Economics1 began with the Greeks as an analysis of the living conditions of all the people on large estates. The concern was broad and deep. The deep included a concern for the effect of family life, education, food, and slavery, on the ethical dimensions of leading a good life. One way to get the flavor is to look at Aristotles’ discussion of slavery and women. I think these will both be a surprise.
WOMEN
So, according to Hesiod, it would be necessary that there should be First and foremost a house, a woman, and an ox for the plough. for the first point concerns subsistence, the second free men. We should have, therefore, to organize properly the association of husband and wife; and this involves providing what sort of a woman she ought to be. As regards the human part of the household, the first care is concerning a wife; for a common life is above all things natural to the female and to the male. For we have elsewhere laid down the principle that nature aims at producing many such forms of association, just as also it produces the various kinds of animals. But it is impossible for the female to accomplish this without the male or the male without the female so that their common life has necessarily arisen. Now in the other animals, this intercourse is not based on reason, but depends on the amount of natural instinct which they possess and is entirely for the purpose of procreation. But in the civilized and more intelligent animals, the bond of unity is more complex (for in them we see more mutual help and goodwill and co-operation), above all in the case of man, because the female and the male co-operate to ensure not merely existence but a good life. And the production of children is not only a way of serving nature but also of securing advantage; for the trouble which parents bestow upon their helpless children when they are themselves vigorous is repaid to them in old age when they are helpless by their children, who are then in their full vigour. At the same time also nature thus periodically provides for the perpetuation of mankind as a species, since she cannot do so individually. Thus the nature both of the man and of the woman has been preordained by the will of heaven to live a common life. For they are distinguished in that the powers which they possess are not applicable to purposes in all cases identical, but in some respects their functions are opposed to one another though they all tend to the same end. For nature has made the one sex stronger, the other weaker, that the latter through fear may be the more cautious, while the former by its courage is better able to ward off attacks; and that the one may acquire possessions outside the house, the other preserves those within. In the performance of work, she made one sex able to lead a sedentary life and not strong enough to endure exposure, the other less adapted for quiet pursuits but well constituted for outdoor activities; and in relation to offspring she has made both share in the procreation of children, but each render its peculiar service towards them, the woman by nurturing, the man by educating them.
SLAVERY
• Of possessions, that which is the best and the worthiest subject of economics comes first and is most essential—I mean, man. It is necessary therefore first to provide oneself with good slaves. Now slaves are of two kinds, the overseer and the worker. And since we see that methods of education produce a certain character in the young, it is necessary when one has procured slaves to bring up carefully those to whom the higher duties are to be entrusted. The intercourse of a master with his slaves should be such as to allow them to be neither insolent nor uncontrolled. To the higher class of slaves, he ought to give some share of honour, and to the workers’ abundance of nourishment. And since the drinking of wine makes even freemen insolent, and many nations even of freemen abstain therefrom (the Carthaginians, for instance, when they are on military service), it is clear that wine ought never to be given to slaves, or at any rate very seldom. Three things make up the life of a slave, work, punishment, and food. To give them food but no punishment and no work makes them insolent; and that they should have work and punishment but no food is tyrannical and destroys their efficiency. It remains therefore to give them work and sufficient food; for it is impossible to rule without offering rewards, and a slave’s reward is his food. And just as all other men become worse when they get no advantage by being better and there are no rewards for virtue and vice, so also is it with servants. Therefore we must take careful notice and be- stow or withhold everything, whether food or clothing or leisure or punishments, according to merit, in word and deed following the practice adopted by physicians in the matter of medicine, remembering at the same time that food is not medicine because it must be given continually. The slave who is best suited for his work is the kind that is neither too cowardly nor too courageous. Slaves who have either of these characteristics are injurious to their owners; those who are too cowardly lack endurance, while the high-spirited are not easy to control. All ought to have a definite end in view; for it is just and beneficial to offer slaves their freedom as a prize, for they are willing to work when a prize is set before them and a limit of time is defined. One ought to bind slaves to one’s service by letting them have children, and not to have many persons of the same race in a household, any more than in a state. One ought to provide sacrifices and pleasures more for the sake of slaves than for freemen; for in the case of the former, there are present more of the reasons why such things have been instituted.
Aristotle's view was that the poliss began for survival but then went on to be the locus of the economy of the good life. Indeed the polis is defined as the highest kind of community, embracing all others, and as coming into being for the sake of mere life (physical survival) but maintaining its existence for the sake of the good life. Over time christianity took over the domestic and ethical side and then faded in charm and commitments. The land became a place for god's economy (see the many uses of economos translated into English, often as "dispensation”. The management of God's home for spiritual development. with Christ as the template. 2
Sorting this out with increasing population, craft, and trade led to a formwork of social thought seized upon by the lawyers and sons of an emerging aristocracy3. That framework concerned how to increase wealth of those with spare wealth with occasional but receding references to the well-being of all.
The modern economy concerned with cash and wealth has come to muchly ignore human relations and the subtler more nuanced qualities of actual living. In other words, economics became a way of thinking and decision-making that enhanced the role of the wealthy while draining the life out of the rest of society. "Let them, have churches".
Society increasingly focused on economics while leaving the rest of society pretty much without any theoretical understanding. Leaving the rest of society to faster and develop extensive corruption and control by hidden hours of money and powerful personalities.
The space, empty of ethics but full of financial activity created an unfocused relatively autonomous groups of people and interests. This ignored portion of society succumbed to corruption and a politics out of control that became a money-powered leverage for the oligarchs. to control the direction of society. This unequal and over developed while under-developed society is the prime cause of an over-milked Climate leading to its destruction. Difficult.4
Econonis (the laws of (large) household management. see Aristotle's Economicss
See Dotan Leshem, The Origins of Neoliberalism: Modeling the Economy from Jesus to Foucaullt
Many early economists came from families that lost their wealth.
See Atistotle, Jonathan Barned et al.