His assertion in the Ethics602 that the prodigal (ἄσωτος) benefits many by his reckless expenditures, and that parsimoniousness (ἀνελευθερία) is a worse evil than prodigality also shows that he did not sufficiently emphasize the importance to society of economy, the mother of stored capital.
On this point, Plato has the saner view,603 and the extreme attitude of Aristotle is certainly not characteristic of the Greeks in general.604
His failure to grasp the true theory of interest is a further evidence of his superficial apprehension of the function of money capital. He does not see, with Adam Smith, that money represents so much stored capital, potentially productive, and that “since something can everywhere be made by the use of money, something ought everywhere to be paid for the use of it.”605
In justice to him, however, it should be observed that, though he failed to see the importance of unlimited economic progress through constant increase in the capitalistic stock, there is after all a sense in which he was right.
There is a natural limit to just acquisition, and it is especially with the individual in relation to wealth that he is dealing. He is thus, with Plato, a forerunner of the present tendency in economics, which is inclined to set a limit to the amount that one can justly earn in a lifetime by his own work.606
Labor and industry.—Aristotle’s attitude to labor, the third factor in production, is similar to that of Plato, though he lays greater emphasis on the evil physical and moral effect of the “banausic” arts. They are defined as those that “render men unfit for the practice of virtue.”607 They not only cause the body to degenerate,608 but, being “mercenary” employments, they also vulgarize the soul.609 The occupations that require the most physical labor are the most “slavish.”610 The life of artisans and laborers