Based on the productivity of ancient Egyptian agriculture, a discussion of economic theory, per capita GDP, economic growth, and agrarian economies through history, this paper tries to isolate the relative roles of land, labor, and grain in the economy of Ancient Egypt. There is little room for full employment in an agrarian economy; in Bronze Age Egypt the labor of a small fraction of the population would have sufficed to nourish all. Aside from services, an agrarian economy cannot expand employment much. Increasing productivity is counter-productive and none of the wealthy agrarian economies grew organically into an industrial economy. Govert van Driel pointed out that in agrarian ancient Mesopotamia there was no place for the market or silver, although both were present (as is claimed for Egypt). Overcapacity, trade, underemployment, and finance allow an understanding of the ancient economies, economics and economic growth; the impact of using modern economic thought based on production (and not economic behavior and activity) results in a flawed theory that must be revised.

基于古埃及农业的生产力，讨论经济理论，人均国内生产总值历史上的经济，经济增长和农业经济，本文试图隔离土地，劳动力和粮食在古埃及经济中的相对作用。农业经济几乎没有充分就业的空间；在青铜时代的埃及，只有一小部分人的劳动足以养活所有人。除服务业外，农业经济不能扩大就业。生产力的提高适得其反，没有一个富裕的农业经济有机地发展成为工业经济。戈弗特·范·德里尔（Govert van Driel）指出，在古老的美索不达米亚农业土地上，没有市场或白银的市场，尽管两者都存在（正如埃及所声称的）。产能过剩，贸易，就业不足和金融状况使人们对古代的经济，经济和经济增长有所了解；