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nydus/A History of Greek Economic ThoughtPublic

This volume provides a reinterpretation of Greek economic theory by examining the relationship between ancient thought and modern humanitarian economy. The text analyzes Greek economic ideas within the context of the contemporary economic environment and provides a bibliography of relevant scholarly works.

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Table of Contents

CHAPTER III PLATO

the working classes to non-citizenship. But here, also, he is still anxious that they shall have the sort of education that befits their station,283 and that justice be done them.284 He also provides against the existence of beggary in the state.285 Whatever may be said of his aristocratic spirit, therefore, he cannot be justly accused of the gross indifference of the early nineteenth-century economy and of modern capitalism toward either masses or public, in their concern for material wealth.286

COMMUNISTIC AND SOCIALISTIC IDEAS

The Greek theory of distribution was employed chiefly in the criticism of the institution of private property, and in the suggestion of more or less communistic systems to succeed it. This tendency, however, was not like the modern either in motive or in general type. Modern socialism aims to be scientific, and professes to build a scientific system on a basis of economic laws. Greek socialism had no such aim. It did not lay claim to any relation to economic law, but frankly presented itself for what it was, a politico-moral sentiment. Other points of distinction will be observed as we proceed, but this primary one must not be overlooked, if either the spirit or the meaning of the Greek social theory is to be understood.

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