----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- 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 ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]