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]]
SLAVERY
We have seen that the references to slavery in Xenophon and Plato are incidental, and reveal a certain unconscious naïveté as to the actual social problem involved. By Aristotle’s day, however, the criticisms of the Sophists had shaken the foundations of all traditional institutions, and their thesis that slavery is contrary to nature had become through the Cynics a prominent social theory.[[635]] The thought on the subject had crystallized into two leading doctrines—one including benevolence in justice, and hence denying the right of slavery; and the other identifying justice with the rule of the stronger, and hence upholding slavery as based on mere force.[[636]] The practical Aristotle, an upholder of slavery, not from tradition, but through conscious belief in its economic necessity, thus takes his stand midway between the two opposing theories. He champions the old view of natural slavery, but rejects the basis of mere force for that of morality and benevolence.[[637]] His thesis is that slavery is a natural and necessary relation in human society, not accidental or conventional. The slave, being property, which is a multitude of instruments (ὀργάνων πλῆθος), is an animate instrument (ὄργανον ἔμψυχον) conducive to life (πρὸς ζωήν).[[638]] He is just as necessary to the best life of the citizen as are inanimate instruments, and will be, until all tools work automatically, like the mythical figures of Daedalus or the tripods of Hephaestus.[[639]] The slave is a servant in the realm of action (πρᾶξις), not of production (ποίησις). He is not a producer of commodities (ποιητικός), but of services (πρακτικός),[[640]] and just as property is merely a part or member (μόριον) belonging wholly to something else, so the slave, as property, belongs entirely to his master, and has no true existence apart from him.[[641]] From these facts, the whole nature and power of the slave are evident. One who, though a human being, is merely property is a natural slave, since he is naturally not his own master, but belongs to another, in whom he finds his true being.[[642]] As Barker has observed, this conclusion of the first part of Aristotle’s argument is inevitable if we admit his premises of the identity of “instruments” and property, but this is an unreal identity.[[643]] “Natural” (φύσει) is the saving word in his argument, but “human” (ἄνθρωπος) refutes it, as the philosopher practically admits later.
He now proceeds to ask the question whether this “natural” slave of his hypothesis actually exists, for whom such a relation is just, or whether all slavery is contrary to nature, as some allege. He answers in the affirmative. The principle of rule and subjection he declares to be a foundation law of all life.[[644]] Men are constituted for either condition from birth, and their development follows this natural bent.[[645]] This law may be observed in inanimate things,[[646]] in the natural subordinate relation of the body to the soul, of domestic animals to man, of female to male, of child to parent, and of subjects to rulers.[[647]] Thus all who are capable only of physical service hold the same relation to higher natures as the body holds to the soul, and are slaves by nature.[[648]] This is the only relation for which the slave is naturally fitted, since he can apprehend reason without himself possessing it, being midway between animals and truly rational men.[[649]] Usually also nature differentiates both the bodies and the souls of freemen and slaves, suiting them to their respective spheres and functions.[[650]]