PRODUCTION
It is often asserted that Aristotle denied the very existence of a problem of production.[[573]] This statement has been based primarily on certain passages in the Politics.[[574]] These passages, however, are not a denial of the importance of production. Their purport is merely to show that the chief aim of life is not to produce or to provide wealth, but to use it for the advancement of life’s highest interest. From this standpoint, both acquisition (κτητική) and production (ποιητική) are subordinate arts.[[575]] So far is Aristotle from giving no place to production, that a later chapter of the Politics is devoted to the consideration of the scheme of supply, including production.[[576]] To be sure, he does not lay much emphasis on genuine production in his enumeration. Industry is barely mentioned, while agriculture is discussed in detail. His “free-holder” is a consumer of the gifts of nature, rather than a real producer.[[577]] He classifies the truly productive employments that work for themselves (αὐτόφυτον) as those of the nomad, the farmer, the brigand, the fisherman, and the hunter, and makes those that live by barter (ἁλλαγῆς) or trade (καπηλείας) parasitic.[[578]]
In another passage, finance, strictly defined (οἰκειατάτη), is limited to all forms of agriculture, and even the hired labor (μισθαρνία) of industry is included in unnatural finance.[[579]] Aristotle has thus often been compared to the physiocrats, who distinguished between creative and parasitic classes of workers, upheld the “natural” order as the ideal, and eulogized agriculture and the “extractive” industries as the only productive ones. As Souchon[[580]] has observed, however, the resemblance is only superficial. Yet the fact that he fails to see that exchange is productive of a time and place value, and the fact that he includes hired labor, skilled and unskilled, among the unnatural activities, are sufficient evidence that he had only a superficial grasp of the principles of production.[[581]] But the frequent assertion that he includes brigandage and war among the productive arts is unwarranted, for he classifies them only among the acquisitive means.[[582]]
Aristotle almost outdoes Plato in his subordination of all production to ethics, though he keeps their respective aims more distinct. According to him, the productive arts are not ends in themselves. They are means to the supreme end of the moral life, whose first interest is not in production, but in right action.[[583]] As seen in our discussion of Plato, such a doctrine is not fruitful, economically. If interpreted too rigidly, it stifles commerce and industry. Yet, at bottom, it holds a great truth which modern economists are emphasizing—the fact that wealth and production alike must be subordinated to the general individual and social good. Moreover, the philosopher should not be interpreted in too hard-and-fast a manner. Barker is extreme in his statement that the economic theory of Aristotle is a mere treatise on “the ethics of family life” and that “the fundamental characteristic of his idea of production is a reactionary archaism, which abolishes all the machinery of civilization in favor of the self-supporting farm and a modicum of barter.”[[584]] Bonar’s assertion is also unwarranted, that “Aristotle thinks it beneath the dignity” of his discourse to give the practical details of agriculture and industry “more than a cursory notice.”[[585]] Such details were not germane to the plan of his work, and would certainly be considered out of place in a modern general text on economics. Aristotle’s economic doctrine, as a whole, is certainly far broader in scope than the family, and, while based upon ethics, is something more than an ethical treatise. As seen above, he recognizes the necessity of a moderate acquisition of wealth, both for the prosperous state and for the virtuous man, and demands only that the human interest be put first.[[586]]
Agriculture.—Of the factors that enter into production, Aristotle is, like the other Socratics, most interested in natural resources. He emphasizes especially the agricultural life. To his mind, it is the only true foundation of “natural finance,” since the financial means should be provided in nature herself.[[587]] Natural finance (οἰκειατάτη) is made to include only a proper knowledge of the care of land, cattle, bees, fowl, and other natural resources.[[588]] It is natural, since it does not earn at the expense of others, as do retail trade and other methods of false finance. Aristotle also reveals his interest in agriculture by giving a bibliography of the subject. He names Charetides of Paros, Apollodorus of Lemnos, “and others on other branches”—a hint that many such works on practical economics may be lost to us.[[589]] However, his interest, even in this primary industry, is not of a practical nature, like that of Xenophon. He relegates it to the non-citizen classes, along with commerce and the mechanical arts.[[590]]
Capital.—Aristotle is the only Greek thinker who has given a clear definition of capital. After defining the slave as an instrument (ὅργανον), in order to distinguish still more sharply, he differentiates between the two kinds of wealth—that which is used for consumption, and that which is employed for further production.[[591]] As an example of the former, he uses the bed and the dress, and of the latter the weaver’s comb (κερκίς).[[592]] He points out that all wealth is produced for consumption, but that part of it is consumed indirectly in manufacture. Here is an approach to Adam Smith’s[[593]] definition of capital, as “that part of a man’s stock which he expects to afford him revenue.” Unfortunately, however, the Greek fails to pursue his distinction farther. The theme of his thought is, after all, not capital or production either, but the status of the slave, though, from his standpoint, the slave is capital. He proceeds with the very uneconomic assertion that life consists in action (πρᾶξις), not in production (ποίησις),[[594]] and concludes with the real goal of his argument, that the slave is an assistant (ὑπερέτης), or an animate instrument in the realm of action, not of production.[[595]] The slave is therefore an instrument to increase the life or action of his master, who himself is not represented as a producer, but as a consumer of the present stock. Thus what bids fair to be a fruitful distinction ends in a denial of the primary importance of production. The purpose of Aristotle is here similar to that in some passages of Ruskin[[596]] and Adam Smith,[[597]] to emphasize consumption rather than production.
In another passage, he repeats his definition of capital in different terms. Goods are classified as for “purposes of production” or for “mere enjoyment,”[[598]] but here again no theory of capital is developed. Yet these two definitions are sufficient evidence that he advanced beyond his predecessors in his apprehension of the meaning of the term.[[599]] His division of production and finance, however, into the natural or limited, which deals only with natural resources,[[600]] and the unnatural, which is unlimited, and includes commerce, usury, and even industry,[[601]] reveals a mind neither greatly interested in capital, nor clear as to its true economic importance. His assertion in the Ethics[[602]] that the prodigal (ἄσωτος) benefits many by his reckless expenditures, and that parsimoniousness (ἀνελευθερία) is a worse evil than prodigality also shows that he did not sufficiently emphasize the importance to society of economy, the mother of stored capital. On this point, Plato has the saner view,[[603]] and the extreme attitude of Aristotle is certainly not characteristic of the Greeks in general.[[604]] His failure to grasp the true theory of interest is a further evidence of his superficial apprehension of the function of money capital. He does not see, with Adam Smith, that money represents so much stored capital, potentially productive, and that “since something can everywhere be made by the use of money, something ought everywhere to be paid for the use of it.”[[605]] In justice to him, however, it should be observed that, though he failed to see the importance of unlimited economic progress through constant increase in the capitalistic stock, there is after all a sense in which he was right. There is a natural limit to just acquisition, and it is especially with the individual in relation to wealth that he is dealing. He is thus, with Plato, a forerunner of the present tendency in economics, which is inclined to set a limit to the amount that one can justly earn in a lifetime by his own work.[[606]]
Labor and industry.—Aristotle’s attitude to labor, the third factor in production, is similar to that of Plato, though he lays greater emphasis on the evil physical and moral effect of the “banausic” arts. They are defined as those that “render men unfit for the practice of virtue.”[[607]] They not only cause the body to degenerate,[[608]] but, being “mercenary” employments, they also vulgarize the soul.[[609]] The occupations that require the most physical labor are the most “slavish.”[[610]] The life of artisans and laborers is mean (φαῦλος) and has no business with virtue.[[611]] The citizen youth should be taught none of the illiberal pursuits of the tradesmen.[[612]] No citizen should enter into industrial labor or retail trade, since they are ignoble (ἀγεννής) and hostile to virtue.[[613]] Even all the agricultural work must be performed by slaves, that the citizens may have leisure for personal development and for service to the state.[[614]] In addition to his other objections to retail trade and the arts, Aristotle considers them to be naturally unjust, since they take something from him with whom they deal.[[615]] Indeed, the productive classes have but slight recognition in his ideal state. They seem to be tolerated only as a necessary evil, and are in a state of limited slavery ἀφωρισμένην τινὰ δουλείαν. Virtue is even less possible for them than for slaves, and they lead a less tolerable life.[[616]] All hired labor belongs to the category of “false finance” which degrades individual and state alike.[[617]] The state that produces a multitude of mechanics and but few hoplites can never be great.[[618]]
Here we have the very antithesis of the modern commercial standpoint. However, the truth is not all with the moderns, for a highly developed commerce and industry and the general prosperity of the mass of the people are not always necessarily coincident. Moreover, it is hardly fair to interpret Aristotle too rigidly. He understood well the necessity of craftsmen and all other industrial workers to the state.[[619]] The burden of his attack was directed against retail trade. Like Plato’s his prejudice had a moral and political root,[[620]] and was arrayed against the extreme application to labor, and against its false purpose, rather than against labor itself. He insisted that even intellectual work, when carried to an extreme, and pursued with the wrong aim, might become equally demoralizing.[[621]]
Here is a doctrine which our modern age, that would place even education on a bread-and-butter basis, and that tends to kill initiative and vision by extreme specialization, might well consider. Even Latin literature, when taught as it too often is, merely as a syntactical grind to prepare teachers to pursue the same folly is no more one of the humanities than is industrial chemistry.[[622]] Furthermore, Aristotle and Plato are doubtless right in their belief that a necessary extreme application to physical labor to earn the daily bread inevitably prevents mental and moral development and the proper performance of the duties of citizenship. And our modern democracies with their boasts of universal suffrage are still something of a farce, as long as economic conditions are such that the mass of the population has left no time to think of anything, except how to provide the bare physical necessities. Aristotle’s insistence upon leisure for the life of the citizen is no demand for aristocratic indolence.[[623]] Neither is it Jowett’s “condition of a gentleman,” or merely the idealized notion of an “internal state” in which “the intellect, free from the cares of practical life, energizes or reposes in the consciousness of truth.” It is rather a demand for release from material cares, so as to insure the highest degree of activity in self-development and political service.[[624]]
It may well be observed too, that Aristotle, the special champion of slavery, and reputed scorner of physical labor for freemen, exhibits a real interest in industry, in unguarded moments. One of his arguments against communism is that it would take from the citizen the desire to work.[[625]] He repudiates the life of indolence, and finds happiness in action.[[626]] He considers a practical knowledge of agriculture as essential to the successful economist,[[627]] and defines the just as those who live upon their own resources or labor, instead of making profit from others, especially the farmers, who live from the land which they cultivate.[[628]] We have seen above also that he makes labor one of the prime factors that determine value, and thus the most important element in production.[[629]] Moreover, he shows that he has a practical grasp of the importance of productive employment for the citizens of a democracy. He advises the rich to furnish plots of land (γήδια) to the poor, from the public revenues, or else that they give the poor a start (ἀφορμή) in other business, and thus turn them to industry.[[630]]
On the division of labor, Aristotle adds little to Plato’s and Xenophon’s theory. He agrees with Xenophon against Plato that it implies a necessary distinction between the work of men and women.[[631]] He also applies the principle more extensively, so as to include all nature, whereas Plato seems to limit its application to man. Nature (ἡ φύσις) he observes, does not produce things like the Delphian knife, in a poverty-stricken manner (πενιχρῶς) to serve many purposes, but each for a single purpose (ἓν πρὸς ἓν).[[632]] Like Plato, he makes the principle of reciprocity (τὸ ἴσον ἀντιπεπονθός) out of which the division of labor arises, the saving element in the state.[[633]] He is also fully as emphatic in his application of the law to politics and citizenship.[[634]]