Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/685

 POLITICAL ECONOMY 6G5 social employments, but solely with a view to point out man's social character, and the ne- cessity he was in, from his multifarious wants, of uniting in extensive societies, in which each individual might be exclusively occupied with one species of production. It is an entirely political view, from which no other conse- quence can be drawn." Xenophon contributed two brief essays to early political economy, one "On the Revenues of Athens," the other " The Economist." The political economy of Xenophon, as Blanqui holds, "rests on no other foundation than that of Plato. When- ever he undertakes to analyze the opera- tions of labor, to trace revenue to its source, to determine the utility of things, the clear- ness of this writer is admirable ; but as soon as he touches the question of the distribution of profits, the Greek prejudices reassume their sway, and the author falls back into the politics of Plato and Aristotle, faithful interpreters of the contemporary oligarchy." Carey says : " Xenophon urged upon his Athenian country- men that, in default of the domestic market for food that would have resulted from the prop- er development of the mineral treasures with which their soil abounded, agriculture had be- come impossible ; many having been forced to abandon it, becoming usurers or brokers ;" and he adds: "This is probably the earliest ex- hibit on record of the dependence of agricul- ture on the mining and manufacturing indus- tries." Aristotle, however, in a greater degree than any other of the ancients, contributed to the foundation of political economy. His three treatises " Ethics," which treats of the regu- lation of the individual man ; " Politics," of the relation of man toward others in a social capacity, both private and public, the family and the state ; and " Economics," of the rela- tion of man toward property constitute in a measure a connected work, each being depen- dent on and interwoven with the others. The expression political economy was first used by Aristotle, and is to be found in the "Econom- ics," book ii. chap. i. He lays down the dog- ma that the bounty of nature is the only true source of wealth, and he holds in great abhor- rence trading and usury, which latter, he says, "is most reasonably detested, as the increase of our fortune arises from the money itself, and not by employing it to the purpose for which it was intended." In his "Rhetoric" he lays down the most important principles of political policy as follows : finance, peace and war, the safeguard of the country, importa- tion and exportation, and legislation. But lit- tle attention was paid to economic studies for many centuries after the time of Aristotle. Agriculture was looked upon with much more favor than any other employment involving labor, but even farm labor was performed al- most entirely by slaves belonging to and em- ployed by the landlords. The light in which trade was regarded by the Romans may be gathered from Cicero, who in his De Officiis says: "The gains of merchants, as well as of all who live by labor and not skill, are mean and illiberal. The very merchandise is a badge of their slavery." " All artisans are engaged in a degrading profession," and " there can be nothing ingenuous in a workshop." Sla- very was the very foundation of the industrial system of both Greeks and Romans, as war was of the national policy. The great Ro- man roads were built with a view to their mili- tary advantages, and not to trade and indus- try. Agriculture was the principal industrial occupation of the Romans, who were alike in- disposed to diversified industries and foreign trade. Blanqui says : "All the Roman legisla- tion, from the glorious days of the republic to the fall of the empire, is but the faithful repro- duction of the unconquerable prejudices of this people against labor and industry." Augus- tus pronounced the penalty of death against the senator Ovinius for having degraded him- self by conducting a nianufactory. The Jus- tinian code (A. D. 528-535) takes cognizance not merely of the laws but of the arts, the industries, and agriculture, and has been pro- nounced " the first indication of a systematic political economy." The "Capitularies" of Charlemagne, promulgated in 801, have an economic interest from the fact that they take account as well of the employment and con- dition of the people as of the revenues of the state and the mode of assessing and collecting these latter. Yet the sovereign and the state were subjects of far more solicitude than the condition of the people. Hence for this among other causes Charlemagne failed to found an enduring empire. During the earlier parts of the middle ages no advance was made either in commercial adventure or in letters ; but " the fortunate enterprises of the Portuguese and Spaniards during the 15th century, the active industry of Venice, Genoa, Florence, Pisa, the provinces of Flanders, and the free cities of Germany, about the same period, gradually directed the attention of some phi- losophers to the theory of wealth." These investigations originated in Italy. "As far back as the 16th century," adds Say, "Bote- ro had been engaged in investigating the real sources of public prosperity." The real and substantial foundation of systematic political economy may be said to have been laid about the close of the 16th century. Botero's " Cause of the Greatness of Cities" (London, 1635), translated from a work of his published in Venice, 1598, is one of the earliest modern treatises on an economic subject. McCulloch says it " is principally worthy of notice from its showing that the author was fully master of all that is really true in the theory of Mal- thus." The earliest general treatise of mod- ern times, and the first bearing the title of political economy, is the Traite de Veconomie volitique, by Antoine de Montchrestien (4to, Rouen, 1613). This work treats of the util- ity of mechanic arts and the regulation of