Aristotle and more comprehensive economics
# 4041
I proposed in the last message that I would post long exurbs from Aristotle’s Economics showing the complexity of ancient thought in comparison to our own.
Here it is, some continuity glitched but you get the idea.
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(Also important to realize that economics and ecology share the same root Eco, meaning estate", and logos meaning the laws of nature, whereas nomos refers to man-made laws. A discipline that treats only of the nomos and avoids the logos is seriously truncated.)
Aristotle writes (or his student's notes)
Cypselus, the Corinthian, having vowed to Zeus that, if he made himself master of the city, he would dedicate to him all the property of the Corinthians, ordered them to draw up a list of their possessions. When they had done so, he took a tenth part from each citizen and told them to trade with the remainder. As each year came round, he did the same thing again, with the result that in ten years he had all that he had consecrated to the god, while the Corinthians had acquired other property. Lygdamis, the Naxian, having driven certain men into exile, when no one was willing to buy their possessions except at a low price, sold them to the exiles themselves. And offer- ings belonging to them which were lying half finished in cer- tain workshops he sold to the exiles and anyone else who wished to buy them, allowing the name of the purchaser to be inscribed upon them.
The Byzantines being in need of money sold the sacred enclosures belonging to the state. Those which were fertile they sold on lease, and those which were unproductive in per - petuity. They treated in the same way the enclosures which belonged to associations and clans and all which were situated on private estates; for the owners of the rest of the property bought them at a high price. To the associations they sold other lands, viz. the public lands round the gymna- sium, or the market-place, or the harbour; and they sold the ….
ties were sold, and the rights over the sea-fisheries and the sale of salt, and . . . 3 of jugglers, and soothsayers, and druggists, and other such persons plied their trades; but they ordered them to pay over a third of their profits. And they sold the right of changing money to a single bank, and no one else might either give money in exchange to anyone, or receive it in exchange from anyone, under penalty of forfeiting the money. And whereas there was a law amongst them that no one should have political rights who was not born of parents who were both citizens, being in want of money they passed a decree that a man who was sprung from a citizen on one side only should become a citizen if he paid down thirty minae. And as they were suffering from want of food and lack of money, they made the ships from the Black Sea put in; but, as time went on, the merchants protested and so they paid them interest at ten percent. and ordered those who purchased anything to pay the ten percent. in addition to the price. And whereas certain resident aliens had lent money on security of property, because these had not the right t…
Hippias, the Athenian, put up for sale the parts of the upper rooms which projected into the public streets, and the steps and fences in front of the houses, and the doors which opened outwards. The owners of the property therefore bought them, and a large sum was thus collected. He also declared the coinage then current in Athens to be base, and fixing a price for it ordered it to be brought to him; but when they met to consider the striking of a new type of coin, he gave them back the same money again. And if anyone was about to equip a trireme or a division of cavalry or to provide a tragic chorus or incur expense on any other such state-service, he fixed a moderate fine and allowed him, if he liked, to pay this and be enrolled amongst those who had performed state services. He also ordered that a measure of …
barley, and another of wheat, and an obol should be brought to the priestess of Athena-on-the-Acropolis on behalf of anyone who died, and that the same offering should be made by anyone to whom a child was born. The Athenians who dwell in Potidaea, being in need of money to carry on war, ordered all the citizens to draw up a list of their property, each man enrolling not his whole property collectively in his own deme, but each piece of property separately in the place where it was situated, in order that the poor might give in an assessment; anyone who possessed no property was to assess his own person at two minae. On the basis of this assessment they each contributed the amount enjoined. Sosipolis of Antissa, when the city was in want of money, since the citizens were wont to celebrate the feast of Diony- sus with great splendour and every year went to great expense in providing, amongst other things, very costly victims, persuaded them, when the festival was near at hand, to vow to Dionysus that they would give double…