a) The dominance of the state over the individual citizen, which fact caused political rather than economic speculation to absorb the attention of Greek thinkers. It is stated that the importance of the individual must be recognized before a science of economics can develop.63 This reason is also usually overemphasized.
b) The general prejudice in Greece against industry, labor for another, and finance for its own sake. That such a prejudice existed to some degree, arising from the old aristocratic feeling, moral objections, the reflex influence of slavery, the spirit of independence, and the belief that leisure was necessary for the proper performance of the duties of citizenship, is generally admitted. The commonly assumed universality of this feeling is, however, open to grave question. The prejudice against skilled labor was probably limited to the moral philosophers, and perhaps to the more aristocratic portion of the citizens, and we shall see in another chapter that the hostile attitude of the philosophers themselves has been considerably exaggerated. The