b) The confusion was not merely with individual ethics, for Greek moral philosophy always had the welfare of the state for its goal. Indeed, the basal reason for this close union of economics, ethics, and politics is the true idea that the state should rise above internal strife, and unite all in a care for the common interest.9
c) The standpoint of the Greek philosophers is certainly no more to be criticized than is that of the so-called orthodox political economy.10 They represent two extremes. If the Greek theory did not give to wealth its full right, and was open to the charge of sentimentalism, the Ricardian doctrine, with its “economic man,” which eliminated all other ideals and impulses, was an unreal and pernicious abstraction. Of the two errors, the Greek is the less objectionable, and is more in accord with the trend of economic thought today. The best economists are now insisting more and more on the Greek idea that economic problems must be considered from the standpoint of the whole man as a citizen in society.
Modern political economy “has placed man as man and not wealth in the foreground, and subordinated everything to his true welfare.”
“Love, generosity, nobility of character, self-sacrifice, and all that is best and truest in our nature have their place in economic life.”11
“The science which deals with wealth, so far from being a ‘gospel of Mammon,’ necessarily begins and ends in the study of man.”12
“Es soll kein Widerspruch zwischen Ethik und Volkswirtschaft bestehen, es soll das Sittengesetz für die Wirtschaft gelten und in ihr ausgeführt werden.”13
Such strong statements taken at random from modern economists should serve to temper our criticism of the Greek confusion.