----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- [Posted on behalf of Roger Sandilands. - RBE] Ross Emmett asks: > In what ways would you argue that there is continuity between a > modern economist and an economist in ancient Greece? This is an answer given by Allyn Young in his lectures at the LSE (notes taken by Nicholas Kaldor) shortly before his untimely death in 1929: "So long as men's economic activities reflected their intitutionally- determined position, e.g. serfs, there was no room for economics. The problems were juristic not economic, as seen in mediaeval discussions, and Aristotle's ethics of trade. He considered the way trade fitted into what he took to be a natural or rational order of society. But his ideas of that order scarcely correspond to modern views -- activities being then praised according to whether they did or did not fit in with the structure of the Greek family, and the Greek state. Aristotle's criteria were never drawn from an unbiased survey of the economic consequences of economic activities. The change from this treatment was due to the transformation of the economic state of society -- the 'rise of modern capitalism', the 'competitive system', 'free business enterprise', the terminlogy generally according with the views of the author. The mediaeval belief in the invariability of the social structure needed to be broken. The dominant factor was the growth of trade. (Cf. Charles Cooley: 'Old ideas come down perpendicularly; new ideas come in sideways'.) "The commercial revolution preceded the industrial revolution, for with the growth of trade industrial specialisation became advantageous. The new industrial revolution and economic situation led to inventions, not vice versa. Then, with the expansion of markets, and the extension of the division of labour, the welfare of each man became increasingly dependent on an increasing number of 'foreigners'. Certain common interests developed. Now those interests, and the way in which they could be furthered, were the questions to which political economy tried to give an answer. Questions of public policy arose, and so economics was born -- though the old name, 'political economy', is the more descriptive." Elsewhere in the same lectures, Young wrote: "Economics is concerned with the communal problems of wealth, not problems of household or business economy. There was no economic science before the second half of the eighteenth century, for men thought of the natural economic order of society as resting uopn principles that were non-economic. For Aristotle, the natural (social) order was inseparable from the structure of the Greek family, and of the Greek state. Economic activities were appraised according to whether or not they fitted in with these institutions. Economic questions always became ethical, e.g. trade was 'natural' where exchange was proposed, but 'unnatural' when devoted to making money profit. Similarly, in the Middle Ages, economic questions were never discussed on their own merits. The belief in the invariability of the social structure needed to be broken, as it was when commerce developed. Individual statesmen investigated particular economic problems but, lacking a view of the economic world as a whole, failed to develop and sytematise their studies. Economics, in fact, only began to develop when men were free to make contracts." - Roger Sandilands ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]