The Ancient Greek Economy. Markets, Households and City-States

ARISTOTLE AND FOREIGN TRADE 49

of it, it does not have the consent of the ruler of the sea? And yet it is

from these very materials that I get my ships, taking timber from one

place, iron from another. Furthermore they will prevent any of our

rivals from transporting these materials as a cargo to any other place,

with the threat that, otherwise, they will be stopped from using the sea

at all? Thus, despite producing nothing from my land, I possess all these

materials because of the sea. Yet no other city has two of these things.

Timber and flax are not found in the same city; rather, where there is

an abundance of flax, the land is flat and timberless. Copper and iron do

not come from the same city either, nor is there any other combination

of two or three of the materials to be found in any one city, but, rather,

there is just one in this place, another in that.^37

The tone is different from that of Aristotle. The examples are more numerous

and more specific (Aristotle does not go beyond trophe). Above all, it is not

a question of surplus (cf. πλεονάζω, Pol. 7.6.4), but rather of ‘wealth’ (use of

πλουτέω) derived from such and such a commodity. The highly original and

perceptive character of the Old Oligarch’s work is evident in its analysis of

economics as well as in that of politics. In Aristotle, foreign trade is viewed, as

with all other aspects of the city, from the perspective of a vision of how life

ought to be. Here we have a vision freed from the ideological baggage of a

normative approach, one that is therefore much closer to reality, to the actual

interplay of interests set in motion by foreign trade regardless of the ideology

(naturally quite varied) of those involved in this activity.

But it is perhaps in a place where we would least expect it, in the writings

of Plato, that one actually finds the most original point of view. In the Republic,

Socrates sets himself the task of examining the city. He explains its origins,

based on an association of partners, who are linked together by the fact that

each one needs (χρεία) the others. The division of labor within the city allows

everyone to save time while at the same time ensuring the manufacture of

goods of the highest quality.^38 At this point another problem arises – the ques-

tion of foreign trade:

‘And there is another thing,’ I said. ‘It would be almost impossible to build

the state itself in the sort of place where there is no call for imported

goods.’

‘Yes, impossible.’

‘Then we shall need yet other things that we lack which will be brought

in from another state.’

‘We shall.’

‘And there again if the supplier arrives empty handed without bringing

any of the things which are needed by those people who are supplying

what his people need, he will go away empty handed, won’t he?’

‘I should think so.’