A History of Greek Economic Thought. Albert Augustus Trever
a consistent distinction of economic wealth from other goods. His terms are πλοῦτος, used of both material and spiritual wealth; χρήματα, often interpreted literally of “useful things,” as the basis of the subjective doctrine of value discussed above; κτήματα, “possessions,” and such words as χρυσός and ἀργύριον. His use of these terms, especially the first, is ambiguous. At times he means material goods only; again, like Ruskin, he includes every human good, intellectual and moral as well;[80] again he means “excessive wealth.”[81] As a result of his conception of value, he includes in material wealth all those objects that depend for their worth upon wise use and character in the possessor.[82] Material wealth is regularly placed last by Plato, as inferior to all other goods of soul or body, a mere means, and not an end in itself,[83] for virtue does not come from property, but property and all other goods from virtue.[84] Material goods should be the last thing in one’s thought,[85] and the fact that people universally put them first is the cause of many ills to state and individual alike.[86] Wealth is not blind, if only it follows wisdom.[87] The things usually called goods are not rightly so named, unless the possessor be just and worthy.[88] To the base, on the other hand, they are the greatest evil.[89] In all of this, Plato is the forerunner of Ruskin, with his characteristic assertions: “Only so much as one can use is wealth, beyond that is illth”; and “Wealth depends also on vital power in the possessor.”[90]
Plato especially inveighs against excessive wealth and luxury.[91] Men are urged not to lay up riches for their children, since great wealth is of no use to them or the state.[92] The prime object of good legislation should not be, as is commonly supposed, to make the state as rich as possible,[93] since excessive wealth and luxury decrease productive efficiency,[94] are incompatible with the highest character or happiness, being based on both unjust acquisition (κτῆσις) and unjust expenditure (ἀναλώματα),[95] produce degeneration in individual and nation,[96] and are the direct cause of war[97] and civic strife.[98] Were it feasible, he would prefer to go back to the simpler life of earlier times, before luxury and the inordinate desire for riches had so dominated all society.[99] Of course he realizes that such a return is impossible, but he has little hope of any other escape from the evils. He is thus led to express the belief that the fewer wants the better, a doctrine common also to Ruskin, Carlyle, and Thoreau.[100]
However, Plato has no prejudice against moderate wealth. His sermons are directed against excessive commercialism, which puts money before the human interest,[101] thereby causing injustice, degenerate luxury, vicious extremes of wealth and poverty, political graft, individual inefficiency, and wars both within and without the state. Though his philosophy leads to asceticism, and his attitude toward wealth seems, on the surface, to breathe this spirit, yet Plato is not an ascetic in his doctrine of wealth, as is often wrongly asserted. He describes the true attitude as that which partakes of both pleasures and pains, not shunning, but mastering them.[102] He recognizes an assured competency to be practically a prerequisite for the development of the good life,[103] while, on the other hand, he considers poverty to be an evil only second to excessive wealth.[104]
To be sure, Plato’s demand for a limitation of private and national wealth, and his general negative attitude are, if interpreted rigidly, unfruitful and economically impossible.[105] It is not business that should be curbed, but bad business.[106] Individual or nation cannot become too prosperous, provided there is a proper distribution and a wise consumption of wealth, and Plato’s idea that great prosperity is incompatible with this goal can hardly be accepted by modern economists.
Nevertheless, there is much of abiding truth in his doctrine of wealth. Aside from the profound moral value of his main contention, we may state summarily several points in which he remarkably anticipated the thought of the more modern humanitarian economists: (1) in the fact that excessive private wealth is practically impossible without corresponding extremes of poverty, and that such a condition is a most fruitful cause of dissension in any state; (2) in the fact that extremes of wealth or poverty cause industrial inefficiency; (3) in the prevalent belief that no man can gain great wealth by just acquisition, since, even though he may have done no conscious injustice, his excessive accumulation has been due to unjust social conditions; (4) in the growing belief that expenditures of great private fortunes are not likely to be helpful either to individual or to community, but are too liable to be marked by foolish luxury and waste that saps the vitality of the nation; to Plato, such are mere drone consumers of the store (τῶν ἑτοίμων ἀναλωτής, … κηφήν);[107] in this, he was a forerunner of Ruskin, who opposed the old popular fallacy that the expenditures of the wealthy, of whatever nature, benefit the poor;[108] (5) in the dominant note in economic thought today, so emphasized by Plato and Ruskin, that the prime goal of the science is human life at its best—as Ruskin states it, “the producing as many as possible full-breathed, bright-eyed, and happy-hearted human creatures”;[109] (6) in the fact that the national demand for unlimited wealth is now recognized, as Plato taught, always to have been the most fruitful cause of international differences; (7) in the fact, which is receiving ever-greater recognition by modern economists and statesmen, that the innate quality of the object for good or harm must be considered in a true definition of economic wealth.[110]
PRODUCTION
Plato seems to have had little positive interest in the problems of production. He was too much engrossed with suggesting means for limiting excessive acquisition. He was, however, quite apt in his use of illustrations from industrial life.[111] He was also apparently the first to give a real classification of trades,[112] as follows: furnishers of raw materials (πρωτογενὲς εἶδος), makers of tools (ὅργανα), makers of vessels for conserving products (ἀγγεῖα), makers of vehicles (ὅχημα), manufacturers of clothing and means of defense (προβλήματα), workers in fine arts (παίγνιον), producers of food (θρέμμα)—a fairly inclusive catalogue for that age; if commerce and the learned professions were included. But some of the classes overlap, since they follow no necessary principle of division. He divided productive arts into co-operative (συναιτίους), which provide tools for manufacture, and principal (ἀιτίας), which produce the objects themselves.[113] They were further divided into productive arts (ποιητικαί), which bring something new into existence, and acquisitive (κτητικαί), which merely gain what already exists. In the latter class, he placed all commerce, science, and hunting.[114] Plato would thus appear to exclude commerce and the learned professions from the true sphere of production. This, however, is only apparent, in so far as legitimate exchange is concerned. He clearly understood that the merchant and retailer save the time of the other workers,[115] and that they perform a real service to the community, in that they make necessary exchange convenient and possible.[116] He thus recognized them as producers of a time and place value, and he cannot be accused of the physiocratic error, which denied productivity to all workers except those who produce directly from natural resources.[117] His distinction of productive and acquisitive arts can, furthermore, hardly be interpreted as intending to limit production to the material merely, though learning is relegated to the acquisitive class. Such an interpretation would be out of harmony with the whole trend of his thought.[118] His further classification of productive agencies as creative (ἕνεκα τοῦ ποιεῖν τι) or preventive (τοῦ μὴ πάσχειν)[119] substantiates this, for many of the preventive agencies are intellectual and scientific.
The general attitude of Plato toward economic production may be inferred from his insistence upon the thorough application of the division of labor for the perfection of industry.[120] He evidently recognized it as the necessary basis of all higher life. We