The work agrees with Aristotle, against Plato, in his doctrine that men and women are essentially different in nature, and hence that their work should be distinct.[[889]] No attempt is made to justify slavery, though Aristotle is followed in his advice to grant emancipation, as a special reward for faithfulness.[[890]] The author of Book ii seems to have taken for granted the Cynic theory that money need have no intrinsic value, at least for local purposes. Coinage of iron,[[891]] tin,[[892]] bronze,[[893]] the arbitrary stamping of drachmas with a double value,[[894]] are all offered apparently as a proper means of escape from financial difficulty. Like Aristotle, he accepts monopoly as a shrewd and legitimate principle of finance.[[895]] Elsewhere, however, in striking contrast to such uneconomic suggestions, the author states the important economic principle that expenditures should not exceed income.[[896]] In accord with Greek usage, he is familiar with a tax on exports for revenue and as a means of guarding against depletion of supply.[[897]]
CYRENAICS
The Cyrenaics were the forerunners of the Epicureans in their more liberal attitude toward wealth. Aristippus,[[898]] the founder of the school, was a man of the world, who believed in enjoying life as it came.[[899]] He held that pleasure was always a good, and that all else was of value only as a means of realizing this end.[[900]] If consistent, therefore, he must have valued highly moderate wealth. His principle that one should aim to realize the highest degree of pleasure with the least economic expenditure is somewhat analogous to the modern economic doctrine of the smallest means.[[901]] Bion of Borysthenes became a Cyrenaic in his later life, but his satires are almost entirely lost.[[902]]
EPICURUS AND HIS SCHOOL
Epicurus, though the apostle of hedonism, and heir of the Cyrenaics, taught a doctrine of wealth somewhat similar to that of the Stoics.[[903]] His “happiness” consisted in living a simple and prudent life. He taught that spiritual wealth is unlimited, and that the wise are contented with things easy to acquire (εὐπόριστα);[[904]] that external wealth, on the other hand, is limited,[[905]] and that it is not increase of possessions but limitation of desires that makes truly rich.[[906]] He believed the simplest food to be best,[[907]] both for pleasure and for health, that many wealthy find no escape from ills,[[908]] that he who is not satisfied with little will not be satisfied with all,[[909]] and that contented poverty is the greatest wealth.[[910]] In accord with his teaching, he seems to have lived very simply.[[911]] However, he did not go to the extreme of the Cynics and Stoics, but taught that the wise will have a care to gain property, and not live as beggars.[[912]] He exhibits no tendency toward communism, but rather toward the extreme individualism of the Sophists, and was in sympathy with their social contract theory.[[913]] Later Epicureanism degenerated by taking the hedonistic principle of its founder too literally. Like the Sophists, the school has influenced modern economic thought through its conception of justice, as a mere convention for mutual advantage.[[914]]
CYNICS
The Cynics developed the negative attitude of the Socratics toward wealth to its extreme in asceticism. Their doctrine was subversive of all economic interest. Antisthenes, the founder of the school, was a contemporary of Plato, a Sophist in his youth, but later associated with the Socratic circle. He appears prominently in the Symposium of Xenophon.[[915]] He urged a return to nature in the literal sense.[[916]] His book on the nature of animals (περὶ ζώων φύσεως) probably presented examples from the animal world as models for natural human living. Like many writers of his time and later, he idealized the life of primitive and barbarous peoples.[[917]] In utter antithesis to Aristotle,[[918]] he declared city life and civilization to be the source of all injustice, luxury, and corruption. In his opinion, Zeus punished Prometheus, not because he envied men any good, but because the discovery of fire was the source (ἀφορμή) of all effeminacy and luxury for men.[[919]] Material wealth was, to him, if not an absolute evil, something about which men should be entirely indifferent, for in essence, good and evil could have only a moral reference.[[920]] The craving for wealth or power was a vain illusion. Nothing was good for a man except what was actually his own,[[921]] and this was to be found only in the soul.[[922]] Wealth without virtue was not only worthless, but a fruitful source of evil,[[923]] and no lover of money could be either virtuous or free.[[924]] He thus advanced beyond the Socratic doctrine of ability to use as the criterion of value.
However, though despising wealth, Antisthenes upheld the dignity of free labor. He believed it to be a good by which alone virtue is gained, the source of independence.[[925]] Like the rest of the Cynics, he was thus doubtless opposed to slavery. The Cynic principle that all diversities in men, except differences in moral character, were merely accidental was a direct argument against slavery.[[926]] It is also probable that he held the Cynic doctrine that intrinsic value in money is unnecessary.[[927]]
Diogenes of Sinope, “the philosopher of the proletariat,” became more famous than Antisthenes, owing to his eccentric personality.[[928]] He carried the Cynic doctrine of wealth to its reductio ad absurdum by applying it literally in his own life. His repudiation of wealth and civilization was even more emphatic than that of his predecessor. He taught that wealth without virtue is worse than poverty.[[929]] Lovers of wealth are like men afflicted with the dropsy, always athirst for more.[[930]] The desire for money is the very source and center (μητρόπολιν) of all ills.[[931]] Virtue cannot dwell either in a wealthy state or in a wealthy house.[[932]] Poverty better accords with it, and is no real cause of suffering.[[933]] Truly noble men despise wealth and are above being troubled by poverty and other so-called ills.[[934]]
Diogenes was doubtless opposed to slavery and taught that under proper conditions of the simple life there would be no reason for it.[[935]] In his opinion, the truly free were not slaves, even though they might be in a state of servitude, but the mean-spirited were slavish even though free.[[936]] He wrote a Republic in which he seems to have advocated fiat money to take the place of the hated gold and silver[[937]] and to prevent the extensive accumulation of movable wealth. He also advocated the community of wives and children,[[938]] and perhaps some system of land tenure other than private ownership.[[939]] Crates, the poet of the Cynics,[[940]] expresses similar sentiments of scorn for wealth, supreme regard for virtue,[[941]] and glorification of poverty,[[942]] Menippus and Monimus left little of economic interest.