CHAPTER III PLATO

As seen above, Plato was the first great economic thinker of Greece.⁶⁸ Plato, however, was primarily interested in neither economics nor politics, but in moral idealism. He is pre-eminent, even among the Socratics, for this. All his economic thought is a direct outgrowth of it, and is shot through with its influence. Yet, despite this fact, he exhibits considerable insight into some of the basal principles of economics,⁶⁹ and his entire Republic is founded upon an essentially economic theory of society. He traces its origin to mutual need,⁷⁰ and makes little of the innate social impulse, so prominent in Aristotle’s analysis.⁷¹ He is the predecessor of Aristotle, however, in opposing the social contract doctrine of the Sophists with its interpretation of law as mere convention, by a natural theory of social origins. To his thought, the very foundations of society are established in eternal justice. They are