ABSTRACT
Aristotle's critique of political economy is founded on and develops out of his theory of community, and that theory is based in turn on his metaphysics of human nature. Aristotle means that a community is sustained by the circumstance that citizens who differ in eidos produce essentially different erga, needed by their fellow citizens, who produce essentially different other erga. Aristotle specifies that the persons themselves appear in the proportions in his account of them, and in his use of the masculine gender to refer to the persons, in distinction from the neuter gender to refer to their erga. Aristotle elaborates the Socratic proposal that people differ in nature, by showing how its elements are interdependent. Aristotle argues that people that make up a community must differ in kind, for if they did not, they would not have anything to offer each other, for they would possess the same skills.
