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nydus/A History of Greek Economic ThoughtPublic
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Table of Contents

Chapter IV Xenophon

# POPULATION

In antithesis to Plato and Aristotle, the problem of population has no difficulties for Xenophon. He does not deem it advisable to set a limit on the population of the state. On the contrary, he conceives it as one of the advantages of his plan in the Revenues, that thereby the city would become very populous, and thus land about the mines would soon be as valuable as that in the city itself.469

# DISTRIBUTION

Xenophon is far less concerned about the problem of distribution than Plato. He has no suggestions as to wages, profits, or prices, no ideal state where an equitable distribution shall be realized, no yearnings after equality, or complaints against the evils of extreme wealth or poverty. Like Plato, he would avoid civic discord in the state,470 but by the increase of production and exchange rather than by their limitation. In Socrates’ parable of the dog and the sheep, he presents a suggestion of a theory

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