Morality and Alternative Economic Theories in Ancient History Studies. Review article of <i>Models, Methods, and Morality. Assessing Modern Approaches to the Greco-Roman Economy</i> (2024) by Sarah C. Murray and Seth Bernard (Eds.)

Abstract Models, Methods, and Morality (Murray and Bernard, 2024) discusses moral values in the field of ancient economic history, where neoclassical hegemony in the form of the New Institutional Economics has progressively gained ground. The book mainly criticises mainstream economics for focusing on quantitative growth without much regard to its social consequences. This review article is written in a spirit of a constructive encouragement to build an alternative approach to economic history based on the classical economists’ surplus approach, taking advantage of the familiarity that scholars of ancient societies have with the concept of economic surplus. Without a robust critique of mainstream economics and the adoption of an alternative point of view, there is a risk that mainstream economics might paternalistically reabsorb the legitimate moral criticism that pervades many of the contributions to the volume. Surplus theory, because it is based on a simple heuristic of the economic sources of the élites’ wealth and does not impose a pre-packaged view of human behaviour, may usefully be at the core of a socially aware economic history agenda.