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As usual,our discussions of the origins of economics is
Eurocentric,ignoring the contributions of other civilizatons to the
development of economic science (of course,I also have a hard time
viewing the Greeks as western while knowing that the works of Plato
and Xenophon devote so much to the likes of Cyrous of Persia, rather
than to the people of Western Europe). As some of us have tried to
demonstrate, other civilizations, in particular medieval Muslims who
inherited Greek and Iranian thought and Islamic-and thus Judo-
Christian ethoes -- and also influenced later European thinkers, too
understood some economics.
For example a medieval Persian (i.,e,Iranian) ethicist named Nasir Tusi
beleved, in a book on ethics(which he wrote in his native tongue of
Persian), that he was DESCRIBING GENERAL AND UNIVERSAL
LAWS ABOUT PROPERTY, ITS ACQUISITION AND
MANAGEMENT. In DISCOURSE Two of his ethics he wrote
"THERE ARE GENERAL AND UNIVERSAL LAWAS REQUIRED
FOR WEALTH ACQUISITION AND MANAGEMENT WHOSE
COMPONENTS SHOULD NOT ESCAPE INTELLIGENT
PERSONS."
Before providing a definition of this science, he discusses human
civiliation. He says
"The human race is in need of social organization.This type of social
organization,which we have already discussed, is called civilization.The
term is derived from the term city, a city being where individuals gather
to engage in various crafts and professions which, through
cooperation, give rise to the attainment of the means of livelihood. Here
by city we just do not mean the collection of dwellings but the
association of the inhabitants of those dwellings."
Long before de Montchretien (1615) or Adam Smith,this medieval
Persian defined a science he called practical philosophy or philosophy
for the management of the city (HEKMAT E MADANI) whose
definition very much resembles the Marshallian definition of
economics, or political economy. For that he provides the following
definition.
"FROM THIS IT IS EVIDENT THAT HEKMAT E MADANI
(political economy?), THE SCIENCE DISCUSSED IN THIS
DISCOURSE, IS THE STUDY OF UNIVERSAL LAWS
GOVERNING THE PUBLIC INTEREST/WELFARE IN SO FAR
AS THEY ARE DIRECTED, THROUGH COOPERATION,
TOWARD THE OPTIMAL OR PERFECTION. THE OBJECT OF
THIS SCIENCE IS THE FORMATION OF A COMMUNITY
WHOSE MEMBERS, THROUGH COOPERATION, BEHAVE IN
THE MOST OPTIMAL WAY."
Hamid Hosseini
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