A History of Greek Economic Thought. Albert Augustus Trever
consider the extent to which the Greek thinkers grasped the principles of the orthodox economy of Ricardo and Mill. We shall also endeavor to ascertain how far they, by the humanitarian and ethical tone of their thinking, anticipated the modern, post-Ruskin economy, which makes man, not property, the supreme goal, and recognizes the multiplicity of human interests and strivings that belie the old theory of the “economic man.” Our verdict as to the importance of the Greek contribution to economic thought is thus likely to be somewhat more favorable than that which is usually rendered.
We purpose also to emphasize more than is often done the important fact that Greek theory is essentially a reflection of Greek economic conditions, and that a true interpretation of the thought depends upon a clear understanding of the economic history of Greece. However, as we shall see, this by no means implies that the anti-capitalistic theories of the Socratics are evidence of an undeveloped state of commerce and industry in fifth- and fourth-century Athens.
The method of presentation is primarily chronological. Thus the ideas of each thinker can be discussed in a more thorough and unitary manner, and more in relation to the contemporary economic conditions that gave rise to them. Moreover, despite some practical advantages of the topical method, it savors too much of an artificial attempt to force the Greek thinkers on the procrustean rack of the concepts of modern economy.
The general characteristics of Greek economic thought have often been enumerated. They may be restated with advantage, at this point, together with some additions and needed criticisms.
1. Simplicity.—The theory of economics as a separate science never developed in Greece. The consideration of economic problems was incidental to the pursuit of politics and ethics. In so far as Greek thinkers treated such subjects, their theories reflect the comparative simplicity of their economic environment. Without prejudging the issue as to the actual extent of capitalism in ancient Athens, we need only to think away the vast international scope of our modern commercial problems, our giant manufacturing plants with their steam and electric power, our enormous wealth and its extreme concentration, the untold complexity of modern business and finance, the vast territorial expanse of modern nations, almost all our luxuries and commonplace comforts, to begin to appreciate something of this ancient simplicity.[2] However, as a direct result of this limitation, the Greeks were led to deal with their problems more in terms of men than in terms of things, and thus their economic vision was sometimes clearer and truer than our own. Aristotle struck the keynote in Greek economic thought in stating that the primary interest of economy is human beings rather than inanimate property.[3]
2. Confusion of private and public economy.—As a result of this simplicity, the terms οἰκονομία and οἰκονομική were, both in derivation and largely in usage, referred to household management rather than to public economy.[4] Domestic and public economy were regularly defined as differing merely in extent.[5] Aristotle, however, distinctly criticizes the confusion of the two.[6] Moreover, there is no warrant for the frequent assertion that Greek thinkers never rose above the conception of domestic economy. Xenophon’s treatise on the Revenues of Athens, and Aristotle’s entire philosophy of the state are a sufficient answer to such generalizations. The statement of Professor Barker that “political economy,” to Aristotle, would be a “contradiction in terms,” is extreme.[7] There is also a certain important truth in the Greek confusion, which has been too generally missed by modern critics and statesmen—that the public is a great property-holder, and that politics should be a business which requires the application of the same economic and ethical laws as are admitted to govern in private affairs.
3. Confusion of economics with ethics and politics.—The assertion that Greek economic theory was confounded with ethics and politics has become a commonplace. The economic ideas of Greek thinkers were not arrived at as a result of a purposeful study of the problems of material wealth. All economic relations were considered primarily from the standpoint of ethics and state welfare. “The citizen was not regarded as a producer, but only as a possessor of wealth.”[8] Such statements are too commonly accepted as a final criticism of Greek thinkers. Though the confusion was a source of error, and caused Greek economic thought to be one-sided and incomplete, yet some important considerations should be noted.
a) The Socratic philosophers are our chief source for the economic ideas of the Greeks. Too sweeping conclusions should not, therefore, be drawn from them as to the general attitude of the Greeks. Xenophon is much freer from the ethical emphasis than the other Socratics. Thucydides is entirely free from it, and very probably his standpoint came much nearer being that of the average Athenian citizen.
b) The confusion was not merely with individual ethics, for Greek moral philosophy always had the welfare of the state for its goal. Indeed, the basal reason for this close union of economics, ethics, and politics is the true idea that the state should rise above internal strife, and unite all in a care for the common interest.[9]
c) The standpoint of the Greek philosophers is certainly no more to be criticized than is that of the so-called orthodox political economy.[10] They represent two extremes. If the Greek theory did not give to wealth its full right, and was open to the charge of sentimentalism, the Ricardian doctrine, with its “economic man,” which eliminated all other ideals and impulses, was an unreal and pernicious abstraction. Of the two errors, the Greek is the less objectionable, and is more in accord with the trend of economic thought today. The best economists are now insisting more and more on the Greek idea that economic problems must be considered from the standpoint of the whole man as a citizen in society. Modern political economy “has placed man as man and not wealth in the foreground, and subordinated everything to his true welfare.” “Love, generosity, nobility of character, self-sacrifice, and all that is best and truest in our nature have their place in economic life.”[11] “The science which deals with wealth, so far from being a ‘gospel of Mammon,’ necessarily begins and ends in the study of man.”[12] “Es soll kein Widerspruch zwischen Ethik und Volkswirtschaft bestehen, es soll das Sittengesetz für die Wirtschaft gelten und in ihr ausgeführt werden.”[13] Such strong statements taken at random from modern economists should serve to temper our criticism of the Greek confusion. Plato’s definition of economics, as suggested by one of the most recent historians of economic thought,[14] could easily be accepted by many a modern scholar: “Economics is the science which deals with the satisfaction of human wants through exchange, seeking so to regulate the industries of the state as to make its citizens good and happy, and so to promote the highest well-being of the whole.” The contention of the Socratics, that all economic operations must finally root in the moral, that all economic problems are moral problems, and that the province of economics is human welfare, is thus a dominant twentieth-century idea. And just as the ethical interest of the Greek philosophers caused them to emphasize the problems of distribution and consumption, so these are the phases of economics that receive chief consideration today. To be sure, modern thought appreciates more fully the complementary truth that all our social and moral problems root essentially in economic conditions, though this too was by no means overlooked by Plato and Aristotle.
4. Ascetic tendency.—It cannot be denied, however, that, as a result of the overemphasis on the ethical, Greek economic thought was hampered by a certain asceticism. But this was also an outgrowth of pessimistic tendencies in Greek philosophy itself. Moreover, the ascetic ideas of the philosophers cannot be accepted as the common attitude of Athenian citizens, any more than Thoreau can be recognized as a criterion of the economic thought of his day in New England.[15] Asceticism was certainly foreign to the mind of Pericles and Thucydides. In the course of our discussion, also, we shall find that it represents, after all, only one phase of the thought of the philosophers themselves.
5. Socialistic tendency.—Since Greek economy was chiefly interested in the problems of distribution, it tended toward socialism, both in theory and in practice. This was also a natural outgrowth of the fact that individual interests were subordinated to public welfare. Though the latter half of the fifth century witnessed a great individualistic movement in Greece, and though individualism and independence are often named as prominent Greek characteristics, yet these terms did not constitute a basal political