21. Ancient Athenian Debt Traps
Athens’ region of Attica was made of three parts. The Plains was a prosperous agricultural interior. The Coast relied on fishing and trade. The Hills was an impoverished region of mostly shepherds and small farmers scratching a living from poor soil, containing most of the population. Over the centuries, a pattern developed in which poor farmers borrowed seed from rich aristocrats to plant, then repaid the loan at harvest time with grain and labor. That pattern was disrupted in the seventh century BC when commerce revived after a centuries-long slump. The non-aristocratic Athenians of the Coast got into seaborne trade, bought land with their profits and, using slave labor, farmed it more efficiently than the aristocrats. The aristocrats found themselves outcompeted by the nouveau riche, so they squeezed their poorer neighbors, and enslaved them and seized their farms whenever they failed to repay their seed loans on time.
