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.
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]
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]
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, 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]
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.
The pseudo-Platonic dialogue, Eryxias, is of special interest for our study, since it is the only extant work in Greek literature which deals directly and exclusively with the problem of wealth.[943] The work presents nothing new, however, which had not already been observed by the Socratics. The statement of Heidel,[944] that it is “distinctly the most valuable contribution of antiquity to the science of political economy,” is therefore an exaggeration. Nevertheless, the essay is worthy of more notice than it has usually received in histories of ancient economic thought.[945] Whatever consideration has been given to it has been largely devoted to the question of its origin. It reveals points of contact with Plato, the later Socratics, and especially with Antisthenes, the Cynic, with whom the author seems to have been most in sympathy.[946]
The two theses that form the goal of the Eryxias are that the wisest men are in reality the wealthiest, and that material wealth is an evil, since they who possess most of it are the most needy of all, and hence most depraved.[947] The keynote of the dialogue is the question of Socrates concerning the wealthy Sicilian, “What sort of a man was he reputed to be in Sicily?”[948] The double thesis is illustrated concretely by Socrates, the wisest, and the Sicilian, the richest but worst of men. The first idea is prominent in Euthydemus,[949] and elsewhere in Plato and Xenophon.[950] The second is a favorite doctrine of the Cynics and Stoics,[951] though the general thought may be traced back to Socrates.[952]
Some insight is exhibited by the author into the problem of value. Like Xenophon, he defines property (χρήματα) as that which is useful, and thus recognizes this element in value.[953] He also distinguishes general from economic utility.[954] In answer to the question in respect to what particular use wealth possesses utility, he states tentatively that it is with respect to bodily needs,[955] an idea suggestive of the organon theory of Aristotle. By this, he doubtless means food, clothing, and shelter, which have the quality of rarity. This, however, is only a step in the argument, which has for its goal the thesis that intellectual attainments constitute the most important part of one’s wealth, and possess a very real economic value.[956] The author thus agrees with Plato, Xenophon, the Cynics, and the Stoics, in his emphasis upon spiritual goods. The distinction between value in use and value in exchange and the necessary dependence of the latter upon the former are also suggested in the statement that nothing can have economic value except as there is a demand for it. The money that passes current in one state may be valueless in another, as also would be the mansion of the wealthy Polytion to Scythian nomads, since there would be no demand for them.[957]
The Eryxias has no clear or satisfactory definition of wealth. It is recognized that wealth must be defined before its character as good or evil can be determined, but the final answer nowhere appears.[958] In this vagueness of result, one is strongly reminded of some of Plato’s minor dialogues. There is also a certain ambiguity throughout the work, similar to that observed in Plato,[959] between wealth in its strict economic sense and excessive wealth. We may gather from the course of the argument, however, that the author would define wealth as consisting of things that possess utility, and are subjects of economic demand, whether external, physical, or intellectual goods.
The attitude of the Eryxias toward wealth is an extreme version of that with which we have become familiar in the Socratics, and is best characterized as Cynic. As seen above, the author considers external wealth to be an absolute second to wisdom,[960] since wisdom is not only itself a means of providing material needs,[961] but also and especially because through it alone does any material wealth become truly valuable.[962] When the latter is made the summum bonum, it becomes the greatest evil. Like Plato, Jesus, and Ruskin, he insists that the kingdom of wisdom be given the first place,[963] for things derive their good or evil quality from the character or knowledge of the user.[964] The ironical account of how the Greek fathers, even of the best classes (τῶν μεγίστων δοκούντων) urge their boys to seek wealth, since without this they are of no account, is almost in the language of Pastor Wagner’s condemnation of the extreme commercialism of this age.[965] Material goods, when unwisely used, are a fruitful source of ills,[966] and excessive wealth is always evil.[967] However, the political motive, which prompted the hostility of Plato and Aristotle to excessive wealth, is absent from the Eryxias.
Thus far the attitude of the author does not differ very essentially from that of the Socratics, but toward the end of the dialogue the doctrine is distinctly taught that wealth is an evil per se. He argues that one’s needs are most numerous in a state of sickness, when he is in his worst condition.[968] One is at his best, on the other hand, when he has fewest and simplest needs.[969] But those who have most property are sure to need the largest provision for the service of the body.[970] Thus the richest, as being the most needy, are the most depraved (μοχθηρότατα διακείμενοι) and the most unhappy, and therefore external wealth is essentially evil.[971] Such a characteristically Cynic doctrine is essentially ascetic, and subversive of the very foundations of economics.
The Eryxias hints at a definition of capital in the distinction between the direct consumption of wealth and its use for further production.[972] But it is far from the author’s purpose to define capital, and he makes nothing of the distinction. The relation of money to wealth is also dealt with incidentally. Like Aristotle, he criticizes the definition of wealth as “the possession of much money,”[973] on the ground that the money of one country may not pass current in another, and hence cannot be true wealth.[974] This is suggestive of the Cynic theory of fiat money, since the examples used are those of the worthless currency of Carthage, Sparta, and Ethiopia.[975] But the argument proves too much, since it would be equally as effective against counting the house of Polytion as true wealth. There is, moreover, a peculiar shift in this part of the dialogue between money and property. The theory of the author is further upheld by the argument that a condition can be conceived in which our bodily needs might be supplied without silver or gold, in which case these metals would be worthless.[976] However, the necessity of intrinsic value for international currency is recognized,[977] and it seems hardly probable that the purpose of the dialogue was to contend that money is never wealth, since the very implication of the argument is that current money is wealth.[978]
The fragments of Teles exhibit the same extreme asceticism of the Cynics in relation to wealth.[979] His main thesis is that the possession of money does not free from want and need.[980] Many who have great possessions do not use them, because of stinginess and sordidness.[981] But if wealth is not used, it is useless, and cannot free from need or want.[982] Here we meet a different application of the criterion of “use” from that with which we have become familiar in the Socratics, the Eryxias, and Ruskin. It is based on refusal, rather than inability to use, though the other idea is in the background. The author argues further that wealth does not free from need, because the wealthy life is always insatiate (ἄπληστος),[983] and wealth does not change the disposition,[984] by which change alone the life can be freed from need and slavery.[985] To try to accomplish this by wealth is like attempting to cure a patient of dropsy by stuffing him with water until he bursts.[986] Counsel is given, therefore, not to turn one’s sons to the acquisition of wealth, but to study under Crates, who can set them free from the vice of insatiety.[987]
Poverty, on the other hand, does not change the disposition of the temperate man for the worse[988] There is nothing distressing or painful about it,[989] for Crates and Diogenes were poor and yet passed their life in ease.[990] It is no harder to endure old age in poverty than in wealth, but all depends upon the disposition.[991] Poverty deprives the life of no positive good, but furnishes the opportunity of gaining good,[992] since it is conducive to the contemplative life of philosophy, while wealth is an obstacle to this.[993] It is the poor, rather than the wealthy, who have leisure.[994] They are also obliged to be strong (καρτερεῖν), while the wealthy become effeminate, since they have no impetus to work.[995] Thus poverty, when accompanied with justice, should be more highly honored than wealth.[996] The author concludes that it is therefore best to despise wealth and turn to the life of philosophy, for this develops generosity instead of stinginess, and contentment instead of insatiety. Such a life uses what is on hand, and lives content with present blessings (τοῖς παροῦσι).[997] The marked contrast between this ascetic philosophy of poverty and the saner teaching of Plato, who was as much opposed to poverty as to excessive wealth, is patent.
The Stoics were the natural descendants in thought of the Cynics, whom they resemble closely in their attitude toward external goods. According to their definition, a good must have an unconditioned value (absolutum, αὐτελές). Whatever exists merely for the sake of something else, or is of value only in comparison to something else, is not a good.[998] A similar doctrine was held concerning evil. Thus spiritual goods were counted to be the only true wealth,[999] and he who had the right attitude toward all,[1000] and used all rightly, was thought to be the spiritual owner of all.[1001]
Zeno, the founder of the school,[1002] classified both wealth and poverty among the so-called “indifferents” (ἀδιάφορα),[1003] as neither good nor evil per se. Like the Cynics, he eulogized poverty, though not to such an extreme degree.[1004] He went with them only so far as to insist that wealth and poverty have no value, except in relation to the proper spiritual attitude.[1005]
In his argument that temples are not especially holy places, since they are the work of artisans (βαναύσων), Zeno exhibits the common negative attitude of the philosophers toward manual labor.[1006] His doctrine on money and exchange was also the negative teaching of the moralist, though his statements on these matters have special reference to an ideal future.[1007] His attitude on the problem of distribution is not altogether clear, though he wrote a Republic,[1008] in which he seems to have presented some communistic ideas. Like his followers, he looked to the time when the whole world should be one state, where artificial differences were no more, and all men were brothers.[1009] His state is utopian and anarchistic, without temple, court, gymnasium, money, or exchange. All are to wear the same clothing, and there shall be no artificial modesty.[1010] Community of wives, at least for the wise, was also probably among his utopian schemes,[1011] though it is very unlikely that he held the doctrine in the crass form as reported.[1012] His state is somewhat suggestive of the Christian ideal, as a unitary whole, a world-cosmos, united by love.[1013]
There is a peculiar mixture of individualistic and social conceptions in the philosophy of the Stoics. In their pictures of an ideal future world-state, they advanced beyond Plato and other thinkers, who limited their communities to the small city-state. In calling their state a “cosmos” also, they gave a positive social content to the narrow individualism of the Cynics.[1014] Moreover, as seen above, their ideal undoubtedly contained some communistic elements. However, according to the fundamental tenet of Stoicism, as expressed by Zeno,[1015] that only the wise can be free and citizens, we are still faced with the old duality and anti-socialistic ideal. The Stoics, like the Cynics, were after all essentially individualistic, and were probably believers in private ownership, though they dreamed of a future golden age of altruism, when private property would be no longer necessary.[1016]
Chrysippus, the greatest of the Stoics,[1017] continued and expanded the principle that virtue is the only absolute good, and that all other things are indifferents, depending for their worth upon right use.[1018] But since the wise alone are capable of right use of externals, they alone are truly wealthy.[1019] They are wealthy, even though beggars, and noble though slaves.[1020] They are not eager for wealth[1021] yet they are good economists, since they know the proper source,[1022] time, method, and extent of money-making. The worthless, on the other hand, are most needy, even though wealthy.[1023] Chrysippus seems to have advanced still farther, in teaching the negative doctrine that wealth is an evil, since it may come from an evil source,[##] an idea suggestive of the modern theory of “tainted money.” Naturally, he with the other Stoics, was in sympathy with the Socratics, in objecting to the use of one’s knowledge for purposes of money-making.[1024]
The cosmopolitan attitude of the Stoics caused them to be opposed to the theory of slavery as a natural institution.[1025] They taught that enforced service is no evidence of slavery,[1026] but that the real slaves are the ignoble and foolish.[1027] The wise, on the other hand, alone are free, though they are slaves to countless masters.[1028]
Chrysippus, like Zeno, probably had dreams of a future ideal state, where the highest eternal law would rule and individual strivings would be lost in the care for the common weal.[1029] If he taught family communism, it was doubtless in a Platonic form.[1030]
Utopian social theories after the time of Aristotle were by no means limited to those of Zeno and Chrysippus. As Souchon has observed,[1031] the period between the end of the fourth and the beginning of the second centuries was especially favorable to such speculation. The skeptical criticism of the Sophists had prepared the following generations to call in question the most elementary social principles. Ideal states, such as those of Phaleas and Plato, had opened the way for future imitations. The conquests of Alexander had broadened the vision of the Greek, so that he no longer thought in terms of Plato’s circumscribed city, but rather in terms of a world-state. Moreover, the utter political confusion and unstable economic conditions of the time aroused the more serious-minded to dream of an ideal past or golden age; to idealize the simple, “natural” life of the so-called “pious” barbarian nomads,[1032] or even of the animal world, as opposed to the “artificial” conditions of civilization; and to exaggerate the virtues and communistic character of the old Spartan constitution.[1033] The social theories were largely Stoic in tendency, and thus present a strange combination of individualistic and communistic ideas.[1034]
Dichaearchus of Messana, a pupil of Aristotle, described an original paradise, when men lived in accord with nature. In that golden age, they did not depend upon animals for food, but subsisted on fruits. Neither did they have any possessions to arouse hate and strife, until the evil of private property developed, and caused the degeneration of human society.[1035]
Ephorus,[1036] a disciple of Isocrates, represented the second tendency. He eulogized the life of the “milk-fed” (γαλακτόφαγοι), barbarian nomads of the north as true to nature and righteous.[1037] Their piety and simple life precluded the social ills that arise from individual ownership,[1038] for their communism even extended to the family, and all composed one brotherhood.[1039]
The third tendency is evident in the writings of Isocrates,[1040] Ephorus,[1041] Polybius,[1042] Plutarch,[1043] and was probably common to many other thinkers whose works are no longer extant.[1044] They idealized the ancient Spartan society, as a model of complete communism, which provided full equality and freedom for the citizens. It was free from the evils of luxury, excessive wealth, poverty, civic strife, commerce, and money-greed, a condition where all the citizens were wise, and where the Stoic ideal of independence (αὐτάρκεια) was fully realized.[1045]
It was but a step from this to the projection of these bizarre idealizations of the past and of primitive life into the present and future. They took the form of ideal utopias such as that of Zeno,[1046] or of romantic descriptions, purporting to portray ideal conditions as actually existing, such as found their model in Plato’s Atlantis.[1047] For a full discussion of this type of literature, the reader may consult Poehlmann’s work.[1048] We need give it only cursory notice here.
Theopompus, a pupil of Socrates, described a “Meropian” land.[1049] His aim, however, was probably the entertainment of the reader, rather than social reform, as is evidenced by the fantastic nature of his stories. They picture not only ideal communistic conditions, but also a state of the wicked (πονηρόπολις), and crassly emphasize the alleged free-love of the Etruscans.[1050]
The Cimmerian state of Hecataeus, an idealization of the kingdom of the Pharaohs, had a more serious social purpose.[1051] It describes a state in which all conquered lands are equally divided among the citizens, and where landed property cannot be sold. The people are free from greed of gain, civic strife, and all the ills that follow it. The ideal is not the greatest increase of wealth, but the development of the citizens to the highest social ideal.[1052]
Euhemerus wrote a “Sacred Chronicle” (ἱερὰ ἀναγραφή)[1053] of an ideal society on an island near India, ruled by a priestly aristocracy. Here, labor was held in high regard. The artisans were in the priestly class, the farmers were second, and the herdsmen were on an equality with the soldiers.[1054] All land and other means of production were common, except the house and garden (κήπου).[1055] The land was not worked collectively, but farmers and herdsmen alike brought their products to a common storehouse for common consumption.[1056] Thus neither money nor commercial class was necessary.
Jambulus, in his “Sun State,”[1057] outdoes even Euhemerus in his communistic ideas. He describes a sort of paradise of sun-worshipers at the equator. Here the trees never fail of ripe fruit, and the citizens never lose their strength and beauty. The whole social and economic life is under communistic régime. There is collective ownership of all the means of production, and each must take his turn at each kind of work.[1058] The communism extends also to the family.[1059] Thus Greek economic and social speculation, which always contained socialistic elements, ends in a communism for the whole citizenship, so thorough as to include both products and means of production, and to demand a leveling even of the natural inequalities that result from the different kinds of work.