Economy of Ancient Greece question?

Question

Was the Ancient Greek economy equal to, better than or worse than ours? Explain.

Answer 1

You're travelling to Ancient Greece?  WOW! How are you going to get there?

The Ancient Greek Economy had no electricity, primitive plumbing, no artificial heating or air conditioning, low life expectancies, slaves, no automated transportation and limited ability to meet caloric requirements and in a monotonous diet.

"They had all the technology they needed, they had oil lamps, boats to travel, agriculture, education, science, housing, teh living standard was not bad at all."

That cracks me up.  That is the funniest thing I read all day.  I suggest you review GDP per capita against life expectancy for every country of the world today and tell me the economy has nothing to do with that relation.

I'd say ours is better, no matter what "ours" is today.

Answer 2

Economy has nothing to do with electricity, nutrition, life expectancy and other social issues mentioned above. As a matter of fact, life expectancy was not at all low in Ancient Greece. The average fell because of many deaths of young men in wars, but if someone didn't get himself killed young, his life expectancy was long. We have many famous Ancient Greeks who lived to a very old age.

As for living standards, maybe they had no electricity, but we can hardly recreate the marvels they built in so little time. They had all the technology they needed, they had oil lamps, boats to travel, agriculture, education, science, housing, teh living standard was not bad at all.

As for economy, sure it was based on slaves, but don't think that they were not paid: they were paid as much as free citizens in public works, they just had no political rights. Apart from that, there were many luxurious resources, such as marbles, gold, metals, etc., art was flourishing, science was flourishing, commerce was flourishing, so their economy was just fine. There were classes of all kinds, poor people (who received aid) up to rich people like Alkiviades who had parties and villas.

So basically, the main advantagewas that cthepopulation was smaller so fewer people had to share the same wealth.

Answer 3

Ancient Greeks used to have trade transactions mainly with the Eastern countries...They used to export olive oil,wine,crops and imported fabrics,ivory,wood and metals...

not all people used to be wealthy since there were many greek slaves as well..