and hints at a solution, when he says that the natural increase of population in his state shall not exceed the economic basis for it.246 In the Laws, he suggests specific means for preserving the proper number by restraining over-productive people, and by encouraging the opposite.247 If such general provisions should not prove sufficient, he would then resort to colonization.248 On the other hand, should population be greatly depleted by war or disease, he would even open the doors of citizenship to the undesirable classes.249 His interest in the problem of population, however, is primarily moral and social rather than economic. Moreover, in antithesis to Malthus, he limits his consideration to a very small, artificially constructed state. With the narrow political vision of a Greek, he thinks that the production of a multitude of “happy-hearted” men in a state is impossible.250
DISTRIBUTION
As stated in the Introduction, the economic interest of Greek thinkers was particularly alive in the fields of distribution and consumption. It is here that they are especially interesting and suggestive.251 However, they