On Sevillian guilds towards the end of the 11th century

In the third decade of the 20th century, Lévi-Provençal discovered an Arab manuscript by the ishbīlī Ibn cAbdūn, that dealt with the commercial and artisan practices in Seville at the end of the 11th century. In the document there were references to the offices and personages who had to perform certain functions in various professions. From this manuscript, Lévi-Provençal deduced the existence of 11th-century Islamic guilds in Seville. This idea was assumed by Spanish historians, even up until the final decade of the 20th century. In the present article, the basis which sustained such an idea is analyzed with particular emphasis on the treatise by Ibn cAbdūn, since this is the only work that describes the economy of Seville at the time of Classic Islam (before the 12th century), and since this is the principal historical source cited by recent historians as a guarantee of the existence of Sevillian guilds during the Classic Islam; however, other manuscripts of Islamic authors of al-Andalus, and articles of contemporary authors are also taken into account. The result of our investigation disproves the existence of 11th century Islamic guilds in SevilleEn la tercera década del siglo XX Lévi-Proveçal descubrió un manuscrito árabe del išbīlī Ibn cAbdūn, donde se tratan las prácticas comerciales y artesanales en Sevilla a finales del siglo XI. En él hay referencias a los oficios y a personajes que debían cumplir determinadas funciones sobre la profesión. De ahí Lévi-Provençal dedujo la existencia de gremios islámicos en Sevilla. Esta idea resultó ser sugestiva y fue asumida por historiadores españoles del siglo XX, incluso en la década final de ese siglo. En el presente artículo se analizan las bases que sustentaron tal idea, haciéndose especial hincapié en el Tratado de Ibn cAbdūn por ser la única obra que se refiere a la economía de Sevilla en la época del islam clásico (antes del siglo XII) y la principal fuente histórica mencionada por dichos historiadores recientes como garantía de la existencia de gremios sevillanos durante el islam; sin embargo, también se tendrán en cuenta otros manuscritos de autores islámicos de al-Andalus y artículos de autores contemporáneos. El resultado de nuestra investigación refuta la existencia de gremios islámicos en la Sevilla del siglo X

The turpe lucrum: an innovative consideration of Bartolome de las Casas (mid-sixteenth century)

A mediados del siglo XVI Bartolomé de las Casas objetó el argumento de los hacendados españoles en las Indias para encubrir su inhumana explotación de los indios esclavizados mediante la justificación de tratarse sólo de un mero turpe lucrum, por lo que no incurrían en ninguna clase de responsabilidad. La consideración de Las Casas sobre el turpe lucrum es muy interesante, por referirse a un caso de las relaciones laborales no contemplado anteriormente por los canonistas y escolásticos y porque su apreciación sigue vigente en la actualidadIn the middle of the XVI century, Bartolome de las Casas disrupted the claim of Spaniard landowners who lived in Indies and wanted to cover up their inhuman exploitation to slaved Indians under the pretense of being only a matter of a simple turpe lucrum, without any consequence and responsibilities. His consideration on turpe lucrum is very interesting, because it refers to a case of labor relations not considered previously by canonists and scholastics and because his assessment is still valid toda

Ética comercial e instrumentos analíticos de teoría económica en la Suma de Tratos y Contratos de Tomás de Mercado

Este artigo divulga o pensamento econômico de Thomas de Mercado, Scholastic espanhol e aluno relevante da Escola de Salamanca nos economistas do século XVI. Ele escreveu Tratos y Contratos de Mercaderes y Tratantes (1569), cujo objetivo era alcançar práticas empresariais virtuosos e consistente com a doutrina cristã. Hoje em dia, quando o único objetivo da muitas empresas de lucro é fazer dinheiro sem olhar para quem foi atropelado, este trabalho tem completa hoje porque está faltando alguma coisa na ética comercial. Além de algumas pinceladas biográficas e dissertações do autor sobre a lei natural, os aspectos mais relevantes do pensamento econômico de Mercado são expostos, como: a propriedade privada; a intervenção pública ea superestrutura jurídica e religiosa; as atividades econômicas; a moralidade no comércio; o preço justo; a tributação, os instrumen tos analíticos, entre outros, o valor dos bens, o poder de compra do dinheiro, o tempo e a taxa de jurosThis article disseminates the economic thought of Tomás de Mercado, Spanish scholastic and outstanding student of the School of Salamanca of economists in the sixteenth century. He wrote Tratos y Contratos de Mercaderes y Tratantes (1569), whose purpose was to virtuous business practices and make them consistent with the Christian doctrine. Nowadays, when the sole purpose of many for profit businesses is to make money without looking at who gets harmed, this work is very important because something of ethics is missing in trade. Apart from a few biographical brushstrokes and disquisitions of the author on natural law, the most relevant aspects of economic thought of Mercado are exposed, such as private property; public intervention and the legal and religious superstructure; economic activities; morality in trade; fair price; taxation; analytical tools, among others, the value of the goods, the purchasing power of money, the time and the interest rat

Las crisis recurrentes del capitalismo, o las fracturas del sistema económico a causa de sus cimientos de adobe

In this article, reviewing Macroeconomics, the main economic factors affecting economic crises are examined; the root causes are determined and explanations are made in a simple manner, with the intention of making them easily understood by everyone. Since the economy is based on credit, it is clear that all crises are of financial nature and are caused by the large accumulation of toxic financial assets due to their high risk. The excess liquidity that loans bring about softens the foundations of the economic system until there comes a time when the credit collapses and the foundations of the system lose resistance. Therefore the economy cracks; that is to say, crisis occur

Vadillo, un precoz liberal andaluz (1804)

En este artículo damos a conocer el pensamiento económico de José Manuel de Vadillo, gaditano y doctor en derecho por la Universidad de Sevilla. Fue un político liberal, que en 1813 fue diputado en las Cortes de Cádiz, y el primer liberal andaluz en el campo de la economía, porque en 1804 escribió un artículo sobre el dinero, impregnado de tesis inspiradas en Turgot, Smith y Say. Aquí analizamos su liberalismo, que cobra actualidad al extraerse de él enseñanzas útiles en el presente, especialmente en lo que al crecimiento económico se refiere. Además divulgamos, de entre sus teorías económicas, sus ideas sobre el régimen jurídico de la propiedad privada, el valor de los bienes y el interés del diner

The variation of GDP in a simple model of income determination

En este artículo se demuestra que en un modelo simple de determinación de la renta, cuando se tienen en cuenta funciones de consumo lineales, la tasa de variación del producto interior bruto (PIB) es igual al cociente entre el incremento de la inversión y la suma del consumo exógeno más la inversión inicial. Esto significa que la pendiente de la función de consumo no influye en la tasa de variación del PIB y que lo relevante para esa tasa de variación es el consumo exógeno y la inversión inicialIn this paper, we prove that in a simple model of income determination, when taking into account linear functions, the change rate for the gross domestic product (GDP) is equal to the quotient of the increase in investment and the sum of exogenous consumption plus the initial investment. This means that the slope of the consumption function does not influence the change rate for the GDP and what matters for this variation rate is the exogenous consumption and the initial investmen

Temporally-aware algorithms for the classification of anuran sounds

Several authors have shown that the sounds of anurans can be used as an indicator of climate change. Hence, the recording, storage and further processing of a huge number of anuran sounds, distributed over time and space, are required in order to obtain this indicator. Furthermore, it is desirable to have algorithms and tools for the automatic classification of the different classes of sounds. In this paper, six classification methods are proposed, all based on the data-mining domain, which strive to take advantage of the temporal character of the sounds. The definition and comparison of these classification methods is undertaken using several approaches. The main conclusions of this paper are that: (i) the sliding window method attained the best results in the experiments presented, and even outperformed the hidden Markov models usually employed in similar applications; (ii) noteworthy overall classification performance has been obtained, which is an especially striking result considering that the sounds analysed were affected by a highly noisy background; (iii) the instance selection for the determination of the sounds in the training dataset offers better results than cross-validation techniques; and (iv) the temporally-aware classifiers have revealed that they can obtain better performance than their nontemporally-aware counterparts.Consejería de Innovación, Ciencia y Empresa (Junta de Andalucía, Spain): excellence eSAPIENS number TIC 570

Impuestos moderados, según Ibn Jaldún

Ibn Jaldún foi um dos primeiros expoentes (século XIV) do liberalismo económico que teve uma concepção materialista da história. Assim se explica que mencione instituições do âmbito da economia e exponha o seu pensamento económico, que aqui mostrámos extraindo-o directamente do seu Muqaddimah e usando o método absolutista. Relacionámos algumas das suas ideias com outras similares doutras épocas e ressaltámos as que, ainda hoje, nos parecem úteis. Das suas considerações destacámos o desenvolvimento económico; a circulação monetária; a riqueza; a liberdade de comércio; e o preço. Ibn Jaldún readquire actualidade porque as suas considerações parecem descrever situações ainda vigentes no presente. Algumas destas propostas poderiam aplicar-se hoje para superar as crises económicas; mesmo não mencionando inovações tecnológicas, naturalmente inconcebíveis na sua época.Ibn Khaldun was an early exponent (XIV century) of the economic liberalism and he had a materialistic conception of history; hence he refers to the institutions in the area of economy and presents his economic thought, which we make it known by employing the methodological absolutism and extracting it directly from his Muqaddimah. We relate some of his ideas with other similar exposed in different periods, and we emphasize those that are still useful today. From his considerations we highlight economic development, currency circulation, wealth, free trade, and price. Ibn Khaldun is taking on higher relevance for the reason that his considerations still seem to describe current situations and his proposals could be implemented today to overcome the economic crisis, even though he did not mention technological innovations that were unthinkable at his tim

Economía en San Isidoro de Sevilla (siglo VII)

Este artículo divulga algunas ideas económicas y sociológicas de san Isidoro de Sevilla, que no han perdido vigor, pese al paso de los siglos. De sus libros se obtienen conceptos relacionados con la actual Economía, aunque este autor no pretendió escribir sobre economía (ni siquiera de lo que en su época se entendía como tal, que era la ciencia relativa a la administración de la hacienda familiar). Deducible del pensamiento isidoriano, se analiza, además de la sociología políticoeconómica, la propiedad, la riqueza, los bienes, la utilidad, el valor, las relaciones de producción, el dinero y las obras públicasThis article reports some economic and sociological ideas of St. Isidore of Seville, which have not lost force, in spite of the passage of the centuries. Concepts related to the current economy can be obtained from his books, although this author did not try to write on economy (not even on what at his time it was understood as such, which was science on the family estate management). Deducible from the Isidorian thought, we analyze, in addition to political and economic sociology, property, wealth, goods, utility, value, production relations, money and public work

Breves comentarios sobre la moralidad en las finanzas y los cambios monetarios en la visión de Azpilcueta (siglo XVI) y su comparación con la época actual

En este trabajo presentamos unas sucintas reflexiones personales sobre lo tratado por Azpilcueta en su Comentario resolutorio de cambios. Comparamos los sentimientos populares sobre la injusticia de los cambios monetarios y las finanzas en el siglo XVI y en nuestro tiempo, resaltando las coincidencias así como las divergencias. Observamos que desde la invención del dinero su manejo se presta a abusos, trapacerías y fraudes. Por eso encontramos que, pese al transcurso de los siglos y las lógicas diferencias debido a la gran separación temporal, hay un nexo de unión entre las diferentes épocas que no ha perdido vigencia; dicho nexo es la moralidad de los cambiadores y la justicia en los cambios. Indirectamente, la lectura del artículo nos introduce en una parte del pensamiento económico de Azpilcuet