First of all I want to state that in this article I wanted to present you with the historical development of the concept of “property” within a historical perspective instead of commenting to your valuable opinions. I feel that mentioning Ancient Greece, which constitutes an important part of the history of civilization, and the “concept of “property” which was introduced there, is important. Ancient Greece, which is accepted as the source of western civilization, has left many masterpieces to our age, be it in philosophy, mythology and politics. But an interesting point is that very limited opinions about economy have made their way to our age from Greek civilization. In addition, several though found their place in such branches as law, justice or politics. I think that when evaluating the concept of private property in ancient Greek history, we should mention two important thinkers. They are Plato and Aristotle. It is a reality that both thinkers left us very striking information about several disciplines. In particular the ideal state model of Plato and the Man and Society emphasised by Aristotle in his work “Politics” are the most important of them. Before examining the concept of private property for these thinkers, let us see what the “ideal state” concept is about for Plato, to start with. The point Plato emphasised and strongly dealt with was the way ideal state should be. According to Plato, the emergence of state can be explained by the fact that individuals living in the then city-states (polices) were not self-sufficient. If we explain it in Plato’s own words: “I think that state emerges from the needs of man. As we have many of them, many people are needed to meet those needs. One person finds a helper for one need and another finds another helper for another need. When all these partners and helpers come together the society called “state” emerges and every one exchanges something with another: one gives and the other takes, as each individual believes that change will be good for himself (Republic, Plato). Plato’s ideal state model is completed in three stages: the first stage is related to the meeting of basic needs of individuals. However, this opinion was criticized by many critics as the society would resemble a “society of pigs”, and Plato adds luxury goods and expenditures to his model and makes his though more complex; he adds their trade, exchange and other related activities. However, as the resources of the society are limited, this will not reach its goal either. In order to achieve this the city-state will try to fight with its neighbours and capture their wealth. Plato said: “all wars are fought for wealth.” (Phaedo Dialogue). In addition, he stated these opinions on war for not only a single police but also with the policy of making other city-states apply. And from here we reach the second stage of ideal state model. At this stage a military force which will conduct attacks is needed. Thus, a separate class other than the producer class is created, namely the “professional soldiers”. After this formation the third and last stage follows. According to Plato, the distinction between producer class and professional soldiers also calls for a distinction between governors and the governed. Here governors are professional soldiers and philosophers. The philosophers will occupy the highest ranks of the hierarchy. Adding the philosophers into the picture, Plato concludes his line of thought with this triple class concept. According to Plato, these three classes also show the three different and separate aspects of human mind; the producing, the fighting and the thinking aspects. Plato will reach the smooth justice concept from this distinction between three classes. In this ideal state system, justice will be realised without any problems by means of orderly and harmonious organization of the society. Plato also mentioned the concept of property in detail in this system in addition to the concept of state, as the way of ownership and distribution of property plays a critical role in the justice that is to be applied. Plato’s concept of property has a societal content. To be clearer, he claims that giving wealth, prosperity and resources to this or that person is not even close to the concept of justice. Individual cannot have any private right on the wealth which is created by the society. Plato was always cool towards the issues of money and trade so that the spirits and internal existences of individuals (governors) would not be contaminated and distorted in abstract terms. He also wanted to introduce the principle that the governed would be forced to live a life that is identical to the governors. But Plato did not display any opinion about the economic activity of the lower classes (the governed). His more important opinions are about the economic activities of higher classes. Plato argues that all kinds of private property would be abolished for the higher classes. Further, this requires not only the shared possession of goods, but also women and children. He thought that with this method the higher class would reach an entrenched unity and form a huge family. He also contends that inequality between men and women will also be eliminated by this manner. This is to say that when nucleus family vanishes, it will be possible to give to women the same education given to men, and jobs divided within societal structure will include women workers into the system. To sum up, Plato integrated city-state with the lives of individuals and stated that what is good and fine for one would be good and fine for the other, too. For Plato, state and individual are different images of the same thing, and both are for the realization and creation of the good and beautiful.
Another important thinker of the ancient Greek age is Aristotle. His opinions about economy are somewhat more comprehensive and their content is richer compared to his tutor, Plato. First of all, Aristotle is the first thinker who brought “analytical” opinion to economic thinking system and is accepted as an analytical economist. He voiced out the sentence that verifies this line of thinking as follows in his book titled “Politics”: “as in other branches of science, a phenomenon can be fragmented into simple elements that constructs it in political science”. If we remember that Aristotle handles economic issues within political problems, we can comprehend this expression in the same manner within economic analysis. As in other social branches, he preferred to take as basis determining the casualty relations in economic branch. When we examine the economic philosophy of Aristotle, we can summarise his leading opinions as follows:
He rejected to approach with a pragmatic view to the concept of happiness. Human happiness is in his mental activity.
Unlike sophists, he did not adopt the idea of societal contract.
In contrast to Plato, he strongly defends family and private property.
He does not totally reject the institution of slavery, and states that there is a natural inequality among people which comes from birth. Some obey and some dominate.
He did not interest himself in distribution of wealth.
As mentioned at the beginning of this article, it will be useful to discuss Aristotle’s ideas about men and society first before we discuss his ideas about private property; we also should state that we have to look Plato’s ideal state through the eyes of Aristotle. In order to understand why Aristotle accepted private property, we have to comprehend the principles of his philosophy and ideas of men and society. First of all, Aristotle rejects the distinctions emphasised between body and soul. Thus, he also rejects the distinction between soul and body, which was claimed to exist by Greek thinkers before Plato, like Pythagoras, and that soul is an immortal element that is found in every living thing. Secondly, he rejected Herakleitos’ (a previous thinker) idea that the core of universe is “change” (dialectic) based on the opinion that science cannot be based on dialectic. According to him, science is based on our power of defining the existing things around us, and is developed through induction. The core of things do not change, they remain the same until forever. There is no such thing as “movement” in core. Thirdly, according to Aristotle, the distinction between men and other beings is explained by reason which exists in men. Men is both a societal and political animal. Departing from this point, Aristotle says that the science of men has to be examined in three separate branches: as an individual, as a family and as a site. Ethics is the science of individual science; home economy is the science of family; and politics is the science of site. A second interpretation of Aristotle emerges when he explains in his opinion the ideal state concept developed by Plato. His understanding of state resembles Plato’s philosophy of state from many aspects. Citizens are divided into two, as governors and the governed. Limited commercial activity was allowed in ideal state. He did not reject slavery and accepted it as an institution of ideal state. The reason is that some people are created as slaves from birth. He presented only one difference about slavery, which is the suggestion that, different from its traditional definition, slavery should be applied to non-Greeks. Under the light of this information, we can know look at Aristotle’s ideas about private property. Aristotle distinguishes private property from societal property and explains his defence and necessity of private property as follows:
Private property is more productive compared to societal property and ensures growth, progress and development.
The more intense private property is, the more probable warfare is, as everyone usually claims that he works more but is given less.
Private property gives its owner pleasure.
History of humanity proves that private property is usually accepted.
Societal property includes force, but in private property people are benevolent and generous.
As can be understood from these items, in contrast to Plato, Aristotle defended private property. He stated that the concept of societal property is not true and disagrees with Plato in certain aspects. For example, the principle that governors will not have any personal property. Aristotle begins his critics of Plato, his mentor, by objecting his idea of the absolute unity of the state, as this idea is wrong in three respects: diversity (not a state having a number of citizens, but consisting of people with diverse ideas and skills), reciprocity (individuals trading for goods and services with equal values between themselves), and self-sufficiency (a state being sufficient for itself and being able to make sure that they live their wishes and desires in welfare and prosperity). For Aristotle, these three principles have to operate simultaneously and in harmony. But Plato’s concept of absolute unity of state is totally against the principle of self-sufficiency. Departing from this point, Aristotle explains that desiring an idea of unity is not true and examines the principle of shared property for governors that Plato deems necessary for ensuring this unity. As a result, he takes on to compare private property and collective/shared property, and claims that private property is superior based on the five judgements listed above. These five judgements are progress, peace, pleasure, experience and benevolence. Thus, Aristotle defends in items that private property is necessity and useful and that this should not be limited. According to him, limitations should be imposed on population with respect to private property. The lack of such limitations is the real reason for poverty. In addition, the only inequality that causes societal unrest is not economic inequality. The inequality between positions and prestige is also important. Finally, Aristotle claims that the important thing is the purpose for which property in ethical terms, not the self or size of property. He states that needs of men are limited but wishes of men are unlimited. After giving this information I have come to the end of my article. As I stated at the beginning of the article, our sources related to the ideas of ancient Greeks about economics are limited. In addition, we can find many ideas related to economy in such areas as politics, justice and law. However, despite everything, we have to contend that most of the basic concepts of mainstream economics today can be found in the narrations of these thinkers.
Resources:
1)History of Economics, Prof. Dr. Vural Fuat Savaş
2)History of Philosophy, Ahmet Cevizci
3)Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, Ahmet Cevizci
4)Dictionary of Economics, Erhan Arda
5)Politics, Aristotle
6)State, Plato
7)http://www.demokratikgençlikhareketi.org
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