ABSTRACT
Not until the eighteenth century did speculation about economic phenomena begin to emerge as economic analysis rather than as economic thought. The reasons why economics did not exist as a separate subject in this pre-analytic stage offer a useful departure point for studying the historical development of economic analysis. There is much to be learned about the history of economics by examining the reasons why the focus of intellectual inquiry was on politics, ethics, philosophy, and theology, but not on economics qua economics. Yet the ancients left a legacy of masterworks, two of which will be examined in this chapter. Aristotle, in his book Politics, posed the question of whether there is a difference between the art of acquisition, which is a necessary part of the management of the household, and the wealth-getting activities of commerce. The answer he gave distinguished between two sorts of wealth-getting activities in which households may engage; that which is “necessary and honorable” and that which is “unnatural.” Aristotle’s observational experience led him to value private ownership of property as most conducive to the preservation and the improvement of its productive powers.
