We have seen that Plato, in the Laws, while apparently granting private property in land, really denies this, since he makes the product of the land practically public property.[[839]] Aristotle, despite his strictures against communism, advocates a system of land tenure quite similar. His limitation of the freedom of donation or testament, purchase or sale; his demands that the lot shall never leave the family, that it shall always be handed down by legitimate succession, and that no citizen shall ever be allowed to hold more than one allotment, are all Platonic, and make him unquestionably an advocate of family, rather than of private ownership of land.[[840]] His collectivism is more direct than that of the Laws, since he makes part of the land entirely public, to defray the expense of worship and the common meals.[[841]] The assignment of lots to the citizens is on the same terms as in the Laws, with the exception that the owners are masters of the product of their lots.[[842]] Despite his criticism of Plato’s division of homesteads, he has the same plan.[[843]] As in the Laws, only citizens are landowners, and this includes only the governing and military classes,[[844]] while all husbandmen are to be public or private slaves.[[845]] Unlike Plato, however, Aristotle does not attempt to avoid undue inequalities in personal property.[[846]] He sets no maximum above which limit goods must be confiscated, nor does he, as Plato, establish a rigorous system of laws to hamper trade and to make money-making operations practically impossible. He recognizes that such regulations are not feasible, and his legislation is therefore more considerate of human nature, despite the fact that his hostility to the ideal of commercialism is even more pronounced than is that of Plato.[[847]]
It is evident from the preceding outline of Aristotle’s negative and positive doctrine on the matter of private property that his system is in substantial agreement with that of Plato’s second state.[[848]] Besides the points of similarity noted above, he agrees with his predecessor in emphasizing strongly the power of the state over the life of the citizens. Both insist that the citizen belongs, not to himself, but to the state, and can realize his best life only through the state.[[849]] Thus Aristotle is far from being a defender of private property in the absolute sense. On the other hand, his emphasis upon the social obligation of individual possession is, if not socialistic, at least very modern. He is certainly a much better socialist than the alleged communist of the Republic, whom he criticizes so severely. Like the Plato of the Laws, he is a semi-collectivist. As Barker has observed,[[850]] Aristotle thought in terms of land, while modern socialism thinks in terms of capital and labor. Both standpoints involve social ownership and the limitation of the individual, and in this respect the Greek thinker was socialistic in tendency. But despite their social spirit and their trend toward nationalism, which is so strong in all progressive countries today, neither he nor Plato was a socialist, in the modern sense, in spirit or in aim.[[851]] Any attempts at direct comparison with modern socialism, therefore, are likely to be fanciful and confusing. Whatever analogy there is between them is of a very general nature and should not be pressed.[[852]]
CHAPTER VII
MINOR PHILOSOPHERS, CONTEMPORARIES OR SUCCESSORS OF PLATO AND ARISTOTLE
The minor philosophers, contemporaries or successors of the Socratics, present in their extant fragments some ideas on wealth and other economic problems that are worthy of note. For purposes of convenience, we shall group them all here, though some of them would chronologically precede one or both of the greater philosophers. The successors of Plato in the Academy, Speusippus, Xenocrates, and Crantor,[[853]] carried forward the teaching of the Socratics on wealth, as opposed to the more extreme doctrine of the Cynics and Stoics.[[854]] There was, however, probably less emphasis on matters economic in their writings, since their prime interest was in practical individual ethics rather than in the political morality of Plato and Aristotle, though Xenocrates is known to have written an Economicus.[[855]]
Theophrastus,[[856]] the first and greatest successor of Aristotle in the Peripatetic school, was the author of a treatise on wealth, of which we know only the name.[[857]] He also probably dealt somewhat with economic subjects in his Ethics and Politics, but only slight fragments of either work are extant. He reveals slightly greater regard for the importance of external goods than Aristotle, perhaps because of his special love for the quiet and leisure of the scholar’s life.[[858]] There is, however, no evidence that he went so far as to ascribe a positive value to wealth as such. On the contrary, he advises that one render himself independent of it by living a simple life,[[859]] and urges against vulgar display.[[860]] Like Aristotle, he prefers moderate wealth,[[861]] and finds its chief value in the fact that it enables one to have the distinction of giving splendid gifts to the people.[[862]] He approaches the cosmopolitan spirit of the Stoics in his emphasis upon the natural relationship of all men,[[863]] a result of the broadening vision due to the unification of Greece under the Macedonian Empire. There is nothing of interest from other members of the Peripatetic school, except the Eudemian Ethics and Magna moralia, which were included in our discussion of Aristotle, and the pseudo-Aristotelian Economica, which will be discussed in the following pages.
THE ECONOMICA
Economica were one of the characteristic types of Greek literature, after the Economicus of Xenophon.[[864]] They discussed wealth from the ethical standpoint, dealt largely with domestic, rather than public, economy, and considered questions of human relations, such as slavery and the married life. They are, in general, imitations of Xenophon and of Aristotle’s Politics, and add very little of interest to the economic theory of the Socratics. Aside from the work, falsely ascribed to Aristotle, to be discussed below, Economica were written by Antisthenes,[[865]] Xenocrates,[[866]] Philodemus,[[867]] Metrodorus of Lampsacus,[[868]] Hierocles,[[869]] Dio Chrysostom,[[870]] Plutarch,[[871]] and the New-Pythagoreans,[[872]] Bryson,[[873]] Callicratidas,[[874]] Periktione,[[875]] and Phintys.[[876]]
The pseudo-Aristotelian Economica[[877]] require no extended discussion, since most of the material that is of interest in them is an imitation of Aristotle’s Politics and Xenophon’s Economics. Book i is largely a repetition of some of Aristotle’s theories of domestic economy, the marriage relation, and slavery, with a few unimportant additions and slight differences.[[878]] Book ii is almost entirely composed of practical examples of how necessary funds have been provided by states and rulers.
The most distinctive point about the doctrine of the first book is its separation of οἰκονομική from πολιτική as a special science.[[879]] The author agrees with Aristotle, however, that it is the function of economics both to acquire and to use, though without his specific limitations upon acquisition.[[880]] He distinguishes four forms of economy—acquiring, guarding, using, and arranging in proper order.[[881]] Elsewhere, he makes a different classification on another basis—imperial, provincial, public, and private.[[882]] These are each further subdivided, the first including finance, export and import commerce, and expenditures.[[883]]
Agriculture is especially eulogized by the author, in the spirit of Xenophon and Aristotle. It is the primary means of natural acquisition, the others being mining and allied arts whose source of wealth is the land.[[884]] It is the most just acquisition, since it is not gained from men, either by trade, hired labor, or war,[[885]] and it contributes most to manly strength.[[886]] Retail trade and the banausic arts, on the other hand, are both contrary to nature,[[887]] since they render the body weak and inefficient (ἀχρεῖα).[[888]]