Answer to Question #167520 in Economics for Saabiriin

Question

What were Aristotle’s views on the appropriateness of economic activity?

Answer 1

Aristotle believed that political strife and social upheaval were due to inequality of property. He rejected Plato's utopia of the "ideal state", and developed the theory of a "better state", which was to be based on the rule of the middle class slave-owning class. But this "best state" is by its nature slaveholding, since slavery remained there and power in it belonged to the slave owners.

Aristotle's economic views expressed the interests of the slave-owning class. He strove to justify and consolidate the slave system and the slave state. In his work Politics, Aristotle created the theory of slavery. According to this theory, the division of society into slaves and free people is declared a law of nature. Slavery is recognized as a natural phenomenon. Based on this, he establishes the distinction between physical and mental labor and believes that the slave is from birth intended to perform physical work, and the management of the state is the business of free people. “Nature arranged it in such a way that the physical organization of free people is different from the physical organization of slaves: the latter have a powerful body, suitable for performing the necessary physical labor, while free people keep upright and are incapable of performing this kind of work; but they are suitable for political life ”. He did not consider slaves to be citizens, but equated them with instruments of production.