dealt very little with the important principles of distribution as laid down by modern economists. Theories of the several elements that enter into distribution—wages, profits, and rent—are for the most part conspicuously absent.252
The problem of distribution is also hardly considered from the modern standpoint. We look in vain for a treatment of the modern dominant question of the relation between capital and labor. Moreover, the Greek theories of distribution are, on the whole, not the outgrowth of the sentiment of human sympathy for the poor and the common laborer, which is so prevalent today. The purpose seems to be to guard against dishonesty rather than oppression from either contracting party.253 This lack in Greek theory is not strange, in an age when slaves took the place of machinery, so that capital and labor were largely united in them, while the majority of free laborers worked directly for the public, or on the land.254 The goal of the theorists, therefore, is the conservation of the state rather than the relief of any class of the citizenship.