObizond (1487). Mona stres de la Chryso kephalos et de P haros, R evue des EtudesByzantine , 35(1977), pp. 202-204. On paraspor: Ivan Boz ic , Paraspor u Ska-darskoj oblasti , Recueil des travaux de PAcadirnie des Sciences, XLIX-Institutd Etu des Byzantines, no. 4 (Beograd), pp. 13-30 (28.30, French summary: Le'Paraspor ' dan s le distr ic t de Skada r ) . The corre lat ion of a fo rm of paraspor withthe m ethods of exploi t ing the bassa ciftligi needs to be further established; the for-m ulation regarding the y ield of paraspor has been drawn by analogy to an exam pleof private lands: 4 kile of paraspor com pared to 40 kile that equal the entire sow ingin a zevgari [Ceuript: surface unit) (Spyros I. Asdrachas, IIpaymmutatvrecct r th 'cOv 6/ . /. .t ivex d atdva, Z.ra0p.ol . icpbc Ttv Nicc 'EXX 7ivexi l Koh nov fcc( Realit ies from the Gree k 18th Century, Stages Tow ard the New G reek Society),Ath ens, 1965, pp. 32-33). The paraspor in question is intended for the supe rvisor(xexcerukc or ao 4.7court ic) of an o w ner of the land. In Gastouni the paraspor o fthe supervisor w as cul t ivated in 3 to 5 stremmata per each zevgari (T. A. Gritso -poulos, DraItcrtcxxl etbieoetc /cep% IleAcecov vhoou, IleXon ovvylatrout ( StatisticalInformation about Pelopon nisos, Peloponnisiaka), 8(1971), p. 456); in the c ou ntyof Imlakia in Peloponnisos it reached 2 s t remmata per zevgari for the late varietiesof grain, and up to one pinaki of prod uct for the early variet ies (P. Papatson is ,'Azoirrtip,ove6p,atcc [Mem oirs) ed. by E. G. Protop saltis , Athens,1960, p. 31).


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Economic History of the Ottoman Domination in Greece 11shipby m eans of the formation of v aki f * or foun dation estates. ' Then,at the end of the sixteenth century, com es the form ation of large privateagricultural holdings as a result of the enrichm ent of certain functionariesof the state apparatus and the fa vorable conjuncture brough t about by theprice revolut ion. Furthermo re, w e have the exprop riat ion of peasan tlands as a result of the inability of the cultivators to cop e w ith taxes inm oney form , or as a syndrome of the system of farming out revenues,**w hich had as a consequence the aggrava tion of the degree of exploitationof the peasan ts. Finally, there is the m aximization of coe rcion on the partof the func tionaries of authority at the local level or the age nts of socialdomination, and the increase of patronage m ethods they practiced.

I t i s sel f -eviden t that the tend enc y for the form at ion o f pr ivatelanded p roperty, yielding reve nues in kind to i ts ow ner, expresses theexistence of m arket relations. W hat it is necessary to ask is to w hat extentlarge landownership corresponds to an increase in the volum e of p roduc-tion' m ade av ailable to this market, or to wha t extent, on the contrary, it* Among the limited references in English to the Islamic institution of the

vakif (also wakf), see Haill Inalcik, Capital Formation in the Ottoman Empire,Journal of Economic History, 1969, pp. 97-140; Suraiya Faroghi, Vakif Adminis-tration in Sixteenth Century Konya. The Zaviye of Sadreddin-i Konevi, Journalof the Econ om ic and Soc ia l His tory o f the Orien t , XVII, Part 2 (1974), pp. 145-172.

5Vera Mutafcieva, A g ra rn i t e O t n o sen i ja v o sm a n sk a t a i m p e ri ja p re z X V -X V I v . ,Sofia, 1962 (260-262, French summary: Les rapports agraires dans Umpire ot-toman ), pp. 88-176.

** The system of farming out revenues, specifically tafx-farming, extensivein centralized and absolutist state formations before the advent of modern tax-col-lection agencies, generally involved selling in advance by the state, for an assessedaggregate fee, the right to collect taxes in a particular region (or from a particulartax-yielding monopoly ) to a certain individual. This tax-farmer, often subdividingthe region for which he had bought the right to collect its assessed taxes to severalpetty tax-farmers, received a lucrative return on his investment by simply extractingmore than he had paid for. State functionaries or state-connected financiers werethe obvious competitors for tax-farming contracts. Tax-farming in the context ofthe Ottoman Empire is dealt with later in the essay.

Omer Lutfi Barkan, The Price Revolution of the Sixteenth Century: ATurning Point in the Economic History of the Near East, International journalof Middle East Studies, 6/1, Cambridge University Press, 1975, pp. 3-28; XVI.asrin ikinci yarisinda Tiirkiye'de fiyat hareketleri, Belleten, 34/133-136(1970),PP. 557-607; Les Mouvements des prix en Turquie entre 1490 et 1655, MOlangesen honneur de Fernand Braudel, I: Histoire economique du monde mediterranien14501650, Toulouse, 1972, pp. 65-79; Ljuben Berov, Changes in Price Conditionsin Trade Between Turkey and Europe in the 16th-19th Century, Etudes Ba lk an-iques, 10/2-3(1974), pp. 168-178; Dvizenieto na cenite na Balkanite prez XVI-X IX v . i evrop ejska ta rev ol juc i ja na cen i te , Sofia, 1976 (317-322, English summary- Prices in the Balkans during the 16th-19th Centuries and the European Revolutionof Prices ), pp. 142-180.

'Regarding exports which, instead of expressing an overproduction, are dueto local underconsu m ption, see N. Svorono s, L e c o m m e rc e d e S a lo n i qu e au X V II e


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i2OURNAL OP THE HELLENIC DIASPO RAsimply co nst itutes a m eans of l imit ing the degree o f par t ic ipat ion o f thedirect producer , wh o com ing over from a regim e of land tenure subjectto t ithe to one that , in ad dit ion, yields groun d-rent finds himse lf, at theend, w ith a reduced surplus. To wish to estimate the consequences of largelanded prop erty upon the total agricultural product is beyond attainme nt.There remain other approaches such as eva lua t ing the co nsequences ofground-rent upon the peasant fam ily production, or elucidat ing the a rt icu-la t ion o f the inhabited and the c ul t ivated land in those vi l lages , w hich,entirely or in part , belong to one or m ore large landow ners. Furtherm ore,one can s tudy the m ovem ent of the agr icul tura l and urban popula t ionin order to see how this m ovem ent correlates wi th the format ion of largeland holdings.Illustrat ing the first approach , one cou ld suggest som e con ventional ,but not arbi trary, num bers. Firs t of a l l, le t us rem ind ou rselves of som ecertainties:

a . the technology of the p er iod does not a l low an e lastic ut il izat ionof the so i l; andb. the sca le w i th in w hich ground- ren ts a re rea lized i s dependen tupon the agricultural yields and the l im its placed by self-consump -tion, reproduction, and the paym ent of taxes.

Thus, without co estimating the re gional or local ava ilabili ty of labor, wecan reach certain est im ates which show that large lande d property cannotexist except unde r the presuppo sition of satisfactory yields, a fact im plyingsuch av ai labil ity of lands that i t would be u nnecessary to h ave recou rseto m arginal lands. Therefore , we ha ve a f i rs t imp rovised con clusion: inthe concre te condi t ions of Ottom an dom ina t ion la rge landed proper tyis depen dent upon the spars ity of the popula t ion. That does no t mean ,how ever , that this sparsity can also be ident i f ied a s an a spect of e qui li -brium.Estimating the p roduct ion of a typical uni t of cul tivat ion at the endof the e ighteenth c entury , w e f ind tha t , in the case o f exce l lent y ie lds(a harvest-to-seed ratio of 10:1), the net surplus av ailable to the pea santafter the deduction of the seed (10% of gross production), the titheand other burdens (14%), the subsistence minimum (10.67%) , themaxim um forced comm odification that corresponds to taxes in m oney form(6.66%), and the gro und -rent (29.5% ) w as on the orde r of 12.17%of the gross produc t ion. The sources provide evidence of high yie lds onthe order of 10:1, but these yields cannot po ssibly be considered as a veragesicle, Paris, PUF, 1956, pp. 363-366; also Seraphim Maximos, 'H Op) Toffxcuct ta lcatwiS [The Dawn of Greek Capitalism], Athens, 1945, pp. 22-23. See also the remarks of Felix Beaujour, Tableau du commerce de la Grece,forme depuis une armee moyenne, depuis 1787 jusqu'en 1797, I, Paris, 1800,pp. 131-134, II, pp. 182-183 (Greek translation by Eleni Garidis, edited, with anintroduction and notes, by Tasos Vournas: IIivaxas Ton glinopiou 'r 'Exxona.* Toupxoxperacc, Athens, 1974, pp. 84-85, 241-242).


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Economic History of the Ottoman Domination in Greece 13ones . I f, on the contra ry , we cons ider tha t the sam e un i t of cul t iva t ionrea l ized a y ie ld on the order of 5 :1 , then the surp lus , f rom w hich them aximum forced comm odification w ould need to be derived, correspondedonly to 2% of gross product ion , wh i le th is com m odif ica t ion required aprod uct (a percen tage in kind) equivalent to 13% of the produ ction.8This exam ple shows that a fam ily production unit that yields ground-ren t cannot r e spond to the requirem ents o f r eproduc t ion an d taxa t ionexcept un der the presupposi tion of high yields or other conc urrent cul t i-vat ions w hich w ould m ake i t poss ible to overcom e the def ic it o f theprim ary cro p cu lt ivat ion, i .e . , cerea ls . These s tatem ents are, of cou rse,valid in those cases in wh ich the ground-rent is of a certain order in ourexam ple, to the ex tent it corresponds to o ne-half of product ion af ter thededuction of seed , tithe, and expenses.The percentage of produ ct (estimated in kind) corresponding to theam ount of taxes in m oney form w as ca lcula ted on the basis of m arke tprice. If , how ever, one used as the basis for this calculation a price co r-responding to two -thirds of the ma rket pr ice as appears to be the casein the exchanges o f the d i rec t producer then the percentage of forcedcom m odificat ion wou ld increase to 9.5% or 19% of the gross production,depen ding on w hether we w ere deal ing w ith yie lds on the order of 10:1or 5:1.8The Movement of Prices

The percentage of forced com m odificat ion is a function of the move-m ent of pr ices and o f taxes in m oney form . As far as the tax revenue inm oney form is concerned, w e have noted tha t i t exhibi ts an im m obil ityw ith respect to certain of i ts sectors , a fact coun terbalanced and ove rcom -pensated-by the addi t ion of n ew taxes or by the adaptat ion, to the depre-ciat ion of m oney , of certain amon g the old ones. For exam ple, a personaltax such as ispence show s an increase of 528% betw een 1489 and 1797,w hile the head- tax (kefalikos) dem onstrates a comp arable increase, ona weighed average, on the order of 748%. During that sam e per iod, theprice of whe at in the ma rket show s an increase on the order of 2,612%7. 10

8See Spyros I. Asdrac has, [Ta 'asp.) ObtovoilIcc crap `Icrcopla Ton TAATivmo r; EOvouc [(the chap.) The Economy in History of the Greek Nation], IA[vol. 11], Athens, 1975, p. 160; Sources et problemes d'histoire economique del a Grace pendan t l a dom ina tion o t tomane , Annuaire de PEcok Pratique des HautesEtudes, IVe Section, 1977-1978 (Paris, in print).

See Spyros I. Asdrachas , Marches e t p r ix du b l en Grace au XVIIIe s iede ,Slidost-Forschungen, 31(1972), pp. 178-209, where a hypothesis is advanced con-cerning the formation of prices. On the magnitude of ispence in the f i f teenth c entury , see a lso: Ha l il Inalc ik, Osm anli lar 'da raiyyet r f istimu , Belleten, 23/92(1959), pp. 602-608; Vera P. Mu-t a fc ieva , Feoda lna ta r en ta , p r i svo javana o f l enn i ja darza te l v osma nska ta im per i jas ogled na nasite zemi prez XV-XVI v., Izvestija na Instituta za balgarska Istorija,


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4OURNAL O F THE HELLENIC D IASPORAUnder such con ditions, the effects of these taxes in m oney form upon thegross production of the u nit of cultivation w e are taking as our exam plewou ld have been the following (on the presupposit ion of a yield of 5 :1)at these tw o dates: 13% (m inim um price) or 6% (m axim um price) in1489, and 2% an d 1.4%, respectively, in 1797. These relations, w hichmu st be considered as relations of m agnitude and n ot as relations of pre-cise num bers, il lustrate the l imits allow ed by the m ovem ent of prices totwo possible dev elopm ents : the absorpt ion o f the difference ei ther bytaxation or by ground-rent. The absorption through taxation did not oc curexclusively by w ay of i ts adaptat ion to the m ovem ent of pr ices by theaddition of n ew taxes. It also occurred indirectly throug h the system offarming out public revenues, a system wh ich resulted in the maxim izationof the exactions by tax-farm ers or petty tax-farm ers in other words, theaggrav ation of the exploitation of the direct produce rs.

Athird deve lopm ent m ight have been that in wh ich the cult ivatorwo uld be the one favored by the m ovem ent of prices. While supportingexam ples to that effect are not m issing, they are contradicted by a m oregeneral finding: the progress of large landed prop erty and the system ofthe formation of prices, which do no t allow the incorporation of the p ro-duc er into the m arket. To the extent this non -incorporation of the pro-ducer ca n be ge neralized, exam ples indicating benefits accruing to pro-ducers, due to m ovem ent of prices, m ust be embedded w ithin the equili-brating efforts the producers attemp t to un dertake them selves in order toease tax burdens w ithout exp anding p roduction. W ithin this lat ter per-spective, they prefer to pay taxes in m oney form .Sy stem s of D istribution of the Product

This simple know ledge of the system s of tenantry is not adequate todem onstrate either the l imits of surpluses or the corresponding limits ofground-rents if there is no co ncurrent knowledge of the d imensions ofunits of cultivation, sow ing practices, and yields. In a first approxima tion,these limits could be suggested o n the basis of a sow ing practice that ap -pears representative (40 kile per un it). The fo llow ing table presents thedistributive portions of the tena nt cultivators and the lan dow ners afterthe dedu ction of tithe an d expe nses (20% of gross produc tion), in a scale7(1957), pp. 178-183 (203-204, French sum m ary: La rente Muddle approprieepar les detenteurs Mods.= dans l'Empire ot toman aux XVe e t XVIe ss . ) ; com pareN. Beld iceanu, Un ac te inedi t sur le s t a tu t de la com m unau te ju ive de Tr ika la ,Revue des Etudes Islamiques 40(1972), pp. 133-135. For the hea d-tax (w eighedaverage fo r the f i ft een th cen tury), use was m ade of the t ab les o f Omer Barkan , 894 (1488/1489) yi l i Cizy enin in Tahsilat ina Lit Muh asebe Bilencolari , Beigelee,1/1(1964), pp. 17 -27. For the pr ice of wh eat ( in Is tanbul): Om er Lutf i Barkan,The Price Revolution, p. 10; Les mouvements des prix, p. 70; XVI asrinikinci yarisinda Tfirklyed e fiyat hare ketleri , p. 561. For the year 1796: Spyros LAsdrac has, l ipaypatrafrtirseg { Realit ies ] .


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E c o n o m i c H ist o ry o f t he O t to m a n D o m i n at io n i n G re ec e5of yield ratios from 3.5 to 10:1, and acco rding to the following m ethodsof distribution.*a . Distr ibut ion in half (af ter the d educ t ion of t i the) : the ow nersupplies the seed, and the tenan t covers the expenses.

b. Distribution in thirds: the ow ner supp lies the seed, and the tenantcove rs the expenses; after the dedu ction of tithe the tenant takes2/3 of prod uction.c . Distr ibution in f if ths: the o w ner supp lies the seed , and un der-takes the expense s; after the deduc tion of t ithe the tenant takes

1/5 of production.d . Distr ibution in f ifths: the tenant su pplies the seed, and coversthe expense s; after the deduc tion of t i the, wh ich correspond s to1/7 of produ ction, he takes 4/5 of production.

e. Distribution in fifths: the tena nt supp lies the seed , and cov ers theexpen ses; after the dedu ction of tithe he takes 2/3 of prod uction.Table I**

Yieldratio (a)t(enant)wner) (b)t(c)tt (d)0 1 0 2 (e )t o3.5 35 kik 23 56 2 25 33 28 44 24 16 424 40 32 64 8 29 43 38 50 27 24 485 50 50 80 20 36 64 57 63 34 40 606 60 68 96 32 43 85 77 75 41 56 707 70 86 112 44 50 106 96 88 48 72 848 80 104 128 56 58 126 115 101 55 88 969 90 122 144 68 65 147 135 113 61 104 108

10 100 140 160 80 72 168 154 126 69 120 120[author's note] 0(1) Including tithe, in the case of reserved seigneurial ( t imariot)

land.0(2) Excluding tithe.Among these systems of distribution the most favorable for the

t e n a n t is (b ) , w h i c h d o e s n o t a l l o w t h e o w n e r t o d o u b l e th e s e e d e x c e p twith a yield of 7:1, wh ile in system a) a yield of 4 to 5:1is adequateto dou ble the seed. In system (e) the tenan t is i n a m o r e f a v o r a b l e p o s i-* To what extent, and during what period, forms of distribution of the surplus-product in the Ottoman social formation might or might not qualify as forms of

sharecropping (metayage) , in the connotation of social transition of that term,is a point of inquiry not to be prejudged by any translation choices.* * Tables consecutively numbered by the translator.


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16OURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORAtion in the cas e of yields o f 7 to 10:1. Und er this last hypo thesis, the firstthree systems w ould provide the fol lowing distr ibution of the net product:

Table IIYield ratiownerenantystem7-10:15 k i le13a)1512b)

96

02c)Specifying the subsis tence m inim um of the pe asant fam ily at 32 Me, wecan see that in som e system s of distr ibution the net product is not ade quatefor the m aintenance of the fam ily . These a re the cases of y ie lds low erthan 4:1 in systems (d) and (e), and lower than 5:1 in system (c).In addition to these system s we can m ention two m ore, one of l im itedand the other o f extensive appl icat ion. The f i rst one w e en counter (e .g. ,in Chios), nam ed apotr i to , consists of a relat ion established betwee n thepar t ia l buyer of a p iece of land and the se l le r . The buyer becom es theow ner of two -thirds of the land , and th e seller is obliged to cultivate theentire piece and to turn ove r, to the own er of the tw o-thirds, the one-thirdof the ent ire production. This sys tem is based upo n the relat ion w hichanticipates that the land by i tself provides i ts ow ner w ith the right to reapone-ha l f of the produ c t ion, w hi le seed an d exp enses burden the tenant .The pu rchase is a me ans of forc ing the acce ptance o f th is re la t ion bynailing dow n, through th e con tract, the cultivator to the land . In reality,the ow ner rece ives one -ha l f o f the p roduc t ion o f the p iece o f l and heow ns . The o ther sys tem of d is tr ibut ion provides the ow ner of the landw ith one-fourth of the production after the deduction of the t i the; the seedand expenses burden the cul t ivator . In this system the net revenu e of thetenant and the ow ner , for y ie lds f rom 3.5 to 6:1, is on the ave rage o f74 ki le for the tenant and 55.5 for the ow ner; for yie lds f rom 7 to 10:1,it is, respe ctively , 161.5 and 76.5 kile.Part ic ipat ion o f the L ando w ner in Produc t ion

The exam ples w e have presented show the m argins of choice tha texis t for the rea l iza t ion of the grou nd-ren t and the ne t prod uc t of thecult ivator . I t is a chara cteris t ic fac t that evidence about the nineteenthcentury ap pears to indicate that the more common system of distributionof the product was tritariko, w ith seed and exp enses burdening the tenant .This indica tes the predom inant type of landow ner ; we a re dea l ing w i thindividuals who l im it them selves to the ow nership of land w ithout beinginterested in its developm ent through the form ation of livestock capi ta l


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Economic History of the Ottoman Domination in Greece7and the storage or renewal of seed. The max imization, howev er, of ground -rent through the part icipat ion of the landow ner in the seed an d expen sespresup posed high y ields . Con tras t ing the resul ts of dis tr ibution system(c), wh ich fol low s th is logic , and o f sys tem (e), wh ich m inim izes therole of the owner as a factor in production, we obtain the followingdistr ibution of the net prod uct:

Table IIIYield ratioenantwnerystem35-6:13.25 k i le6.25c)345e)7-10:11.2536.75c)9602e)Com par ing the tw o sys tems i t becom es appa ren t tha t fo r y ie ld ra t iosbelow 7:1, i .e. , the p revail ing o nes, the ow ner h as no serious incentive topar t ic ipa te in pro duc t ion, supp lying i t wi th capi ta l in k ind othe r thanland. On the part of the tenant , there w ere no s t rong m otives to prefer inthese yie lds sys tem (c), s ince fo r y ie ld ra t ios be low 4:1 he w ould no teven secure the subsistence minim um . In maxim um yields, a lso, he w asfavored by sys tem (e) , w hi le the ow ner w as favored by sys tem (c) . W eknow that the other system , which w as also extensive, was the so-cal ledsyntrofiko (distribution of pro duc tion in half after the dedu ction of seed,tithe, and exp enses). In this system w e wo uld obtain the follow ing results:

Table IVYield ratioenantwner35-6:14.75 k i le4.75710199W ith regard to the tenant 's por t ion a t m aximum yie lds , as a lso w i th theportion of the owne r, one can see that the prevalent systems of extractionof grou nd-rent coinc ide . Indeed , the par t ic ipa t ion of the lando w ner inproduc tion, through supply of the seed, favors the tenant in lower as w ellas higher yields , wh i le for the o w ner i t is unfavorable in the lower ones.The com parison, finally, between the tw o system s dem onstrates the inelas-t ic i ty tha t prev a i led in p rac t ice regarding the m aximiza t ion of ground-rent through the m ore act ive part icipat ion of the landown er in production.Expenses , as a rule, burden the cul tivator : they c onsis t of paym ents


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18OURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORAin kind com bined with paym ents in mo ney. The la t ter con tr ibute to them onetization of pea sant econom ies to an extent that cannot be specified,but it m ust be recalled that these m ixed paym ents are advan ced to a strictlyseasonal and m igratory labor force. It should also be noted that expensescovered consu m ption needs of seasona l workers , w hich expla ins wh ywag es a re the case m ainly in v ineyard labor . Som e indica tions sugges tthat remun erat ion in kind w as m ore favorable to the season al worker incom parison to rem unerat ion in mone y because the wage ap pears to havehad low er purchas ing pow er in the m arke t, in t e rm s o f acqu i ring them eans'of subsistence, compared w ith that portion of the product (remune-rat ion in kind) by which o ne w as being paid daily. Som etimes this differ-ence reache d a rat io of 1:5.5. 11Concentration of Landownership

W e have n oted tha t ground- rents could be ext rac ted f rom a sm al l,med ium, or large landed pro perty, but that, concurrently, a presuppos itionof that was the c ontrol of the area under cu l tivation by a l im i ted nu m berof ow ners in such a w ay so tha t sm a ll o r medium ground- ren ts wouldnot re f lec t respec t ive m agn i tudes in ow nership , but ra ther m ir ror thedimen sions of the cult ivated area w ithin the entire landed pro perty. Sincei t is part icularly prema ture to indicate the frequency o f appearance of oneor the other orders of magn itude of ow nership, w hat remains is to recal lsom e general relations as they derive from the distribution of land betweenthe Turkish and the Greek po pulat ion before the revo lut ion o f 1821 inPelopon nisos, Sterea Ellada, and Evia.The largest concen trat ion of pr ivate landed prop erty occu rs in thef ram ew ork of the conquer ing soc ie ty : the Greek peasant popu la t ionscul t ivate lands w hich, to a m axim al degree, belong to Turkish ow ners.The difference in the per cap ita relat ion betw een po pulat ion and land,as this relat ion appears in term s of the Chris tian and Moslem populat ionsections, is indicative of the deg ree of c oncen trat ion; i t cannot, howe ver,show at w hat levels this concentration was being formed. The stratigraphyof large landed prop erty requires evidence in terms of individual owner-ship w ithin the boundaries of the un it of habitation, the vil lage.There exis ts support ing evidence indicat ing a high concen tration ofagricul tural ow nership in the context of Christian populat ions. The landedproperty of m onasteries presents , in this respect , a s ignificant exam ple; at

11W ill iam Mart in Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, II , Lond on, 1835, p. 189;in the village Merali of Fokida (1805) the wage of the laborers in the harvest wasa kouveli of wh eat , equivalent to 22 okades , and an aka of wine; a kouveli of whea twas being sold in the market of Leivadia for 5.5 piasters, while the agriculturalwage during that period was, as a rule, one piaster.12D. Zografos, `Icrzop to & XX vivcxi)g yetopylag [History of Greek Agriculture]A-B, 2nd ed. (Agricultural Bank of Greece Editions), Athens, 1976, p. 145,pp. 461-462.


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E c o n o m i c H is to ry o f t h e O t to m a n D o m i n at io n i n G re ec e9Table V

Inhabitants Land (in stremmata) Average(per capita) Region

T(urks) : 47,750 3,000,000 62.8 PeloponnisosTo: 9.44 66.67G(reeks) : 458,000 1,500,000 3.27%: 90.56 33.33T: 20,865 1,480,130 70.94 Sterea & EviaTo : 7.76 36.02 ElladaG: 247,850 2,629,100 10.61ITo: 92.24 63.98

Total T: 68,615 4,480,130 65.29To: 08.86 32.04G: 705,850 4,129,100 5.851 7 :1.14 47.96th is point, howev er, we hav e no system at ic m odes of inquiry w i th w hichto analyze the com position of m onast ic revenues and the locat ion of agri-cultural production in that c om posit ion. Neve rtheless, i t is alm ost certainthat in m any cases the formation of monastic property was dependent upo nthe ove rindebtedness of peasa nts, i.e., it was a function of the invasion ofthe ar t if ic ia l m one tary sector , as im po sed by taxation, into the natu ral

sector. Certain im provem ents on the land can be counted at the same timeas positive mona stic investme nts.Groun d-Ren t: Pre-Cap i tal ist o r C api talist M odeo f A pp rop riation of the Surplus-Produc t?

The distinct ion betw een the tw o form s of approp r ia t ion o f the sur-plus-product , the tax revenue and the ground-rent , does not entai l a cor-responding division betwe en a traditional system of appropriation an d on eof a capi ta l is t type. If such a h ypo thesis were he ld, w e w ould be speci-fying tax revenue as a funct ion of the predatory s tate w hich throughi s indicat ive exa m ple is that of the m onastery o f Lavra a t Kalavry ta , tes t i -fy ing to l and improvem ents , an ex tens ion and safeguard ing of i t s proper ty in thesecond half of the eighteenth century. See Kostas Lappas, `Ayto& povii Kcaczep6vov,A', xatilavo: it Tbv mama uovilg [Holy Monastery of Kalavryta, I: Docu-

ments from the Monastery's Codex], Athe ns Cen ter for Neoh ellenic Studies, E.I.E.,1975, pp. 1-63.


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20OURNAL O F THE HELLENIC D IASPORAthe superimpose d dom inant conquering society can extract the surplus-product , identifying this pract ice as a presupposi t ion o f horizontal as w ellas vert ical social m obili ty. Following the same hypo thesis, groun d-rentw ould exp ress the reverse proc ess , ident i fy ing as a presupp os i t ion o fhorizon tal , and potent ia l ly v er t ical , socia l mo bil ity no t s imp ly a ce r ta indegree of m onetization of the econom y, but the very penetration of mon eyinto the sphere of peasant production m oney, indeed, coming to determinei t. In real ity, ground -rent does n ot express a c api ta l is t process w herebythe product would have been a com m odi ty crea ted by wage labor andinvestments of cap ital in land. Regarding this last point, we have seen thatthe labor forcesuch as i t cam e to be added to the fam ily had a seasonalcharac ter, and that i ts rem uneration w as m ixed; as a ma tter of fact , in thesector of cereal cul t ivat ion, w here i t wa s m ainly em ployed, i ts rem uner-at ion was in kind, when ever i t was not m ixed. W e m ay add that this laborforce was n ot only m igratory, but that i t belonge d to a system of m ixedincom es and relative self-sufficiency or com pIem entarity. ' * Its existence,therefore, did not express a social class wh ose only incom e w as i ts wa ge,but, on the contrary, a section of the peasant p opulation that supp lementedi ts incom es in kind w ith seaso nal labor . In other w ords, we a re deal ingw ith m igratory island populations that are seasonally emp loyed in StereaEllada or Peloponnisos, or highland populat ions that w ork on the plateausor the plains, and return to their vi llages fetching the prod uct (remu nera-t ion in kind) or mo ney the y acquired w ith their season al labor. This typeof labor force w as not exclusively agricultural , but was also em ployed inhan dicrafts : in a l l cases , it functione d as an equil ibrating factor in thegen eral system , or as a factor of pa rt icularizing the crisis.Capital Invested in Land

Investm ent in land, to the extent i t const itutes a s ignif icant m eansin the form ation of large landed p roper ty, can only lead to the perpetu-a t ion o f the sys tem o f propor t iona l revenues and the dem onet iza tion of14 A synthetic presentation of the preda tory function of nom adic states appearsin: Perry Anderson, Les passages de PAntiquite au fiodalisme, Paris , Maspero,1977, pp. 235-247. [Translato r 's note: In the En glish origina l Passages from Anti-quity to Feudalism, ( the chap.) The Nom adic Brake , New Lef t Review Books ,1974, pp. 217-228]. See w ith respect to Rum ania, and m ore broadly in the contex t

of a typo logy of s ta te form ations , H. H. Stahl , Les anc iennes co m m its:e lutes vi l lage-oiler roumaines. Asservissement et penetration capitaliste, Bucharest, 1969,pp. 241-252.* This labor force's employment (resulting in mixed incomes) was com-plemen tary, or addit ional, to self-sufficiency activit ies such as cult ivation. See Spyros I . Asdrac has, Salai res ruraux et salaires urbains en Grece a laf in du XVIIIe e t au com m encem ent du X IXe s lec les , La force de travail dans lescites mediterrimaennes du milieu du XVIIIe au milieu du XIXe siecle (Publicationof the Cahiers de la Mediterranee, serie sp ec iale, no. 3), Nice , 1974, pp. 99-110.


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Econo m ic History o f the O t tom an D om inat ion in Greece1the econo m y of fam ily produc tion. The very fact of investm ent is a resultof the cr is is that i s expressed in a large num ber of cases w i th the ov erin-debtedness of the peasantry to taxes or the n eeds for l iquidity of ce r ta inlarge landow ners evident ly burdened w ith uneco nom ical * expenses. Inthese cases the process of concentra t ion o f land is embedded w ithin aproc ess of i ts dep recia t ion. The subseque nt r ise in the price of land isdepend ent upon the abi li ty of the new ow ner e i ther to incorpora te theground-rent w i thin a system of expenses of a di fferent type from the onethat led to the dep reciation an d forced alienation of the land , or to m aintainthe cult ivations by recourse to adm inistrative m ethods. From the few ex-am ples one could m ention, i t appears that the per iod in w hich revenuesmatched the purchase pr ice** of the land w as a shor t term o ne or, at least ,tha t presum ed gross product ion could represent as mu ch as 40 to 90%of the purchase pr ice . W e are led to the sam e rela tions by a com parisonbetween the price per s tremma of land and the price of cereals on the eveof the revolut ion of 1821: t he ave r age price of a stremma of land w as35 grosia (m in imum 10 and m ax im um 60); 18 the presum ed produc t ion(with a yield of 5 :1, ret i rem ent of land from cult ivat ion for two y ears ,average price 10 grosia per kile and seed equal to 15 okades per s t r em m a )w as 53% of the price of the land. In this case, for a produ ction unit witha mi sa k a r i k o system o f product distr ibution, the period in w hich revenuesm atched the pu rchase pr ice w ould equal four years ; i t would equal s ixyears with a tritariko distribution system . These calculations are base d onthe m arket pr ice of wh eat , and are s im ply indicat ive. The coest im ationof the pr ice of bar ley w ould increase the length of th is per iod, whi le ,respectively, the coestimation of cultivations that accom pany the tem poraryret irem ent of land w ould coun terbalance this difference. A period of fiveyears , in w hich revenues com e to match the purchase price of land, pre-supposes a n interest rate on the orde r of 25%. How ever, the typical ratesof interest w ith the exc ept ion of those val id for m arine loans or cer tainconsum ption loans (including loans for the pa ym ent of tax obligat ions)w ere lower , around o ne-half of the above percentage. To the extent thatthese first approxim ations are em pirically verifiable, one could reac h theconclusion that investm ent of capi ta l in land con st ituted a re la t ively in-s ignif icant factor in the process of t ransform ation of produc ts into ex-change values.T he Stra tegy o f C ap i tal : T ax-Farm ing

Capital is oriented toward three m ajor sectors of investm ent: farming* Unecon om ical expenses, e.g., luxury consum ption.

** The periphrastic expression, the period in which revenues matched thepurcha se price of land, wa s chose n to render d'ut6a6scrti, since its nearest equiva-lents ( am ort izat ion or deprecia t ion ) br ing to m ind econo m ic re la t ions incom -m ensurate with the period under exam ination.Zografos, op . cit., pp. 169-170.


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22OURNAL O F THE HELLENIC D IASPORAof tax revenues , com m erce , and lending. Inves tme nts in han dicraft in -dus try * and shipping a re subordina ted to the com m erc ia l func t ion ofcapital, wh ile investmen ts in land, as we saw , do not constitute investme ntsof a capitalist type since they have no effects upon the m ode of produ ction.'W hat cha racterizes the strategy of ca pital is its inco rporation w ithin thesphere o f circulation, and not that of production; its basic operation beingthe perpetuat ion of the pre-capi ta lis t m ode of prod uct ion and of une venexchange.Investm ent in the farming of tax revenu es occurs m ainly w i thin theframew ork of the econom ically dom inant class of the conquering society.The vertical social m obility of the latter a consequence of the predatoryfunct ion of the Ottom an sta te and o f the system of redist ribut ion o f theappropriated surplus-product is to a large extent a presupp osition of ho ri-zon tal mobil ity, so that acc ess to profi teering through tax-fa rm ing is theresult of adm inistrative, m ilitary, and gen erally bureaucratic practices. Theeconom ically dom inant class of the conquered society a section of w hichexercises adm inistrat ive func tions of, in e ach case, variable extent part i-cipates in the farm ing or petty farming of the rev enue s, or undertakes, ona collective or individual basis, the direct levy of taxes. The mec han ism ofprof i t in these inve stm ents is determ ined by the dif ference betw een thenom inal and the real tax reve nue . This difference, in i ts turn, indicatesa lack of synchroniza t ion be tween the rea l m ovem ent of the sources oftaxation and the lat ter 's assesm ent by the state. In spite of the ada ptationof the assessme nt of taxes to the real potential of the tax sources especiallyin those sectors with part icular developm ent, such as foreign trade in thesecond ha lf of the eighteenth century 17 this adaptation still m akes possiblethe real izat ion of profi ts higher than those derived from c om m erce. Theseprofi ts cannot be co nsidered as a recove ry, on the part of tax-farmers, pro-portional to the real increase of the po tent ia l of tax sources becau se thesystem of pet ty tax-farm ing leads to a highe r intensi ty of the deg ree ofexploitation, especially of the direct agricultural produ cers. In this respect,the po ssibi li ty is excluded for investm ents in tax-farming to play a roleas an indirect investment in agriculture in those cases in w hich tax revenuewas com posed of agricultural products which became articles of comm erceby the tax-farm er or his interm ediar ies . I t is evident that the system offarm ing out tax revenue s in kind presuppo ses an anticipated profi t higherthan the p rof it a llowed by the m erchandiz ing of the ve ry sam e good s

* The term handicraft industry (used to render 6trycsxv ta ) and itsanalogues handicraf t product ion, w orkshops, e tc . we re chosen over m anufac-ture , m anufac tur ing product ion, e tc ., in order to s tymie unintended impl ica tionsin the case of the lat ter cho ice, conn ected w i th the analyt ical issue of the periodof manufac ture as the ear ly s tage of capi ta lism.

ri Mehm et Genc , A Com para t ive Study of the Li fe Term Tax Farming Dataand the Volume of Co m m ercia l and Indus tr ia l Act iv i ti es in the Ot tom an Em pi reDuring the Second Half of the 18th Century, La revolution industrielle dans leSad-est europenXIXe s., Sofia, Institut d 'Etudes Ba lkaniques-Musee NationalPolytechnique, 1977, pp. 243-279.


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Economic History of the Ottoman Domination in Greece3w hen they becom e com m odities in the hand s of the direct producer. Thisapp arent ly se l f -evident hyp othes is , how ever , need s to be con f i rm ed,because beyond cases of an exceptional difference between nom inal andreal taxation nothing assures us that the prices at w hich the di rect pro-ducer co uld dispose of h is surpluses w ere percept ibly dif ferent from thepresum ed pr ices tha t cor respond ed to the produc t of w hich tax revenuein kind was com posed.Lending and Usury

Lending and usury serve seve ral needs which can be roug hly dist in-guished be tw een com m erc ia l and consum pt ion requi rem ents ; inc ludedam ong the la t te r a re a lso those tha t expedi te the paym ent of taxes andw hich can be un dertaken either by individuals or collective bodies. Thelenders , as we l l as the borrow ers, can also be col lect ive bod ies such ascom m unities, guilds, monasteries, bishoprics. A category o f loans servicesm arine t ranspor ta tion: these loans obta in a p ercept ib ly higher in te res trate than the correspo nding rate for secure land loans. Con joined to ,or dis t inct from , com m ercial practice, lending p resents a typical and e x-tensive m ethod of investm ent of cap i tal : in teres t rates on the order of 10to 12% are u sua l for land loans . Consum pt ion loans , on the o ther hand ,tend m ore to the com pou nding of interest , i .e . , i ts capi ta l izat ion; in thecontext of peasant econo m ies, they lead to the ov er indebtedness of thepeasan ts, the app ropriat ion of p roduction by the lende rs, and, eventually,the a l iena t ion of cu l tiva tors f rom the ir land . Borrow ing by produ cersa lso leads , through the sys tem o f advance purchase of the c rop , to thedenial of the possibility, to produce rs, of taking adva ntage o f the favorablem ovem ent o f p r ices . Th is does no t necessa r ily a lw ays happen w henadvance p urchase takes placespecif ically, in those cases w hen produ cersare not ov erindebted and retain a bargaining ability, as occurs, for exam ple,in Crete, with the advanc e purchase, by French oi l m erchants , of the anti-cipated crop. 18Investment in Handicraft Production

Investm ent in comm erce presupposes a process of t ransformat ion ofuse values in to excha nge va lues and , a t the sam e t ime, a product ion ofhandicraft goods. In the preceding observations, part icular em phasis wa splaced on the fact that the goods com prising the agr icultural surplus be-cam e an object of absorption by the system of extraction of tax revenue a ndground- rent , both of w hich enta i led the suspens ion of the m onet iza tion

is 'ExOtastc %al em op.v.hpat ia eurb rTjv ecUyiXoy poccp Ecc ToffyaUntoti .npoevetou Kptircrig, Kr/Im& Xpovmec [ Reports and Memoranda fromthe Correspondence of the French Consulate of Crete, Cretan Annals), 14(1960),pp. 118-146.


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24 JOURNALOFTHEHELLENCDASPORAof the peasant econ om y at the level of direct fam ily produc tion and , con-sequent ly, prescr ibed the system of une ven e xchang e. It is necessary toexam ine to w hat extent the ut il izat ion of capi tal goods belonged to a di f-ferent m ode o f produc tion or, indirectly, presaged i t.I t is indisputable that in ha ndicraf t produ ction there o ccurs both acon stant and a va r iable investm ent of capi ta l ; how ever , this is not ade -quate to characterize prod uction wh ich takes place in hand icraft wo rkshopsas produ ction of the capitalist type. The low co ncen tration and, especially,the low degree o f technology render con stant capi ta l inconsequen t ia l inrelation to variable capitalh ow ever m uch this relation ma y fluctuate fromac t iv i ty to ac t iv ity , and how ever m uch the unde res timat ion of con s tantcapital in pre-cap ital ist econom ies may consti tute a preco nception w ith afair degree of exaggeration. Variable capital consists of that part advanc edfor the provision of raw m aterials and that part intended for the remu nera-t ion of labor . This second par t of va r iable capi ta l may be dif ferent ia tedin to w ages and the rem unera t ion of the ow ner of the handicraf t w ork-shop, wh ose personal, manu al labor is differentiated into a presum ed w ageand a com m ercial profi t. W e are deal ing with the historical form in w hichsimple com m odity product ion is expressed w hen not specif ied into anelementary transformation of raw m aterial through a system of produ ctionconjoined to agr iculture w hen the s im ple comm odity producer is anow ner both of the m eans of produc t ion and of the com m odi ties he pro-duce s . W hat i t is necessary to inquire , w i th reg ard to the poss ib il it iespresented by this type of hand icraf t product ion, could be sum m arized inthe follow ing questions:

a) To w hat extent is wage labor gene ral ized; thus , also, the produc-t ion of surplus-value?b) To w hat ex tent does th is con jo in ing (genera l iza t ion of w agelabor and production of surplus-value) refer to a vert ical w hich expres-ses the process of conce ntrat ion or to a ho rizontal dist inct ion capable ofi llus trat ing the reproduc tion but not the transform ation of the m ode ofproduction?c) To w hat extent is handicraf t product ion subordinated to the com -m ercial function of cap ital instead of becom ing unfettered from it?Inquiries of this type appear at first glance to be without an objectsince a retrospective exam ination w ould locate the appearance of capitalistrelations at a t im e m uch c loser to ours than to the pe riods w e are de al ingwith here. However, the object of our inquiries is not to delimit theappearance o f capitalist relations, but to exam ine the econo m ic m echanismw hich wa s dom inant during an extensive period. To the degree that thereexists a tendency to discover such relations in the Greek eighteenth cen turyor even the Ottom an sixteenth century, inquir ies seem ingly w ithout anobject retain their obvious nece ssity.

I See the remarks of Carlo M. Cipolla, Storia economica dell' Europa pre-industriale Bologna, Il Mulino, 1975, pp. 135-151.


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Economic History of the Ottoman Domination in Greece 25In the absence of dem onstrat ive evidenc e capa ble of allowing directansw ers of a cer tain quant i tat ive aspe ct to such quest ions as to w hat de-gree, during a pa rticular period, is the factor of wa ge labor extende d in thehandicraft sector , one m ust be satisf ied by the form ulation of som e generalindicat ions of direction which m ay com e under an em pirical confirm ationin concrete cases. Thus, le t us s tar t with the e lemen tary rem inder of theinstitutional elements of the ma rket as they are spec ified through the restric-tive practices of the guilds.

Restrictive Institutions and the Market: Guilds and CommunitiesIt w ould be un fair to exclusively iden tify such res tr ictive practicesw ith the exis tence of gui lds . W ithout depar ting f rom even em bryonicexam ples derived from Greek ma inland terri tories, one can c all at tentionto the hom ologous role played by co m m unity s ta tutes. In this case , too,there exis t the sam e res tr ict ive pract ices with the sam e referents , m ostnotably the regulat ion of prices, the restraint of com peti tion, and even thesubversion o f the intended purposes throug h the perpetuat ion of the in-stitutional framew ork which aim s at the m aintenance of these equilibriums

price controls, satisfaction of consum ption needs at the expense of com -petition, and traditional bene ficial policies w ith regard to the d istributionof subsistence good s. How w ere these practices expressed? The predilec-tion in favor of the direct consumer at the expense of the merchantduring the unloading of a boat carrying subsistence goo ds; the pu rchasesand sa les , wi th only an e lem entary prof it , o f cerea ls by a c er ta in com -m unity; the prohibi tion on the purcha se of impo rted goods of d i rect con-sum ption outside the bazaar . All these p ract ices w ere par t of p rotect ivestatutes w hose aim wa s to satisfy the needs of the consume rsthe m em bersof the com m unity and to obstruct the creation of art ificial conjuncturestha t wo uld benef i t com m erc ia l specula t ion. To a l l these an econo m icreality is subordinated w hose attributes include limited circulation o f good s,seaso nal distr ibution, and ev en the l im ited possibili t ies of absorp tion ofthe go ods o ffered. In this last respect , an indicat ive ex am ple is providedby the case of mon opoly ( monopolya )in the form i t app ears in theOttoma n public econom y w hich consists of the privi lege of the usufruc-tuary of a certain revenue in kind to dispose o f i t mono polist ically withina specif ied period o f t im e. This privilege allows the transg ression of theinelast icity of the m arket , w hile at the same t ime, how ever, permit t ing thet ransgression of the pro tective statutes that are an ticipated by the systemwithin w hich this privilege is practiced, precisely because this mono polycon joined w ith the social author i ty of its ow ner allow s the possibil ityof an a rt ificial increase in prices. The pe rpetuation of the statute is m adeava ilable to the pa rt ial negation of the system w hich i t intends to protect

20 0n the restrictive practices of guilds: Gabriel Baer, Monopolies and Rest-rictive Practices of Turkish Guilds, Journal of the Economic and Social History ofshe Orient, XIII, Part II (April 1979), pp. 145-165.


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26OURNAL O F THE HELLENIC DIASPORAand, eventual ly, to the perpetuat ion of the agg regate system throu gh theequilibrations brought about by its particular circum vention.Produ ct qua l ity con trols appl ied by the gu i ld , control of in te rna lprom otion through the ascendancy of journeym en (kalfades) into masters,regulation of prices through out the scale of appo rtionm ent of labor in theprocess of han dicraft production, and the determ ination of the geog raphi-cal radius of the dis t r ibut ion o f produ cts , a l l con form to the sam e logicof econ om ic ente rpr ise . Cer ta in ly , the form at ion of han dic ra f t cente rsouts ide the borders of ac t iv i ty of the gui ld ne tworks m ay prov ide anansw er to the restrictive statutes; the sam e can be said of transgression s ofguild rules that are observed in cen ters with an intensive gu ild organ iza-t ion, such as Thessaloniki, for exam ple Nev er theless , i t is by no m eanscertain that these transgressions intend to ov ercom e total ly the reg ulatorystatutes; rather, they p rovide a part icularized answ er only to certain con-sequenc es of these institutions. Specified and con crete inquiries are calledfor th by these topics; in the m eant ime, one m ay d irect one 's a t tent ion toa crucial phenom enon the subordination of the t radi tional guild systemto the com m ercial function of capital.The Dominance of Merchant's Capital

The dom inance of m erchant's capital m anifests itself, naturally, withina f ram ew ork wider than that of the gui ld system an d refers to the ent i reproduction that becom es exchange va lue. A very general m ethod involvesthe com m ission: * the m erchant supplies the producer with the raw m ate-rial and specifies the m agnitude of p roduction according to the av ailabilitiesof the m arket; profi t is determ ined by the difference w hich exists betwe enThe kanunname ant ic ipa te an increase of the pr i ce of m ust on the bas i s ofthe tar i f f (higher pr ice): 2 aspra per medre, for exam ple, in Trikkala and Zitoun i,w hile 4 in Nafpaktos ( respect ively , for the ye ars 1520 and 1569-1570); see JosefKabrda , ToopxotOg xtba m ac (Kanunname) Aa.p.imc, `RXX ,riv cxck [ TheTurkish Code (Kanunname) of Lamia, Hellenica], 17(1962), p. 216, 13;O. L. Barkan, XV Ve X VI inci asirlarda Osmanli Imparatorlugunda ziral ekonomi-nin ye mall esaslari. I, kananlar, Istanbul, 1945, p. 290, 10. Judging o n the basisof the pr ices in the account books, th is increase w ould have been, on the average,on the o rder o f 60%. Cer ta in fo rced sa les o f the p roduc t o f t i the obey the sam em echan i sm. See an exam ple f rom A thens (1674) , Maxim e Col l ignon , Le consulJean Girard et sa relation d' Attique an X VIIe siecle (extrait des Memoires de

'Acadmie des. Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, XXXIX), Paris, 1913, p. 30 (395):100% transgression in the case of w heat and 55% in the case of oil . I. K. Vas thrav ell is,ac dtpxera Maxsbovbn [Historical Archives ofMacedonia), I, Thes salon iki, 1952, pp . 227-228, 228-229, (resp ective ly, for theyears 1742 and 1743).* Again, as in ear lie r choices , the neutra l te rm com m iss ion was chosen overanyth ing l ike put t ing-out , w hich m ight br ing about spasm s of recogni t ion andcom parabili ty that properly belong to (com parative) analytical argum ent rather thantranslation-derived termino logical leakage.


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Economic History of the Ottoman Domination in Greece 27the cost pr ice and the sale pr ice . An ex am ple f rom P hil ipou polis in thefour th d ecade o f the n ine teenth cen tury 23locates this difference in thew eaving sec tor a t a leve l on the order of 77.4% (sale price versus costpr ice; wa ges represented 23% of the cos t pr ice). The m argins of com -m ercial profit , which Ottom an legis lat ion at tem pts to m aintain at a levelexpress ing the jus t pr ice , com prise the m ain fea ture of the behaviorof m erchant 's capital and explain i ts incorporat ive function, wh ich resul tsin the perpetuation of the pre-capitalist m ode o f production. The format ionof pr ices of this type al low s the appea rance o f disproport ional i ties be-tween the m ovem ent of pr ices of the raw m aterial and the m anufacturedproduct: the form er substantial ly influences the price of the final product;how ever, the latter price exhibits an autonom y due p recisely to the distancethat separates the co st of product ion f rom the sale pr ice , wh ich is deter-m ined by the dom inance of m erchant 's capital within the process of handi-craft production that is to say, com m odification. Indicative in this respectis the m ovem ent of prices of cotton and yarn in Thessaloniki and Sm yrnaduring the ye ars , respec tively, 1717-1788 and 1757-1803. In the firstcase, the mo vem ent of the pr ice of cot ton f luctuates betw een 104% (inrelation to 1717) and 340%; the price of cotton yarn f luctu ates betwe en105% and 908%. In Sm yrna (with 1782 as the base ye ar) , the pr ice ofcotton presents a fluctuation betwee n 71% and 250%; the fluctuation (forthe yea r 1769-1803) of the p r ice of cot ton y arn (w hich is w hite in bothcases) is on the o rder of 43 to 150%. The difference betw een the pr iceof cot ton an d the pr ice of co t ton yarn is , for Thessaloniki, on the orderof 125-136% and, for Smy rna, on the order of 307-772%. (All of the sepercentages are arranged by order of m agnitude and not chrono logically.)According to an exam ple from the years 1777-1793, the cost of produ ctionam oun ted to 60-85% in re la t ion to the pr ice of cot ton. These exam plesi llus t ra te the bas ic m echan ism, in accorda nce w ith w hich m erchan t 'scapital operates, dominating handicraft production. The distance betw eenthe cost price a nd the sale price indicates, in i ts turn, that i t does no t ow ei ts existence to the dep ression of w ages, but to the absence of mec hanismscapab le o f m ul tip ly ing dem and th rough the p rocess o f inc reasing thesupply of goo ds and bringing abou t the fall of real pr ices , even beforethis fall is dictated by the rise of the pro duc tivity of labor.Besides the di rect dom inance of m erchant 's capi tal upon h andicraf tproduc t ion th rough the sys t em of com m iss ions , ano the r fo rm of th isdom inance is expressed ins ide the opera t ion o f handic ra f t produc t ionthat is organized in terms o f guilds. To the extent the gu ild und ertook theregulation of price of raw m aterials used by produ ctive units comp rising it,i t protec ted m erchant 's capi ta l through the abol it ion of com pet i tion inthe s tage of acquir ing raw m ater ia ls , while , a t the sam e t im e, it ma de i tpossible, for those produ cers w ho had the mo st capital , to have increased

22N. Todorov, La genese du capitalisme dans les provinces bulgares del 'Em pire ot tom an au cours de la prem iere moit ie du XIXe s . , Etudes Historiques,I, Sofia, 1960, pp . 233-234.


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E c o n o m i c H ist o ry o f t he O t to m a n D o m i n a ti o n i n G re ec e9in the case of profi ts on the order of 100%. In the first hypothesis, the re-m unera t ion o f labor cor responds to 14% of the (presum ed) m erchant 'scapi ta l , w hi le , in the secon d, it correspond s only to 2% of the cap i ta lof 1820, w hich, le t i t be noted, w as 60% higher (w ithou t taking dep re-ciat ion into acc ount) than in 1811. The above n um bers are simply indica-t ive of ce r ta in ma gni tudes ; the rea l remu nera t ion of labor w as higherbecause the profits of the Hydra merchants refer only to part of theact ivit ies of their ships. These n um bers, how ever , can ade quately showcertain relat ions within which this system of com pensat ion could operate:it presupposes high profits and, in this respect, it is indicative thati t wa s replaced by the paym ent of wa ges af ter the end of the cont inentalblockade.A Summary View of the Economy

In summ ary, we can rough ly accept that the econom y in i ts totali ty is ,characterized by a v igorous natural sector which, m ore or less, applies tothe m ajor ity of the po pula t ion a pr inc ipa lly peasant pop ula t ion. Them onetary sector , on the other hand , mainly appl ies to the populat ions ofthe con sum ption centers, wh ich, in their turn, are differentiated into largeurban cen ters or range throughout a typology that cal ls for th special izedinquiries. A terminal case is provided by those hum an aggrega tions wherethe disprop or t iona l ity betwe en the possibil it ies of the natural resourcesand the dem ographic potential leads to the origination of monetary incom esthrough co m m erce, shipping, land transport , or handicraft special ization,which is often peddled. The peasant econom ies themselves the econom iesof the village exhibit a degree of m onetization w hich, howev er, is orientedm ore toward the paym ent of the tax revenue than to the ex tens ion andconsolidation of m onetary relat ions in the proce ss of peasant prod uction.In any case , forced com m odif icat ion doe s not mee t the requirem ents oftaxation; thus, the possibilities for the creation of net incom es are retarded,w ith ov er indebtedness and a l iena t ion o f the peasan ts as a resul t. Thisnegative consequence of the extra-econom ic m onetization of the peasanteconom y has as i ts symptom the am putat ion of the di rect producer fromthe m arket or, more spec ifical ly, his l imited part icipat ion in a m arket pre-stage in a system o f pricesw hich does not allow the realization of mon e-tary net incomes.The Geography of the Market

I t is nec essary, therefore , to dis tinguish the typ e of m arkets withinw hich the d ist r ibut ion of go ods takes place and the ir unequal va lue isforme d. W e have already referred to the operat ion of certain m echanism s,stressing the restrict ive prac tices of guilds and com m unity authori ty, thedom inating posi tion w ithin the process of h andicraf t product ion e njoyed


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30OURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORAby m erchan t 's capital , and the inequivalent values with wh ich the m arketis suppl ied. W e st il l need to add the g eog raphy of the m arket , that is tosay, the system of interconnections.The perm anent m arket of the ci t ies, combined w ith the seasonal one,w eekly as a rule, serves int raregional exchang es and the interconnec t ionof the econo m y of the vi l lage w ith that of the c i ty. The sam e funct ion isserved by the season al ma rket of the vi llage. Beyo nd the intraregionalcon nection, there is the l inkage betw een the reg ions carr ied out by bigcom m erce , both dom es t ic and fore ign , th rough the sys tem o f land andm arine transport . W herever a seasonal com m erce is developed, we havethe direct connection of the local m arket with export t rade, which absorbsproduct ion: hand y exam ples include si lk , w hich connec ts the m arket ofMystras with French com m erce through the ann ual fa ir that takes placein that ci ty in Aug ust; also, raisins in Pelopon nisos and c otton in Serres.As w e are dealing w ith an exp ort trade based up on agricultural produc ts,i ts seaso nal charac ter is intr insic. This, ho w ever, doe s not also prejudg ethe chrono logy of a l l annual m arkets , which are subordinated to a dis tr i-bution of goods independ ent of the seasonality of ag ricultural production.Certain h andicraf t act ivi t ies , such as spinning and w eaving, lead toa d i rec t connect ion of handicraf t cen ters w i th the fore ign m arket; con-sequently , they a lso lead to a d i rec t dependen ce of the form er upon thelat ter. The popu lation a ggrega tions a ctive in handicraft industry in Thes-saly and Maced onia provide a good e xam ple in this respect , w i th the ex-am ple of Ambelakia preem inent among them . This dependen ce is deter-m ined, in a neg at ive fashion, by the inabi li ty of the do m est ic market toabsorb a han dicraf t product ion , the la t te r appe ar ing to ev idence a l soa readaptation of traditional systems to the requirements of big com m erce,as w e had the oppor tun i ty to no te a l it tl e ea r li e r. W ha t i s wor th com -m enting u pon is the fact that the interconnect ion with the foreign m arketdoes not seem to express a corresponding dynam ic of the dom estic m arket.A system of l inked an nual fairs services the d is tr ibution o f good son a large scale , creat ing junct ions o f exchang es of a seaso nal characterand a l low ing bo th the p ropaga t ion o f im por ted com m odi ti e s and thecol lect ion o f those that w ill becom e ar t ic les of the expo r t trade (w e arereferring to the annua l fairs of the Balkan peninsula). Their arrangem entw ithin the annu al trade cy cle al low s the it ineran t merc han t to part icipatein this chain of fa irs and to carry out those exch ange s w hich, in theirturn, wil l perm it him to supp ly the expor t t rade. A system of credi t thatdeve lops in fairs (bi lls of exchan ge pa yable from fair to fair) provide sa further continuity to com m ercial practices. The com m ercial fair is prin-cipally dom inated by the m erchants, but it also provides access to the directproducer of the reg ions wh ere i t takes place. Certain indications suggestthat the an nual fai r, the on e conn ected w ith big com m erce, provided theopportuni ty for the sat isfact ion o f consum ption n eeds o f a cl ientele wi thl im i ted incom es , or iented, how ever , tow ard acquir ing g oods d i ffe rentfrom th ose that traditiona l dom estic handicraft activity could sup ply (tradein used clothing and such).


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Economic History of the Ottoman Domination in Greece 31Mo st fa irs take place outs ide la rge com m erc ia l cente rs : the la t te r

becom e the junc t ions for the col lec tion of prod uc ts t ranspor ted to thefairs, while, at the same t im e, using the fairs for the disposal of com m odi-ties wh ich are concentrated at these centers and can not be absorbed throughthe system of the perm anent m arket. Thus, annual fairs are mo re helpfulto distr ibution rather than to th e sup ply of the intraregion al m arket. Thequant i ta t ive ev idenc e , cer ta in ly , tha t w ould su bstant ia te th i s gene ra lf inding is st i l l no t available. There is, neve rtheless, ind irect eviden ce tothat effect , most s ignificantly the presence at the fairs of an i t inerant m er-chant w ho visi ts them succ essively and com es into contact with anotherm erchant , hom ologous to h im, w ho br ings products tha t a re d i f feren t ,m any o f them n ot or ig ina t ing in the produc t ion of the region w here thefair occurs. W e are confronted w ith an inelast ic m arket w ith a s low cir-culation; this circulat ion requires an extensive area of opera tion a nd co n-t inuous redistr ibution in order to serve the imported co m m odit ies. Amo ngthe con sequence s of the inelastic ity of the m arket upo n the s t ructure ofthe import trade, we principally enco unter the importat ion of currency *-instead of other goodsw hich occupies a reigning position in the aggrega teof impo r ts , independ ent ly o f w hether these impo r ts a re und er taken byforeign or n ative m erchants.Foreign Trade: Imports and Exports

A par t of produ ct ion becom es the objec t of expo rt trade . Let usconve nt iona lly l im i t ourse lves to tha t t rade o r iented to the m arke ts ofW estern Europe in the eighteenth century. This is not the place to provideeven a br ief diagram of this t rade; how ever , we c an recal l cer ta in of i tsattributes.W ith reference to i t s agents , we m ay dis t inguish between that t radewh ere the exporter is a foreign m erchant and that trade w here the exporteris a Balkan m erchant . The tw o cases c oexist , but the tendency is for theforeign me rchant to be subst ituted by the nat ive one, m ore so in the trans-port sector, less so in the exercise of com m erce itself. The traditional typeof the native m erchant is the it inerant m erchant wh o travels to the W esternm arkets , where he com es into contact ei ther w i th a W estern purchaser orw ith som e other Balkan nat ive residing in the cou ntry of d est inat ion. Inthe latter case (we are referr ing to Greek com m unit ies abroad), w e have

a special izat ion of the incorporat ion of part of the econo m y of the regionsof the Ot tom an Em pire in to the econom y of the W es te rn and Cent ra lEuropean co untries: m erchan t emigration operates in view of the absorp-t ive cap acity of the European m arket in Eastern** products, consequently,* An evident reminder : currency h ere and la te r re fers to coin.

** Changing concept ions of wh at Eas t i s to the W est notwi thstanding , theterm s Near East or East , a lso Eastern, etc. , in this translation obviou sly referto the then-Ottoman Eastern Mediterranean, also known as the Leva nt.


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32 JOURNALOFTHEHELLENCDASPORAin view also of the profi ts the W estern ma rket can im part to the imp orterof these products. This does not mea n that the Greek m erchan t in Europedoe s no t tend to the o ther po sibil ity, i.e . , the absorpt ive c apaci ty o f theEaste rn m arke t in W este rn produ c ts . W hat needs to be dem onst ra ted i sat wh at point the co ntrol of the dom estic m arket, progressively exercisedby the native m erchan t, can lead to a preference of this market as a privi-leged location for the realization of p rofi ts through i ts supply of W esternproducts.Foreign t rade in the e ighteenth century is character ized by the pre-dom inance of France a t the expe nse of other nations, especial ly England,w hose co m m ercial activity in the Near East d

Spyros I. Asdrachas Economic History of the Ottoman Domination in Greece

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