On Sun, 28 Mar 2004, Carrol Cox wrote:
> This sounds simply bizarre to me. I've read a good deal of Athenian
> history, and I know of several massacres, but I know nothing at all
> about such a systematic practice as Michael describes here.
The systematic expropriation is of non-Greek natives, Carrol. (Remember, the original comparison was the Ireland here.) Greeks don't think of that as expropriation; they think of it as taking over unoccupied land. But there is no such thing as unoccupied good land. When people say they've found vacant land, they mean they are expropriating nomads without caring or noticing. Or as the Greeks called them, barbarians.
As for the systematic process of enslavement, these were slave societies, and that's where slaves came from.
> The Greek word for a colony is only by accident the same as the modern
> word for colony: there is simply no relationship. And it is more than
> that they weren't capitalist colonies. They weren't colonies in any
> sense that implies exploitation.
What you're talking about here is the relation of the Greek citizens in Athens to the Greek citizens in a colony. On the Ireland analogy, that would be the relation between England and the Anglo-Irish, which was just as friendly as between Greek colonists and Athens. The exploitation in Greek colonies was of slaves, who were captured from elsewhere in war or made on the spot. In Ireland it was the peasantry that was exploited. But for the first few centuries, most of the Irish peasantry was, like barbarians, simply expropriated -- they were pushed off the land and beyond the pale.
The cash surplus that was sent back to Athens was ultimately sweated out of slaves. If the colony was a completely mercantile one, then it was sweated out of someone else's slaves. Dependent allies that sent tribute were exploiting their slaves in the service of Athens.
To call these colonies non-exploitative is to take the viewpoint of the settlers. In the usual contexts in which we discuss Greek history that makes perfect sense. But it doesn't make sense in a comparison with Ireland if in the latter case you take the viewpoint of the indigenous natives. If you take the viewpoint of the English settlers in Ireland, there was no exploitation going on there either, just enrichment.
I don't dispute that Athenian colonies are very different from English colonies. But that in-gathered surplus was not chopped liver, and it did come from exploiting people.
As for the Greek word being different than "colony" sure. While we're at it, the English didn't call Ireland a colony either. The similarity is that land across the water was stolen from natives; people (in the Greek case, usually slaves imported from elsewhere) were exploited by settlers, and some of that exploitation benefited the metropole.
I'm not really sure what the point at issue is here, to tell you the truth. If you guys want to call Ireland the world's first colony, be my guest. I give.
Michael