Book: The History of Economic Thought (Medema & Samuels, 2013)

For Duke HOPE Summer Institute, 2024.
[not sure if this is best as one page, or one page per reading. I think ideally do a wiki series on all the pieces I end up reading].
== Summary/Reading ==
=== Part I: Pre-Classical Thought ===
[2-page part intro, just read in the book]
It is a widely held, and probably substantially correct, view that the emergence of modern economic thought was correlative with the emergence of a commercial, eventually industrial, capitalist market economy. It is this economic system, especially as it arose in Western Europe in the eighteenth century, that economics attempts to describe, interpret, and explain, as well as to justify.
Prior to this, there is thinking bout 'economic' topics (trade, value, money, etc) that engages general problems of the organization of economic activity (e.g. equality, conflicting interests, institution of private property, etc.). Most of the speculation was on current issues rather than abstract generalizations. Early economic thought had two other characteristics: (1) its mythopoeic nature of thinking, and (2) the subordination of it to theology.
There is early work from the Greeks during the 5th and 4th centuries BC from Hesiod (Ode to Work/Work and Days), and Xenophon. But, it is with Plato (Republic, The Laws), and Aristotle (Politics, Nichomachean Ethics) that more sophisticated economic analysis takes place. Economic analysis largely disappeared from the subsequent 1500 years from Western thinking, and reappears with the scholastic writing in the 13th century AD.
This part: trace the development of econ thought from the Greek through the late 18th century, going through scholasticism, mercantilism, and physiocracy. Increasingly, econ became to be recognized as a sphere embodied with its own laws, worthy of analysis in its own right and as an interrelated whole rather than piecemeal analysis.
=== Aristotle (384-322 BC) ===
==== Politics ====
* Book 1 - Part I: Governments differ in kind. As in other sciences, the compound should always be broken down into elements of the whole. We must look at the elements of the state in order to see how types of rule differ, and if any scientific result can be attained about each of them.
* Part II: Considering things in their first growth and origin—whether a state or anything else—provides the clearest view of them. In the first origin, there must be a union of those who cannot exist independently; male and female (for the continued existence of the race), and ruler and subject (for the preservation of both). Nature intends those who foresee by mind to be lord/master, and those who can give effect to such foresight by body to be slaves. Hence, nature distinguishes between the female and the slave. Out of these two relationships, between the man/woman and master/slave, the first thing to arise is the family, which is the association established by nature for the supply of men's everyday wants. When several families are united, the association aims at something more than everyday wants, and the first society to be formed is the village. When several villages are united into a single community, large enough to be roughly self-sufficing, the state comes into existence.And therefore, if the earlier forms of society are natural, so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the nature of a thing is its end. 
* Further, the state is by nature prior to the family and individual, since the whole of something is necessarily prior to a part, e.g. if the body is destroyed there is no foot or hand except in an equivocal way as we might speak of a stone hand since the hand of a destroyed body is no better than this. Proof that the state is natural is that any isolated individual is not self-sufficing; therefore he is like a part in relation to the whole.I think this is fair in a larger sense if you consider reproduction. A world with only single persons can't 'survive' long term. He who is unable to live in society or is self-sufficient must be either a beast or a god: he is no part of a state.
* Part III: Since the state is made up of HH's, we must analyze HH's before we analyze the state. The HH in turn is composed of several elements: the master-slave, husband-wife, and father-children relations, and an additional element—the art of getting wealth. 
* We start with the master-slave relation. Some believe that the rule by a master is a science, and that the management of a HH, the mastership of slaves, and political and royal rule are all the same. Others believe that rule over slaves is contrary to nature as the distinction between slave and freeman exists by law only, and interference with nature being unjust.
* Part IV: Property is a part of the HH, and the art of acquiring it is part of the management of the HH, since no man can live unless provided with necessary instruments. A possession is an instrument for maintaining life, so in the family a slave is a living possession, and property a number of such instruments/possessions. The nature and office of a slave: he who is by nature not his own but another's man; he is a possession, a part of another man's property, and separable from the possessor (who is not wholly defined by being a master, in contrast to a slave who is wholly defined by his being a slave to the master).
* Part VIII: First Q: is the art of getting wealth the same as the art of managing a HH, or a part of it, or instrumental to it. Clearly, they are not identical arts, since the one uses the material which the other provides. So, is the art of getting wealth part of the art of HH management or a distinct one? There are many sorts of wealth/property, e.g. that from hunting, agriculture, fishing, etc. There is one kind of acquisition which by nature is part of the management of a HH, insofar as these things are necessary to life, and useful for the community of the family or state, as can be stored. This amount of property needed for a good life is not unlimited. The instruments of any art are never unlimited, and wealth may be defined as a number of instruments to be used in a HH or state. Hence, we see that there is a natural art of acquisition practiced by managers of HHs and by statesmen.
* Part IX: There is another variety of accumulation rightly called an art of wealth-getting, which suggests that riches have no limit. These two variaties are similar but not the same. The former is given by nature, while the latter is gained by experience. He posits that all possessions have two uses, a primary and proper one and a secondary and improper one. E.g. for a shoe, its exchange for money/food is not its primary purpose. Hence, retail trade is not a part of the natural art of getting wealth, otherwise people would have ceased to exchange when they have enough. [the logic of this line escapes me] Not all barter is contrary to nature, insofar as it serve to satisfy basic necessities. When coin was introduced, men learned which exchange resulted in profits. Many associate the riches to be only a quantity of coin. There is no limit to such riches, but there is in the art of wealth-getting which consists in household management. These two kinds of wealth getting have the same instrument, but the use is different. In the one case accumulation is the end, where in the other there is a further end. [some confusing part on why people want money above the useful extent]. 
* Part X: [i don't understand the first paragraph]. Usury is the worst form of wealth accumulation as money was intended for exchange, not to increase at interest—this is the most unnatural of all modes of getting wealth [again, the 'end' as natural].
* Part XI: Done with theory of wealth-getting, proceed to the practical part. Useful parts of wealth accumulation: (1) livestock, (2) husbandry. Of the exchange type of wealth accumulation, there are: (1) commerce, (2) usury, and (3) service for hire. [not sure what the point of this line is]. Laments for two paragraphs about how creating monopolies is an easy way to make money (the bad unnatural type of wealth accumulation). 
* Book 2 - Part V: should there be private property right? Three possibilities: (1) private land but common stock produce, (2) common stock land and common cultivation but produce divided among people, and (3) land and produce common stock.What about private land and property rights over the produce? He notes conflict is inherent to human relations, but that inequality relative to effort leads to more conflict. Property should be as a general rule private, as when everyone has a distinct interest, people will not complain of one another, and they will make more progress because every one attends their own business. Also notes that people are inclined to share with their friends, and that there is pleasure in kindness. "It is clearly better that property should be private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition. 
*
===== Notes: =====
* Book I: whether wealth accumulation is 'natural' builds upon the notion that there is some threshold of 'enough'. This is easy to think about as either a survival amount of things, or a higher level that provides for basic niceties—but not necessities—such as shelter, varied diet food, never being hungry, etc.
* Book I: the notion seems to be built upon the idea of the 'nature' ("the basic or inherent features, character, or qualities of something") of a thing being its 'end' ("a goal or desired result"). For the example of a shoe, 'end' derives from the intention for which it is made. How does this work for things that aren't made with an intention, or things that aren't made by humans? E.g. wild animals, fruits, plants, etc, seemingly are not made with an intent. Then, what is the end of such things? If natural things don't have an intention and thereby no end, natural things do not have an end. Only things made with an intention. That would lead to the conclusion that natural things don't have a nature, only (man)made things. Then, only things we make can go against their nature, which happens when they are used for unintended uses. But, if I use a couch to lie on and a bed to sit on, is that really bad? Natural things not having a nature feel as a possible contradiction to the imagined concept of the nature of a thing. 
==== Nicomachean Ethics ====
Book V - Part 5: the Pythagoreans defined justice without qualification as reciprocity. While this is subject to critique, in associations for exchange, this sort of justice does hold men together. Exchange must be proportionate, otherwise it will not happen. E.g. a housebuilder and a shoe maker will not trade one to one, the bargain must be equated. For all things exchanged to be somehow comparable, money has been introduced, it becomes an intermediate and a measure for all things.Previously, he mentioned one use of money: means of exchange. Here, he mentions a second: unit of account. He continues to mention the third: store of value. "for future exchange—that if we do not need a thing now we shall have it if ever we do need it—money is as it were our surety".
 In truth, the unit is demand, which holds all things together (for if men did not need another's goods at all, or did not need them equally, there would be either no exchange or not the same exchange); but money has become by convention a sort of representative of demand; and this is why it has the name 'money (nomisma)—because it exists not by nature but by law (nomos). Combined this is why all goods must have a price set on them; for then there will always be exchange. It makes no difference whether five beds are exchanged for a house, or the money value of five beds.
== Footnotes ==