As is perhaps indicated by its title, this is an ambitious book. The author proposes a ‘History of the Rich’ over two continents across a period that just falls short of a millennium. The context for this attempt is set amongst our contemporary western society’s ‘ever growing’ obsession with discussing both the super-rich and celebrity – a phenomenon which is contrasted with that of the Middle Ages, where ‘the rich were required not to appear to be wealthy’ in pursuit of ‘the correct functioning of a perfect (Christian) society and its institutions, especially the political ones.’ (page 1).
The structure selected by the author is tripartite: the first is conceptual, setting out the multiple and daunting issues arising from definitions, demography and data more generally, and an overview derived from the available historical sources – such sources as have given rise to the geographic locus of the study. The second sets out a triform model of ‘Paths to Affluence’; the routes offered are ‘nobility and aristocracy’, ‘innovation and technology’, or ‘finance’; these three are combined to enable a review of ‘saving and consumption habits’ over the period; and a concluding summary is offered, focused largely on the post-1900 period. The third and final part considers various perceptions of ‘The Rich in Society’, including wealth as a ‘social problem’, the role of patronage and philanthropy, ‘Super-Rich and Politics’, and finally a sweeping illustration of ‘The Rich in Times of Crisis from the Black Death to COVID-19’. A four-page summary concludes the volume.
This approach raises both some questions and a number of quite daunting challenges. The structure presents a history rooted in a survey of (available) evidence, giving rise to a triple-twisted trunk through which riches are amassed and from which various branches spread out, each hoping to bear distinctive fruit in the form of key aspects of ‘the rich’ across eight centuries. The very first question which strikes the historian (particularly a socio-economic historian) is whether that evidence can support such a structure. The bare minimum for such an attempt would have to include useable data sets on both individual ‘riches’ and the overall ‘riches’ of the society or nation in which the individual acted, and accurate estimates of the population of that society. Ideally this would be comparable across multiple societies both within the geographical area of the study and over the period under study. Not one of these necessary conditions prevails. While the very short sub-chapter on historical sources acknowledges the multiplicity of ‘intrinsic difficulties’ (page 32), it is not until Part 2 that the reader is presented with the broad trajectory of the evidential base (page 40) which reveals a scarcity of data points amounting to a dearth. The kingdoms selected are England, ‘Germany’, Naples, Venice, and the Sabaudian States, across which less than twenty data points are dotted in over various dates from 1300 to 1800; this is repeated for both an estimated 5% and 1% of the respective populations. Yet historians lack accurate sources to create population totals: England may be one of the better served with the unique Domesday Book profiles of community wealth in 1086, but there was no further attempt at a national census for over seven hundred years, until 1801. But the challenge of societal population estimates of early modern societies pales into insignificance against that of estimating the wealth of their communities – the datum essential to understanding the allocation of that wealth in a discrete percentile distribution. As every historical demographer knows, our understanding of populations across geographies over time is shaky at best; Peter Lindhart has been quoted as suggesting that recent studies on early modern England allow us to offer ‘to replace [Gregory] King’s old rough tentative guesses with new rough tentative guesses’.[1]
In the absence of accurate evidence to assess individual wealth, societal wealth or population size, the prevalence of percentages quoted to illustrate the argument are unconvincing at best, while the fractions of a decimal are superfluous. While sources are given (page 321), the absence of data tables and the acknowledged deployment of shifting definitions are problematic: wealth and affluence, ‘the rich’ and ‘the super-rich’ are used interchangeably; estimates are based upon individual wealth, familial wealth, property tax-derived estimates and moveable wealth submissions and more; with an assumption that each possesses sufficient equivalence to enable the arguments to proceed. The author attempts to reassure that ‘dishomogeneity [sic] in the data is dictated by the sources and a well-known feature of many comparative studies of wealth distribution’ (page 33); while this may inevitably be the case, it fails to dispel the shadow of unease under which the cautious reader proceeds.
Leaving to one side the unsurmountable challenges presented by the statistics, the principal line of argument deserves attention. The trichotomy of wealth originating in aristocracy, innovation or finance would appear to diminish the essential contributions of the monopolistic mercantilism which characterised the international commerce which brought many individuals into both the first and third categories. The role of the western Christian Church (significantly Catholic for the first half of the survey, arguably equally Protestant towards the later part) is also strangely sidelined. The author claims that Scholastics taught wealth was a sin: yet in the principal work cited, Aquinas follows Augustine (indeed, Abelard) in carefully adopting a largely intentionalist ethic in which the motivation of the accumulation of wealth is all important.[2] Certainly the Church was widely regarded during the vast majority of this period as a repository of wealth: the Fraticelli were declared heretics in 1296 because their vows of poverty stood contrary to the Church’s central role in banking, while England’s Henry VIII’s famous dissolution was in principle no different from Louis VII’s instruction to French regent Abbot Sugar for funding for his Second Crusade: ’sive de nostro seu de vestro pecuniam sumptam nobis mittatis’![3]
Such a morally neutral conception of wealth is not shared by the author, who states at the outset that with regard to inherited wealth ‘…fiscal systems could, and probably should, have a role in ensuring an acceptably even playing field’ (page 5). Indeed, this represents the recurring theme of the volume: that the unarguably persistent inequality of wealth distribution (be it never so accurately measured) should be redressed as a primary objective of social governance. And while it is clearly a weakness that the claim that such inequality has only worsened over time (the evidence supports a theory that it fluctuates), this central belief is worthy of consideration. It is therefore important that quantitatively the most significant factor in social demographics over the period is almost totally sidelined: that of the growth in population. It is stated that one of the very few drivers of an increase in equality over the last millennium was the Black Death, which some have estimated wiped out half the population of Europe (perhaps some fifty million people); however accurate this may be, the explanation that subsequent wealth inequality was addressed by an increase in real wages would seem to ignore the basic fact that there was more to go around fewer individuals. The reader is invited (page 59) to ‘imagine a cake that shrinks in size, while the number of exceptionally hungry guests at the party continually increases – soon the other partygoers will get only crumbs’: one could also imagine a cake that remains unchanged, while the number of guests halves. The absence of analysis on this point, and the preference for pursuing other avenues, is a missed opportunity. Demographic historians would prefer to examine an explanation of inequality which accounts for the effect of a European population which increased by some eight million each century from 1200CE to 1700CE, but then added fifty million people by 1800 and a further two hundred and fifty million by 2000CE.
The fruits of this tree as presented in each of the chapters and sub chapters are beyond the scope of a review; however, a determined preference to outline a selection of justifications for fiscal implications is characteristic of the latter half of the volume. Indeed, ‘It’s Taxes or Pitchforks’ could well have served as a sub-title and not merely as a quotation confined to the conclusion. What is rather less obvious is that ‘all the historical the evidence…[supports the proposition that] the position of the rich in western societies is intrinsically fragile” (page 317). In the face of their continuity displayed over the last millennium (not to mention those preceding) this would seem a curious statement, and using a definition of ‘rich’ deployed in the preceding chapters (that of income twice the median) one that is empirically somewhat awkward to sustain.
Ultimately, the historian is forced to consider themselves somewhat disappointed – instead of a history, we have content which is substantially a series of essays reflecting upon the author’s selection of aspects of ‘richness’, considered over discrete epochs. A taxonomy setting out a variety of attitudes towards richness could have been simultaneously less ambitious and far simpler to evidence, even if conclusions were as speculative as they were scientific. This might have best been delivered through a chronological approach, offering a more traditional way to illustrate the development of the attributes over time, and identify any trends. Certainly, this would have enabled the kind of sequential treatment more expected from a ‘history’.
Finally, one has to wonder if a collaborative approach might not have allowed the content to deliver more authority than a monograph. The period under consideration is vast, and deserves more than a single volume. To have heard from historians perhaps more familiar than the author with the nuances of the past millennium, each considering how specific aspects within the study had developed, could have added some academic rigour. Certainly the bibliography would have gained: whilst there is no reference to Abelard, Anselm or (St.) Augustine, and but a single nod to Aquinas, there are no less than thirty-four of the author’s own publications cited in the bibliography under the letter ‘A’, with copious further references in the remainder of the alphabet. This unfortunately gives an air of confirmation bias to a work which at times reads as a selection of model essays to accompany an undergraduate course taught by the author.
Ultimately, given the immensity of the scope, the difficulties with data, and the thematic complexity, one cannot help wondering if the volume was well-conceived: when Robert L. Heilbroner broke the ground in this field with his (still useful) Quest for Wealth, it was a work of significantly lesser ambition (and one apparently not considered in this study). Were the author familiar with this pioneering work, there might have been some resonance in the earlier writer’s reflection:
‘I became aware of how tremendously complex this seemingly simple and direct idea was. It seemed money led to economics and this in turn to sociology, and thus to anthropology and psychology, and finally on to moral philosophy itself. I was soon aghast at the scope of the undertaking and now, looking back upon it, am not a little abashed at my foolhardiness in attempting it.’[4]
Given the flaws identified in this review, this study, while admirable in purpose, is not something that can be recommended to either historians or the general reader.
‘As Gods Among Men: A History of the Rich in the West’ by Guido Alfani was published in 2024 by Princeton University Press, (ISBN: 978-0-69-121573-0). 440pp.
[1] See Tom Arkell, ‘Illuminations and Distortions: Gregory King’s Scheme Calculated for the Year 1688 and the Social Structure of Later Stuart England’, The Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 59, No. 1 (Feb., 2006):p65.
[2] ‘…people seek riches only as useful and a means to other things….Therefore, we should not hold that avarice is a capital sin’ De Malo, Question VIII.18, following Aristotle’s ‘Ethics’.
[3] [whether you send us money taken from us or from you,] in Recueil des Historiensdes Des Gaules et de la France, ed. Martin Bouquet et al. (Paris, 1869–1904) vol 15, p. 487.
[4] Heilbroner, Robert L., The Quest for Wealth – a Study of Acquisitive Man, (New York: Simon and Schuster; 1956), page 253; while this seminal work is not cited, Heilbroner’s definition of wealth in ‘The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics’ is.
Dr Andrew Fincham is an early-modern socio-economic historian affiliated to Woodbrooke College, University of Birmingham, UK. His research is concerned with understanding the links between religious values, ethical business, and commercial success; and the implications for responsible corporate governance. His current areas of interest include a revision of Quaker historiography and an exploration of the underlying issues in Max Weber’s ‘Protestant Ethic’. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.