Aristotle's political economy and the rhetoric of political agrarianism: Ennobling the principle of self-sufficiency

ABSTRACT ARISTOTLE’S POLITICAL ECONOMY AND THE RHETORIC OF POLITICAL AGRARIANISM: ENNOBLING THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-SUFFICIENCY Nathan Dinneen, Ph.D. Department of Political Science Northern Illinois University, 2010 Larry Arnhart, Director The aim of my project is to demonstrate that the principle of self-sufficiency is foundational to the understanding of both Aristotle’s political economy and political agrarianism, and thus they ought be seen as compatible in their outlook on economic activity. I begin with an interpretation of Aristotle’s political economy and argue that the principle of self-sufficiency is central to any adequate interpretation of it. In addition, I discuss how in the secondary literature a quarrel between agrarian republics and commercial ones has surfaced in regard to the understanding of his political economy. I claim that Aristotle is neither an agrarian nor does he favor commerce over the agrarian way of life, but rather he is better perceived as a moderate friend of political agrarianism, as he seems to prefer agrarianism over the merchant’s commercial way of life. Given that the common opinion of the virtuous, self-sufficient farmer originated in ancient Greece, I also demonstrate the genesis and basis of this opinion in the work of Hesiod, Aristophanes, and Xenophon. In the second part of my dissertation, I focus on how the English and American agrarian social critics of the twentieth century have invoked the principle of self-sufficiency in response to industrial capitalism and the global economy. My intent is to show how this principle shapes their outlook regarding economic activity and is foundational to their way of life. My task is not to argue that agrarianism is better than commercialism, but rather I simply want to demonstrate how and when the principle of self-sufficiency is invoked among agrarians, as this principle makes their political economy compatible with Aristotle’s. And it is principally among the Catholic English Distributists (G. K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, and Father Vincent McNabb) and the American agrarians (Wendell Berry and Victor Davis Hanson) that the principle of self-sufficiency is invoked regarding political and economic matters.    

NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY DE KALB, ILLINOIS MAY 2010

ARISTOTLE’S POLITICAL ECONOMY AND THE RHETORIC OF POLITICAL AGRARIANISM: ENNOBLING THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-SUFFICIENCY

BY NATHAN MICHAEL DINNEEN

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

Doctoral Director: Larry Arnhart

UMI Number: 3404831

All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.

UMI 3404831 Copyright 2010 by ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This edition of the work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………

1

PART I: THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-SUFFICIENCY AND AGRARIAN CHARACTER IN ANCIENT GREECE……………………………………….

12

Chapter I. ARISTOTLE’S POLITICAL ECONOMY AND THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-SUFFICIENCY………………………….

12

Introduction……………………………………………………..

12

The Levels of Aristotle’s Principle of Self-Sufficiency………...

14

Polanyi and Finley on Aristotle’s Economic Thought………….

21

Booth and Shulsky on Aristotle’s Political Economy…………..

32

Conclusion………………………………………………………

53

II. THE QUARREL BETWEEN REPUBLICS AGRARIAN AND COMMERICAL IN ARISTOTLE’S POLITICAL ECONOMY………………………………………………

55

Introduction……………………………………………………..

55

Aristotle’ s Moderate Friendship with Political Agrarianism………………………………………

56

Critique of Chan’s “Two Cheers for Commerce” in Aristotle’s Political Economy………………………………...

75

Conclusion……………………………………………………

88

III. AGRARIAN CHARACTER IN HESIOD, ARISTOPHANES, AND XENOPHON…………………..

90

Introduction…………………………………………………..

90

Hesiod: Justice and Moderation in the Agrarian Character…………………………………….

93

Aristophanes: Peace and “Back to the Farm”………………..

105

Xenophon: The Agrarian Education of the Gentleman-Farmer…………………………………….

123

Conclusion……………………………………………………

135

PART II: THE POLITICAL JUDGMENT OF AGRARIAN SOCIAL CRITICS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA……………………………………………

137

Chapter IV. AQUINAS, POPE LEO XIII, AND THE DISTRIBUTISTS: DEFENDING THE SMAL PROPRIETOR………………………….

139

Introduction………………………………………………… ..

139

The Legacy of Aristotle’s Political Economy in Aquinas……

144

Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum: Not Merely a Defense of Private Property…………………

152

The English Distributists: Defending the Small Proprietor………………………………

166

Conclusion……………………………………………………

185

V. WENDELL BERRY AND VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: THE HOPE AND DESPAIR OF AGRARIAN SELF-SUFFICIENCY IN AMERICA ………………………………………………………..

187

Introduction…………………………………………………...

187

Agrarians—or the Other Americans— and the Early American Dream...……………………………..

189

iii  

iv  

Agrarian Social Criticism and Latter-Day America………......

204

Conclusion…………………………………………………….

220

EPILOGUE: REFLECTIONS ON “OUR AGRARIAN TRADITION” AND THOUGHTS ON ITS RENEWAL…………………………………….

221

BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………….

226

 

We have physicists, geometers, chemists, astronomers, poets, musicians, painters, we no longer have citizens; or if a few of them are left, dispersed in our abandoned countryside, they perish there indigent and despised. Such is the condition to which those who give us bread and who give milk to our children are reduced, and such are the sentiments we have for them. – Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Sciences and Arts (The First Discourse), being his response to the Academy of Dijon’s question raised in 1750, “Has the restoration of the sciences and arts tended to purify morals?”

INTRODUCTION From time to time, the heirs of Western civilization come to reflect upon the growth of commerce, the arts and the sciences, wondering what has been lost in the wake of such progress. Time and time again, be it in ancient Greece, England or America, we find that, although the growth of commerce has certainly made its admirable contributions to the legacy of the West, often the livelihood of the small family farmer has been spent, leaving him with the choice of either taking his life, and perhaps his family’s, whose story Bob Dylan so harrowingly told in the “Ballad of Hollis Brown,” or trading in his farm in search of a livelihood in town. And if music is considered to be testimony of things political and moral, as Plato and Aristotle thought it was, it should not go unnoticed that country music overall is more in tune than any other popular music genre with “putting first things first”—family, community, country, and God—not to mention inspiring a healthy criticism of this “here today, gone tomorrow world we’re livin’ in”, as one popular country music song describes our modern world. Country music seems then to continue, even if imperfectly, the moral teaching of the pastoral poetry of the past. However that may be, those who study human affairs ought to know that the loss of the small family farm is a loss of economic diversity, where the “equalizing” opportunities of suburban and urban areas usually entail being either the all-tooattainable employee or the much coveted but rare employer at the top. Certainly there

are some opportunities for self-employment, but often these usually make one rather

2  

dependent upon others for the marketing of a product, which can at times foster bitterness and blinkered utilitarianism toward one’s fellow human beings. The small family farmer, however, is the epitome of what it means to be self-employed—what it means to be self-sufficient. The agrarian way of life has traditionally supported the family first and then supported the local community. This arrangement tended to be not only beneficial for the family, but it nourished friendship and neighborliness among people of all walks of life. Or so I am told, as I have no experience myself of such a setting. I think, however, this can be glimpsed today, be it in an ever so diminutive state, among small pockets here and there where neighbors can be seen outside gardening and sharing their surplus bounty with one another. It is not saying too much to claim that some people long for self-sufficiency. That those people have often been small family farmers seems to be no coincidence, but rather the agrarian way of life cultivates the potential of the natural desire for selfsufficiency. Over twenty years ago, James Montmarquet, a professor of philosophy at Tennessee State University, published his Idea of Agrarianism: From Hunter-Gatherer to Agrarian Radical in Western Culture,1 which is often cited in the agrarian literature of today. It was an encyclopedic attempt to draw distinctions within agrarianism, ranging from aristocratic and democratic agrarianism to romantic agrarianism. I owe a debt of gratitude to this book, as it allowed me to focus on certain thinkers within the agrarian tradition without having the colossal task of demonstrating the various instances of this tradition throughout history. And while the book was relatively                                                                                                                 1

James A. Montmarquet, The Idea of Agrarianism: From Hunter-Gatherer to Agrarian Radical in Western Culture (Moscow: University of Idaho Press, 1989).

successful in charting the variety within agrarianism, and there is certainly a good deal

3  

of variety, I think its one weak spot was that it did not emphasize what was foundational to agrarianism in general. When one reads agrarian literature, and there has been a healthy share of new books on agrarianism in the last decade, the implicit and at times explicit idea that is fostered is the principle of self-sufficiency. My project can thus be seen as foregrounding the principle of self-sufficiency, claiming that it is what unites the various shades of agrarianism. Without a desire for it, I wager to say, agrarianism falls into ruin. The principle of self-sufficiency is not only noticeable in agrarian literature but seems to be the political principle motivating the local foods movement of today, which is supportive of small family farms. What will come of this movement I cannot say. But, in one case, the desire for local food self-sufficiency has inspired the General Assembly of the state of Illinois to pass the Illinois Food, Farms, and Jobs Act of 2007, which appointed the Illinois Local and Organic Food and Farm Task Force. In March 2009, the task force produced the report Local Food, Farms and Jobs: Growing the Illinois Economy, which “encourages Illinois’ rural, urban, and suburban communities to cooperate statewide to develop local farm production, infrastructure, customer access, and public education.”2 Based upon statistics from the United States Department of Agriculture, the 12.8 million consumers of Illinois “spend $48 billion a year on fresh, prepared, and processed food from supermarkets, restaurants, and other sources. Yet, very few of our food dollars are spent on products grown, processed, and                                                                                                                

2

The Illinois Local and Organic Food and Farm Task Force, Local Food, Farms, and Jobs: Growing the Illinois Economy, A Report to the Illinois General Assembly, 3. Found at http://www.foodfarmsjobs.org/. Accessed on February 5, 2010.

distributed in-state. The vast majority of the food we eat comes from outside of

4  

Illinois. To pay for our daily sustenance, we export tens of billions of dollars of Illinois wealth each year to places like California, Mexico, and China…. Most of our fruit and vegetables travel an average of 1,500 miles. The cost of shipping produce from California or China accounts for 10-20 percent of the price consumers pay.”3 Illinois grows only 4 percent of the food it consumes, despite the fact that 80 percent of Illinois is farmland (28 million acres), and social scientists have accorded 90 percent of it to be worthy of the highest level of classification, that is, “prime farmland”.4 The report confronts a number of obstacles with plausible solutions, but the number one obstacle is that there are “not enough farmers,” which is unfortunate as there is a growing consumer base that wants to purchase local food.5 For instance, as a result of the local foods movement, the number of farmers’ markets in Illinois grew from 97 in 1999 to 270 in 2008. Likewise, the number of Illinoisan CSAs (communitysupported agriculture, which places consumers into direct association with the farmers) grew from 14 in 2000 to 68 in 2008. All of this proves, according to the report, “[t]he nationwide clamor for local food is exposing an infrastructure bottleneck that discourages farmers from trying to meet nearby demand. The private sector’s evident failure to satisfy the marketplace is also raising questions about a global farming-andfood system constructed under the assumption that people have no reason to care where their food comes from. Today, numerous states are devising strategies to build food-

                                                                                                               

3

Ibid., 6. Ibid., 7,11. 5 Ibid., 19. 4

and-farm economies. This isn’t a move against interstate commerce, but one in support of a home-grown industry.”6 The bitter irony of the present food system in Illinois is that the lack of locally grown food has created “food deserts,” where people in the city and, surprisingly, rural areas do not have ready access to “affordable, healthy food” and have come to depend upon “food products from gas stations, convenient stores, liquor stores, and fast food outlets where foods tend to contain high concentrations of salt, fat, and sugar. Studies show that food deserts residents suffer greater rates of diet-related health maladies, including diabetes, cancer, obesity, heart disease, and premature death than residents with regular access to unprocessed foods.”7 The only sensible explanation for “food deserts” in rural areas “surrounded by bountiful farm fields” is that those fields no longer support a diversified food economy but focus on low-cost commodity goods, namely, corn, soybeans, and hogs.8 The loss of a diversified economy is the failure to attain, first, the agrarian ideal of subsistence, or food self-sufficiency and also the failure to provide for the local community. One way to mend this problem is by “increasing the “number of families in the State that live on small properties and by providing fresh high-value local food.”9 Some urban areas are turning vacant lots into gardens: “Driving this back-to-the-land movement is the motivation for self-sufficiency and the idea that individuals need to know their food as well as to have some sense of control over its safety and security.”10 Building Illinois’ “food, farms, and job                                                                                                                

6

Ibid., 7. Ibid., 27. 8 Ibid., 11. 9 Illinois Food, Farms, and Jobs Act of 2007. Found at http://www.foodfarmsjobs.org/. Accessed on February 5, 2010. 10 Task Force, Local Food, Farms, and Jobs: Growing the Illinois Economy, 15. Italics added. 7

5  

economy” would put people back in control of their food choices “while supporting

6  

economic development and more self-sufficient communities.”11 In 2009, Governor Patrick Quinn signed the Local Foods, Farms, and Jobs Act, which will seek to grow local food on Illinois soil, accounting upwards to around 30 billion dollars worth of local food a year. To work toward this goal the Local Foods, Farms, and Jobs Act established the Local Food Council, which will continue the work started by the task force.12 This trend toward local foods is also mirrored in the 2008 Federal Farm Bill, and in September of 2009, the USDA also established the “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” website to help facilitate support for local farmers.13 In this brief account of what is occurring today in the political landscape, we see that the “motivation for self-sufficiency” is slowly gaining momentum. I do not think that it is any coincidence that this motive is associated with the local foods “back-tothe-land” movement. When people learn that they can grow their own food, a healthy sense of self-reliance is naturally cultivated. The “motivation for self-sufficiency” seems to simply grow of its own accord the moment one puts spade to earth. Or in other words, the principle of self-sufficiency is quite possibly the least abstract principle in being the one that comes to mind in working the land, which is testimony to it being highlighted by some of the most commonsensical philosophers and social critics throughout human history. The alternative to a self-sufficient local economy would be a global economy that forces certain regions into specializing in one or a few crops                                                                                                                

11

Ibid., 28. Italics added. The Illinois Local and Organic Food and Farm Task Force, Press Release, August 18, 2009. Found at http://www.foodfarmsjobs.org/. Accessed on February 5, 2010. 13 USDA, Press Release, September 24, 2009. Found at http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/knowyourfarmer?navid=KNOWYOURFARMER. Accessed on February 5, 2010. 12

while importing all of the other food items needed for sustenance. It is easy to see how

7  

the global economy works against “self-sufficient communities”. Given that the demise of these communities began a little over sixty years ago, what we might be witnessing with the local foods movement is a backlash against the global economy. That this reactionary movement is being affirmed into law shows that we have moved beyond the streets of Seattle. What will occur in another decade? It is hard to tell, but change in support of small farmers seems to be occurring, which makes studying agricultural policy today quite interesting. I need to emphasize at the outset that in demonstrating how agrarians have invoked the principle of self-sufficiency in response to industrial capitalism and the global economy, I am not advocating the replacement of a commercial society with an agrarian regime. And while I am certainly sympathetic to many of the policies that agrarianism advocates, I do not consider myself to be hostile toward a commercial society. For what it is worth, my preference is for a healthy balance between the two, and it is my understanding that many agrarians would share this preference. Instead of advocating any position, my aim is to demonstrate that the principle of self-sufficiency is basic to the understanding of agrarianism. To meet this end, I must discuss how and when the principle is invoked. Naturally, then, I have to discuss how it perceives industrial capitalism and the global economy, but this focus should not be construed as a form of advocacy. I deem it to be a much larger task to say why agrarianism is better than commercialism, or vice versa, on such and such points. This would be a project that I am not presently in a position to adequately judge, for it would require me to broaden my scope beyond the principle of self-sufficiency and discuss other aspects of

agrarianism that I do not fully discuss here. Moreover, I would have to more fully

8  

examine the arguments of the defenders of commerce and treat them on their own terms, which is more appropriately the task of a separate monograph. Aside from agrarianism, there is another tradition that emphasizes the principle of self-sufficiency, and that dates back to the philosopher of common sense, Aristotle. In the first part of my project, I focus for the most part on Aristotle’s political economy, emphasizing the centrality of the principle of self-sufficiency (autarkeia) in understanding his economic thought. I, then, proceed to show that there is a quarrel between agrarianism and commercialism in his political economy, and suggest, although the evidence is by no means conclusive, that the preference for an agrarian republic over a commercial one is connected to his emphasis on the principle of selfsufficiency. I, moreover, argue that a feature of Aristotle’s political economy is concerned with how the occupations of a regime shape the character of the people. This feature is best presented in the Politics when Aristotle ranks the different kinds of democracy, claiming that the farmers are the best sort of people. While I try not to equate Aristotle’s political economy with political agrarianism, I do make the case that these two traditions are quite compatible. After arguing my point that Aristotle leans more toward an agrarian republic than a commercial one, which has recently been contested in the secondary literature, I delve into the nature of agrarian character in the work of Hesiod, Aristophanes, and Xenophon, demonstrating the genesis and basis for the common opinion of the virtuous, self-sufficient farmer. By focusing on these poets and a Socratic, we get a glimpse of how the agrarian was a standard of sorts by which others could be measured.

In the second part of my project, I demonstrate the compatibility of Aristotle’s

9  

political economy with some of the most prominent agrarian social critics of the last century. The aim of this section is to show how these agrarians ennobled the principle of self-sufficiency through their rhetoric and political judgment. I start with the influence that Aquinas and Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum had on the English Distributists (G. K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, Fr. Vincent McNabb). The Distributists, who were an unusual band of Catholic thinkers in defense of well-distributed private property, limited government, and small business, sought to turn the economic teaching of Aquinas and Pope Leo XIII into a movement. They were also some of the first critics of big business (including agribusiness) on behalf of the small proprietor, and they even inspired the British Catholic Land Movement, which played a role in the return of almost 20,000 people to the land.14 They were thus relatively successful in helping some of the Church’s parishioners establish self-sufficient, agrarian households, as these Catholic social thinkers believed that the honest living gained from working the land was essential to the flourishing of Christendom. In the last chapter, I turn my attention to what is closer to home, focusing on the American agrarianism of Wendell Berry and Victor Davis Hanson.15 In these two                                                                                                                 14

William Fahey, “Introduction,” in Father Vincent McNabb, The Church and the Land (Norfolk: IHS Press, 2003), 11. 15 My choice of Berry and Hanson over the Southern Agrarians is based upon the similarity that exists between the latter and the English Distibutists, not to mention much has been written on the Southern Agrarians. And thus to focus on the Southern Agrarians appeared to be too redundant, as it shares a similar critique of industrial capitalism that the English Distributists articulate. My turn to contemporary agrarians also manifests the way Berry and Hanson invoke the principle of self-sufficiency in response to the global economy, which has escalated since the 1970s. While Berry certainly is indebted to the Southern Agrarians, especially for the contrast between the agrarian standard versus the industrial one, I believe that his use of the principle of self-sufficiency against the global economy has been little discussed. For Berry’s indebtedness to the Southern Agrarians, see his “Still Standing” in Citizenship Papers (Washington: Shoemaker and Hoard, 2003), 153-163. For the relation between the English Distributists and the Southern Agrarians, as well as the possible influence of the former on the latter in

agrarian writers, both being small family farmers, I observe the hope as well as the

10  

despair that they have for the possibility of agrarian self-sufficiency. Perhaps the most useful thing that these agrarian social critics have offered to their reading public is an idea of how things used to be. They hold this standard up for us latter-day Americans, with the hope that we will at least come to understand what we have become from what our ancestors once were. Yet, Hanson finds no hope in the belief that the small family farm will make a return this century, while Berry has hope but is not optimistic. This attitude is probably shared by many of the small family farmers who are left. Those who still have hope are surely amazing, as in 1800, farmers were 85-90 percent of the population in the United States. In 1900, they were 50 percent of the population, and today they are less than “1” percent. But in a new collection of Berry’s agrarian works, Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food, Michael Pollan, who is one of the leading figures of the local foods movement, notes in his introduction the responsiveness of the new Secretary of Agriculture to local foods and small farmers as well as “for the first time in more than a century the number of farmers tallied in the Department of Agriculture’s census has gone up rather than down.”16 Things perhaps are looking up, but they will required a sustained effort on the part of all citizens, urban, suburban, and rural, not to take each other for granted. Perhaps, the greatest harvest that will come from a renewal of the small family farm is gratitude, which is the most

                                                                                                                the formation of a transatlantic Distributist-Agrarian Alliance, see John Sharpe’s superb “Introduction” in Beyond Capitalism and Socialism: A New Statement of an Old Ideal, ed. Tobias J. Lanz, foreword by Kirkpatrick Sale (Norfolk: IHS Press, 2008), xiii-li. Also, see another fine articulation by Allan Carlson in his The New Agrarian Mind: The Movement Toward Decentralist Thought in Twentieth-Century America (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2000), especially chapters V, VI, and VIII. 16 Michael Pollan, “Introduction,” in Wendell Berry, Bringing it to the Table: On Farming and Food (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2009), ix.

basic nourishment for a healthy, robust republic composed of strong, neighborly local communities.

11  

PART I: THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-SUFFICIENCY AND AGRARIAN CHARACTER IN ANCIENT GREECE Chapter I: ARISTOTLE’S POLITICAL ECONOMY AND THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-SUFFICIENCY Introduction Despite the numerous studies on Aristotle’s political economy, none of them offers a wholly satisfying account of his principle (horos) of self-sufficiency (autarkeia). Only by understanding the foundational role the principle of selfsufficiency plays in Aristotle’s political philosophy can his political economy be properly understood. I thus begin this chapter with a brief interpretation of a few passages in Aristotle’s writings where the principle of self-sufficiency is invoked. What surfaces in my account is that there are various levels of self-sufficiency. Not all of them pertain to political economy, however. And so it is my task to delineate which levels are relevant for understanding Aristotle’s political economy. In the remaining two sections of this chapter, I discuss the most reputable attempts of the last century at understanding Aristotle’s political economy. As of yet, there has been relatively little dialogue among the existing accounts. While most of the scholars I discuss render a fairly adequate portrait of Aristotle’s political economy, there are nuances and discrepancies that have yet to be fully addressed. When needed, I contribute some additional dialogue to clarify a point of contention or to add something

that has been overlooked. I acknowledge that most of the contributors to this

13  

discussion comment on the significance of the principle of self-sufficiency for Aristotle’s political economy. None of them, however, emphasizes how foundational it is to properly understanding his political economy. My principal aim in engaging the literature on Aristotle’s political economy is to bring this principle to the fore and show why its formulation is more challenging than typically perceived. This chapter, as well as the next, is in one sense a brief history of the accounts on Aristotle’s political economy, and in another sense, it is an attempt to initiate a dialogue among them. In the second section of this chapter, I focus on Karl Polanyi’s and M. I. Finley’s discussion of Aristotle’s economic thought. This section deals mainly with establishing what Aristotle’s economics is and is not. It, also, points to the disagreement between Polanyi and Finley on whether Aristotle had a “concept of the economy.” Whether he did comes down to determining if a concept of the economy is coeval with modern economics or in distinguishing between economic self-sufficiency and unlimited gain, as Aristotle did in Book I of the Politics. The third section focuses on the relation between Aristotle’s political philosophy and his economic thought as considered mainly in the work of William James Booth and Abram Shulsky, including also some noteworthy comments by Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr., James H. Nichols, Jr., and Judith A. Swanson. Booth is critical of Polanyi’ account, but, as I argue, he neglects to understand how they are in fundamental agreement and not sharply opposed, which he contends. Despite what I take to be a misreading of Polanyi, Booth gives the best account of autarkeia in Aristotle’s thought, along with the relevance of this principle for the Athenian economy. He, however, does

not delve into how, for Aristotle, foreign trade and autarkeia are not mutually

14  

exclusive. In other words, autarkeia is not simply synonymous with isolationism. As I argue, one needs to recognize that neither foreign trade nor concessions made to commerce undermine the principle of self-sufficiency, the standard of Aristotle’s natural economy, even if they modify it. Shulsky, however, fails to fully grasp this point, since he associates the natural economy wholly with the household, which is a mistaken interpretation. This statement leads him down the path of assuming that Aristotle abandons the natural economy as he proceeds through the Politics without fully realizing what this would entail for understanding Aristotle’s political economy as a whole. The Levels of Aristotle’s Principle of Self-Sufficiency The principle of self-sufficiency is foundational to Aristotle’s political philosophy, and thus it should be no surprise that it is likewise for his political economy. After all, Aristotle’s thoughts on economic matters are included in his philosophic inquiry into human affairs. Of course, they are secondary to his thoughts on the education requisite for excellence. Yet this ranking should not cause us to overlook Aristotle’s contributions to the field of political economy. In order to appreciate how the principle of self-sufficiency is foundational to Aristotle’s political economy, it is necessary to understand how it is appealed to on various levels within his political philosophy. The clearest definition of self-sufficiency occurs in Book I of the Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle says, “And by self-sufficient we mean not what suffices for oneself alone, living one’s life as a hermit, but also with parents and children and a wife, and friends and fellow citizens generally, since a human being is by nature meant

17

for a city.”

In this definition, Aristotle ascends from the relationships of the

15  

household to the partnership of those within the city. Contrary to what one might ordinarily assume, the principle of self-sufficiency points not to a solitary existence but a political one. In this regard, the origin of the city resides in the need for mere living (economic self-sufficiency), but the city exists in order to attain “a level of full selfsufficiency”—that is for the “sake of living well.” What is best and the end of the city is thus self-sufficiency.18 It is the political good. As regards the various relationships of the city, self-sufficiency provides “some limit for these connections.”19 Selfsufficiency understood in relation to human nature begins with the household and ends with fellow citizens, thus ruling out the solitary life, as such a way of life goes against our political nature. It seems then that there exists a level of self-sufficiency that is most appropriate to human beings, since an individual who is “incapable of participating [in the city] or who is in need of nothing through being self-sufficient is no part of a city, and so is either a beast or a god.”20 If such an apolitical individual were to exist by nature, he would be either “a mean sort or superior to man”—a man-eating cyclops or a god among men.21 He thus would not participate in the mean between the beast and the divine, which is to say, he would not be truly human. Worth noting is that Aristotle’s definition of self-sufficiency in Book I of the Nicomachean Ethics occurs in the midst of a discussion on how to determine what the highest good is. If the highest good is that which is most complete or wholly complete,                                                                                                                 17

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Joe Sachs (Newburyport: Focus Publishing, 2002), 10 (1097b811). 18 Aristotle, The Politics, trans. Carnes Lord (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 36-37 (1252b27-1253a1). 19 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 10 (10971012-14). 20 Aristotle, Politics, 37 (1253a 27-29). 21 Ibid., 37 (1253a3-7).

then the principle of self-sufficiency, according to Aristotle, is the standard by which

16  

the highest good is measured. In other words, the human activity that is the most selfsufficient is the highest human good and “makes life choiceworthy and lacking in nothing, and such a thing we suppose happiness to be.”22 According to Aristotle, mere self-sufficiency, that is, taking care of primary needs (food, clothing, shelter), is on a lower level than political self-sufficiency. The ability to provision the primary needs of life is surely a human good, as it secures one from living an impoverished life. Needless to say, it is not the highest human good. A more complete understanding of self-sufficiency presents itself when the city has been constituted for the sake of living well. This level can be termed political self-sufficiency and concerns itself with the virtue of the citizen who is actively engaged in politics. Political self-sufficiency is expressed in the partnership that seeks to reveal the just and unjust and the advantageous and harmful through the uniquely human faculty—logos. Aristotle says, “partnership in these things is what makes a household and a city.”23 From the perspective of the political, this level of self-sufficiency would seem to be the highest. In addition, the highest embodiment within the level of political self-sufficiency is the great-souled man, since “what is great in each virtue would seem to belong to someone who is great-souled.”24 He is thus complete or self-sufficient when it comes to possessing moral virtue. His greatness adorns the virtues, giving him an air of arrogance as he justly looks down upon those concerned with small things, such as wealth and power. Even honor, which he takes to be the greatest thing, is small from                                                                                                                

22

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 12 (1097b14-21). Aristotle, Politics, 37 (1253a14-19). 24 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 67 (1123b29-31). 23

25

his point of view.

It is no surprise that wonder is not something to which he is much

17  

given.26 He then is not preoccupied with acquiring wealth or things of that nature, since, according to Aristotle, “He is the sort of person who possesses beautiful and useless things, rather than things that are productive and beneficial, since that is more suited to one who is self-sufficient.”27 His sort of political self-sufficiency seems possible only by the leisure he is afforded as a result of someone else both looking to provision him with the primary needs and tending to the small actions necessary for a political way of life. Be that as it may, what is important to keep in mind is that Aristotle calls the political level of self-sufficiency “full.” It should go without saying, although paradoxically I admit, that he does not think that it is the fullest. The great-souled man, no matter how self-sufficient he is, is still dependent upon the city as the arena for doing his great deed(s). Yet self-sufficiency defined politically seems to be inherently interdependent. Even if the great-souled man is the most self-sufficient in terms of executing his plan of action, Aristotle does not think that his life is the most self-sufficient simply. That the great-souled man is not much given to wonder suggests that he is not prone to the engage in the most self-sufficient activity, that is, philosophy. As a result, his life is not the happiest. The happiest way of life is the one devoted to the cultivation of the intellect. Aristotle says, And what is referred to as self-sufficiency would be present most of all in the contemplative life, for while the wise and the just person, and the rest, are in need of the things that are necessary for living, when they are sufficiently equipped with such things, a just person still needs people toward whom and with whom he will act justly, and similarly with the temperate and the courageous person and each of the others, but the wise                                                                                                                

25

Ibid., 68-69 (1124a1-1124b5). Ibid., 70 (1125a3-4). 27 Ibid., 70 (1125a12-14). 26

person is able to contemplate even when he is by himself, and more so to the extent that he is more wise. He will contemplate better, no doubt, when he has people to work with, but he is still the most self-sufficient person. And contemplation seems to be the only activity loved for its own sake, for nothing comes from it beyond the contemplating, while things involving action we gain something for ourselves, to a greater or lesser extent, beyond the action. And happiness seems to be present in leisure, for we engage in unleisured pursuits in order that we may be at leisure, and we make war in order that we may stay at peace….

18  

But the activity of the person engaged in politics is also unleisured, and political activity achieves, beyond itself, positions of power and honors and happiness for oneself and one’s fellow citizens that is different from their political life, and which is clear that we seek something different from it. So if, among actions in accord with the virtues, those that pertain to politics and war are pre-eminent in beauty and magnitude, but they are unleisured and aim at some end and are not chosen for their own sake, while the being-at-work of the intellect seems to excel in seriousness, and to be contemplative and aim at no end beyond itself, and to have its own pleasure (which increases in activity), so that what is as self-sufficient, leisured, and unwearied as possible for a human being, and all the other things that are attributed to a blessed person, show themselves as the things that result from this way of being-at-work, then this would be the complete happiness of a human being, if it takes in a complete span of life, for none of the things that belong to happiness is incomplete.28 The philosophic life is thus the fullest expression of self-sufficiency, since the activity of contemplating aims at nothing beyond itself. Whereas the political way of life is shown to be not as self-sufficient, in that political activity seeks an end beyond itself. Not to mention, in attending to the affairs of the city, the political way of life is unleisured. No matter the beauty nor the magnitude of the actions of the great-souled man, his way of life ranks below that of the philosopher when considered in light of the principle of self-sufficiency. Yet as with the great-souled man, the philosophic way of life is in need of “external prosperity,” since “nature is not self-sufficient for contemplating, but there is also a need for the body to be healthy and for food and other                                                                                                                 28

Ibid., 192 (1177a27-1177b6, 1177b12-25).

29

attentions to be present.”

While not the highest, economic self-sufficiency,

19  

according to Aristotle, is certainly indispensable for the good life as well as the best. Thus the levels of self-sufficiency in Aristotle’s political philosophy can be termed from the least to the highest: 1) bestial, 2) economic, 3) political, 4) philosophic, and 5) divine. The middle three point to what is human, and are thus rightly placed, so to speak, between Circe’s dehumanizing charms and Calypso’s offer of immortality. In these forms of self-sufficiency, we have a glimpse of humanity as a whole. And while there was a quarrel in antiquity regarding whether the political or the philosophic way of life was better, it should be acknowledged that this most worthy of rivalries rests first upon the ability to meet the level of self-sufficiency associated with mere living. Attaining a moderate level of economic self-sufficiency is what makes possible both the political and philosophic ways of living, keeping in mind the amount requisite for each way of life is relative. While Aristotle certainly ranks these ways of life above those that are concerned with necessary things, it is no small thing for an individual or a city to be able to attain what is self-sufficient regarding economic matters. As I argue in the next chapter, how one becomes economically self-sufficient is not arbitrary for Aristotle, as the occupations of the city have a tendency to shape the character of those employed in them. With this mind, it is hardly surprising, although worth recognizing, that the agrarian, not the merchant or artisan, is one of the last proponents of the principle of self-sufficiency in both politics and economics and thus shares a similar outlook to Aristotle when it comes to political economy. At times, agrarian social critics are aware of the pedigree of their political economy, such as the English                                                                                                                

29

Ibid., 195 (1179b32-1179a1).

Distributists, who recognize that their patron saint Thomas Aquinas is fundamentally

20  

in agreement with Aristotle on economic matters, and Victor Davis Hanson, who is both a small farmer and a classicist. While other agrarians, such as Wendell Berry, who has been called “A Kentucky Aristotelian,”30 seem unaware that the principle of selfsufficiency that they invoke harkens back to antiquity, which is significant since it suggests that political and economic meditations on the merits of self-sufficiency seem to be rooted in the agrarian way of life. Despite the daily hardships of this way of life, the small farmer, such as Berry, Davis or even Hesiod, seems capable of wondering about not only mundane affairs of the farm but political ones, too. He thus saves, it appears, any rivalry for what most threatens his freedom to partake of the three human levels of self-sufficiency, leaving pure statesmen and philosophers to quarrel over a natural order of ranking regarding human beings. As with most small farmers, and against Aristotle’s opinion or wish, he can handle more than one task at a time. While it is tempting to listen to the song of philosophy and recite its praises, suffice it to say that the two forms of self-sufficiency to which I, for the most part, bind my inquiry are economic and political self-sufficiency. This limit is fitting, as the scope of this project is largely concerned with Aristotle’s political economy and its compatibility with the agrarian tradition. Moreover, I focus on the interface or exchange between economics and politics, which I take to be the principle task of Aristotle’s political economy. In my discussion of the various interpretations of Aristotle’s political economy, beginning in this chapter and ending in the next, I delve                                                                                                                

30

Patrick J. Deneen, “Wendell Berry and the Alternative Tradition in American Political Thought,” in Wendell Berry: Life and Work, ed. Jason Peters (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2007), 304.

more deeply into how the principle of self-sufficiency is invoked in particular

21  

instances, such as determining the wealth appropriate to the city and individual, size of a regime’s population, size of a regime’s territory, composition of the city, trade with other cities and nations, and the significance of the agrarian mesoi (middling element). In all these instances the principle of self-sufficiency is best understood as a mean between excess and deficiency. With this in mind, I now turn to those interpretations in order to demonstrate why the principle of self-sufficiency is foundational to properly understanding Aristotle’s political economy. Polanyi and Finley on Aristotle’s Economic Thought The studies on Aristotle’s political economy are relatively new, even to the point where Hannah Arendt writing in 1958 could make the following statement, “According to ancient thought…the very term ‘political economy’ would have been a contradiction in terms: what was ‘economic,’ related to the life of the individual and the survival of the species, was a non-political, household affair by definition.”31 Even when Karl Polanyi initiated the discussion in his essay “Aristotle Discovers the Economy,”32 which was published a year prior to Arendt’s claim, it should be noted that he did not title his essay “Aristotle Discovers Political Economy,” although he clearly thought, as will be shown, that Aristotle’s concept of the economy was political. Polanyi’s essay was primarily an effort to rescue Aristotle from the contempt that modern economic historians (namely, Joseph Schumpeter) directed toward him for his thoughts on things economic.                                                                                                                 31

Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 29, quoted in Judith Swanson’s The Public and the Private in Aristotle’s Political Philosophy, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 70. 32 Karl Polanyi, “Aristotle Discovers the Economy,” in Primitive, Archaic, and Modern Economies: Essays of Karl Polanyi, ed. George Dalton (Garden City: Anchor Books, 1968); originally published in Trade and Market in the Early Empires, eds. Karl Polanyi, Conrad M. Arensberg, and Harry W. Pearson (Glenscoe: The Free Press, 1957).

Economic historians, according to Polanyi, considered Aristotle to have two broad

22  

topics regarding economics: the first simply being the nature of economic activity in general and the second being “policy issues,” including the unlimited desire for wealth associated with commercial trade, the rules of justice concerning pricing, an illuminating but inconsistent view regarding money, and “that puzzling outburst” on usury. The economic historians thus concluded, “This meager and fragmentary outcome was mostly attributed to an unscientific bias—the preference for that which ought to be over that which is.” Such a conclusion did not rest well with Polanyi, who thought that, given Aristotle’s stature as a thinker and the importance of the subject, hesitation would be advisable before accepting the judgment of the historians as final. Polanyi thus reaches into the bin of economic history and is the first to give “Aristotle’s teaching on the economy” a dusting.33 Polanyi begins his apology with audacity, arguing that Aristotle, like no other writer on economic matters, addressed the “problem of man’s livelihood with a radicalism” on the deepest and most penetrating level: “In effect, he posed, in all its breadth, the question of the place occupied by the economy in society.”34 Aristotle, in other words, was a philosophic political economist and thus no mere economist because his “unscientific bias” for how things ought to be guided his understanding of what was attainable in politics. Polanyi nonetheless concedes to the economic historians “Aristotle’s naïveté” regarding his ignorance of scientific “economic analysis,” since Aristotle had no knowledge of the market mechanism.35 Despite this ignorance, Polanyi                                                                                                                

33

Ibid., 79. Ibid., 80. 35 Ibid., 80, 107-109. 34

goes on to say, albeit somewhat paradoxically, “Aristotle divined the full-fledged

23  

specimen from the embryo” concerning the market economy.36 The significance of this claim is that Aristotle presciently discovered the economy, when the economy of ancient Greece was in transition, being neither fully embedded in society nor fully disembedded, although still leaning significantly toward the former. 37 The distinction between an “embedded” economy and a “disembedded economy” is best comprehended by understanding the latter. Polanyi describes it as follows: The disembedded economy of the nineteenth century stood apart from the rest of society, more especially from the political and governmental system. In a market economy the production and distribution of material goods in principle is carried through a self-regulating system of pricemaking markets. It is governed by laws of its own, the so-called laws of supply and demand, and motivated by fear of hunger and hope of gain. Not blood-tie, legal compulsion, religious obligation, fealty, or magic creates the sociological situations which make individuals partake in economic life, but specifically economic institutions such as private enterprise and the wage system…. The vast comprehensive mechanism of the economy can be conceived of working without conscious intervention of human authority, state, or government; no other motives than dread of destitution and desire for legitimate profit need to be invoked; no other juridical requirement is set than that of the protection of property and the enforcement of contract; given the distribution of resources, of purchasing power, as well as of the individual scales of preference, the result will be an optimum of wantsatisfaction of all. This, then, is the nineteenth-century version of an independent economic sphere of society. It is motivationally distinct, for it receives its impulse from the urge of monetary gain. It is institutionally separated from the political and governmental center. It attains to an autonomy that invests it with laws of its own. In it we possess that extreme case of a disembedded economy, which takes its state from the widespread use of money as a means of exchange.38                                                                                                                 36

Ibid., 81. Ibid., 80, 81. 38 Ibid., 81-82. 37

In principle, then, the market of the disembedded economy functions autonomously,

24  

forming its own sphere of activity, that is, provided the government protects property and enforces contracts. In contrast, the embedded economy is based on status, not the legality of contracts, and the “elements of the economy are here embedded in noneconomic institutions, the economic process itself being instituted through kinship, marriage, age-groups, secret societies, totemic associations, and public solemnities.”39 In other words, the “concept of the economy” is absent in societies with an embedded economy, because economic activities are thoroughly enmeshed in everyday living and not granted their own separate sphere. Polanyi notes, however, “Only the concept of the economy, not the economy itself, is in abeyance, of course.”40 This comment, however, does not apply to Aristotle, since he after all understood economics on a substantive level or a subsistence one (to be discussed below).41 His awareness and observations, moreover, are gathered from standing in the midst of the incipient market economy.42 His approach, therefore, is more in keeping with the “normativity”43 of the political economist and not the concerns of “formal” economic analysis, which understands itself to be scientific and based, at least in principle, on an autonomous sphere of self-regulating economic activity. Polanyi set the stage, then, for the discussion of Aristotle’s thoughts on the economy, and M. I. Finley, in his essay “Aristotle and Economic Analysis,”44 takes up                                                                                                                

39

Ibid., 84. Ibid., 86. 41 Ibid., 99-100. 42 Ibid., 80, 81, 95. 43 Ibid., 96. 44 M. I. Finley, “Aristotle and Economic Analysis,” in Articles on Aristotle: Ethics and Politics, Vol. 2, eds. Jonathan Barnes, Malcolm Schofield, and Richard Sorabji (London: Gerald Duckworth & Company Limited). 40

some of the similar themes that were of interest to Polanyi. As one can tell from

25  

Finley’s title, he was mainly concerned with demonstrating the relation, if any, between Aristotle and economic analysis. Finley agreed with Polanyi, albeit on different grounds, that Aristotle did not have a “theory of market prices,”45 but disagreed with Polanyi’s conclusion that he had a theory of the “just price,” which Polanyi believed to be derived from Book V of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.46 Polanyi’s assertion that Aristotle did not have a theory of market price was based upon his understanding that Aristotle was unaware of the “supply-demand-price mechanism.”47 Finley abjures this claim and asserts that Aristotle was well aware of the supply-demand-price mechanism, citing Thales’ monopoly on olive presses and Aristotle’s comment in the Nicomachean Ethics on how money, although relatively constant, is subject to change in value. As regards the fluctuation of monetary value, Finley also finds evidence for his claim in the Politics: “in the section on revolutions, Aristotle warns against rigidly fixed assessments in states that have a property qualification for office, since one should allow for the impact on the assessment ‘when there is an abundance of coin’.”48 Despite his awareness of pricing based upon supply and demand, Finley argues that Aristotle nevertheless was not “seeking a theory of market prices.” He surely did not understand himself to be offering one through his discussion of just exchange in Book V of the                                                                                                                

45

Ibid., 149; cf. Polanyi, “Aristotle Discovers the Economy,” 106. Ibid., 143, 153, esp., 146: “However, Aristotle does not once refer to labour costs or costs of production. The medieval theologians were the first to introduce this consideration into the discussion, as the foundation for their doctrine of just price….” Cf. with Polanyi, “Aristotle Discovers the Economy,” 97, 100, 106-108. 47 Polanyi, “Aristotle Discovers the Economy,” 104-106. 48 Finley, “Aristotle and Economic Analysis,” 149. For the passages in Aristotle, see Nichomachean Ethics, 90 (1133b13-14) and Politics, 51 (1259a5-36). Polanyi assumes a familiarity with Aristotle’s work and usually does not provide citations to the claims he makes regarding Aristotle’s economics. I have supplied the references to claims that may be less familiar to the reader. 46

Nicomachean Ethics, which would have been “nonsense.”

49

Both Finley and Polanyi

26  

agree that Book V of the Nicomachean Ethics has nothing to offer to “economic analysis.”50 Never mind Aristotle’s awareness of supply-demand-price mechanism, Finley argues, “Nowhere in the Politics does Aristotle ever consider the rules or mechanics of commercial exchange. On the contrary, his insistence on the unnaturalness of commercial gain rules out the possibility of such a discussion, and also helps explain the heavily restricted analysis in the Ethics. Of economic analysis there is not a trace.”51 Against those that make the case that Aristotle’s economic analysis is rudimentary, fragmentary, and mediocre, Finley’s main thesis is that in Aristotle’s body of work “there is strictly speaking no economic analysis rather than poor or inadequate economic analysis.”52 This initial stage in understanding Aristotle’s economic thought is principally concerned with whether or not it qualifies as “scientific” economic analysis. Finley begins his essay by making a couple of distinctions: 1) “economic analysis” is distinct from “the observation or description of specific economic activities” and 2) both of these are distinct from the “concept of the economy.” The first distinction, using Schumpeter’s definition, depicts economic analysis as a scientific endeavor that seeks to understand “how people behave any time and what the economic effects are they produce by so behaving” and economic observations as “economic sociology [that] deals with the question how they came to behave as they do.”53 As these distinctions pertain to Aristotle, Abram Shulsky gives the best explanation: “A good beginning                                                                                                                 49

Ibid., 149. Ibid., 150; Polanyi, “Aristotle Discovers the Economy,” 80. 51 Ibid., 152. 52 Ibid., 141-142, 150. 53 Ibid., 140. 50

point is Aristotle’s own description of economics as a practical, as opposed to a

27  

theoretical, science, one that is closely related to, and indeed forms a part of, the overarching practical science, namely, political science.” In being a practical science, it is concerned not with those things that exist always in the same way (which is why both Finley and Polanyi are right in not associating Aristotle’s economics with “formal” economic analysis), but with those things that are open to deliberation and prudential reasoning on the ways to attain the human good. For Aristotle, then, there is no “pure” theoretical or scientific approach to economics, in which one might derive an “applied science.” Instead, economics as a practical science, which is not derived from a pure form, is oriented by the human or the political good. Modern economics is ill-equipped to judge what this good might be or what makes an end rational or natural, since it has liberated itself from the domains of political science and thus political and moral judgment. Aristotle’s commonsense approach to economics, then, assures that “economic phenomena will always be discussed and analyzed in the light of the political context and, in particular, of their consistency with a political regime based on the best principles.”54 Needless to say, his concept of the economy posits that it ought to be under the tutelage of the master, although practical, science of politics, which brings us to the second distinction. The discussion of whether Aristotle has a “concept of the economy” is a reoccurring theme in the literature on Aristotle’s political economy. Finley’s attempt to set the “concept of economy” apart from economic analysis and observation, however,                                                                                                                

54

Abram Shulsky, “The ‘Infrastructure’ of Aristotle’s Politics: Aristotle on Economics and Politics,” in Essays on the Foundations of Aristotelian Political Science, ed. Carnes. Lord and David K. O’Connor (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 77-78.

is none too clear and does not seem to be as helpful as was the first distinction. As

28  

the title of Polanyi’s article indicates Aristotle had a “concept of the economy,” for how else could he have discovered it! Given Finley’s distinction, however, Polanyi’s argument becomes seemingly problematic. Polanyi associates Aristotle’s understanding of the economy with the substantivist camp. This camp focuses on observations and descriptions of things that sustain human life within a specific political context as opposed to the transhistoricity of formal analysis and its associated concepts of supply and demand, scarcity, and profit.55 For Polanyi, that Aristotle used a substantivist approach is enough to count as having a “concept of the economy.” Moreover, Polanyi states, “On the nature of the economy Aristotle’s starting point is, as always, empirical. But the conceptualization even of the most obvious facts is deep and original.”56 In other words, Aristotle’s conceptualization of the economy was in response to the incipient market, which had practices establishing no “rational link” to his “sociological” approach. The “focal concepts” of his approach to human affairs are community, self-sufficiency, and justice.57 Although Aristotle was well aware of economic practices in Athens that were contrary to nature, such as profiteering, he limited the scope of his approach to conceptualizing economic matters that formed a “rational link” with his own “focal concepts,” such as economic activities that made it possible to achieve “natural self-sufficiency.”58 That is to say, he was aware of the belief that some thought, namely Solon, the desire for wealth was considered to be

                                                                                                                55

Polanyi, “Aristotle Discovers the Economy,” 97-100. Ibid., 97. 57 Ibid., 96, 100. 58 Ibid., 113. 56

unlimited for man.

59

He held, however, such a desire to be irrational, and while being

29  

empirically observable, the unlimited desire was not fitting to address in a naturalistic account of human affairs and a natural economy.60 Thus by staying in the realm of a substantivist approach to economics, Aristotle gives the impression that he knew nothing about the concept of the economy from the point of view of formal economics. Finley, however, makes light of the debate between the substantive and formal approaches to economics, believing what was at stake was a matter of methodology and thus did not bear on the question of the “existence of ‘the economy’.” He asserted that Polanyi’s substantive definition of the economy was acceptable to everyone, even if some did not believe it to be a “sufficient operational definition.”61 Finley, nonetheless, seems to have forgotten his original distinction, which set both formal and substantive approaches apart from the “concept of the economy,” in that it is not merely enough for Aristotle to have a substantivist understanding of the economy to qualify him as having a concept of the economy, while a formal understanding is coeval with such a concept. Either Finley contradicts himself or has decided that only a formal approach to economics is privy enough to claim having a concept of the economy. Finley contends, “neither speculation about the origins of trade nor doubts about market ethics led to the elevation of ‘the economy’ (which cannot be translated from the Greek) to independent status as a subject of discussion or study, at least not beyond Aristotle’s division of the art of acquisition into oikonomia and money-making, and that was a dead end.” Instead the “radical discovery” of the economy in the late eighteenth century is evinced by                                                                                                                 59

Aristotle, Politics, 46 (1256b30-33). Polanyi, “Aristotle Discovers the Economy,” 100, 113. This point of view should be kept in mind when I consider below Shulsky’s assumption that the natural economy is largely rhetorical. 61 Finley, “Aristotle and Economic Analysis,” 154. 60

comprehending the “‘laws’ of circulation, of market exchange, of value and prices (to

30  

which the theory of ground rent was linked).” Finley, then, goes on to conclude, “I would be prepared to argue that without the concept of relevant ‘laws’ (or ‘statistical uniformities’ if one prefers) it is not possible to have a concept of ‘the economy’. However, I shall be content here merely to insist that the ancients did not (rather than could not) have the concept….”62 Does Finley’s admission that Aristotle knew about the supply-demand-price mechanism, however, suggest he had a concept of the economy, even if not fully worked out? Moreover, why is the distinction between a natural and unnatural economy a dead-end? Polanyi held this distinction to be of the utmost importance in establishing a norm that would differentiate between, at least, two types of economies. He argues, Looking back from the rapidly declining heights of a world-wide market economy we must concede that his famous distinction of householding proper and money-making, in the introductory chapter of his Politics, was probably the most prophetic pointer ever made in the realm of the social sciences; it is certainly still the best analysis of the subject we possess…. In denouncing the principle of production for gain ‘as not natural to man,’ as boundless and limitless, Aristotle was, in effect, aiming at the crucial point, namely the divorcedness of a separate economic motive from the social relations in which these limitations inhered.63 Polanyi discerns in Aristotle’s economic thought an awareness separating a natural economy from a market economy, albeit one not on the full-blown scale as witnessed in late modernity. Aristotle’s economics seems to be clearly in favor of the natural economy. This assumption, as already mentioned, leads Polanyi to associate Aristotle’s economics with a substantive approach because it adheres to the notion of natural ends                                                                                                                

62 63

Ibid., 155-156. Polanyi, “Societies and Economic Systems,” in Primitive, Archaic and Modern Economies, 17-18.

64

for economic practices, namely the end of natural self-sufficiency.

The formal

31  

approach is distinct from Aristotle’s and the substantivist approach, in that formal analysis understands what is “rational” as not referring to the ends or means but to how the means relate to the ends. In other words, regardless of what the ends are, rational action merely means the ability to discern the means to the ends.65 For example, to use an unnatural one to make my point, should a person want to eat his neighbor, the formal approach argues that he has to reason on how to best meet his desired end. This entails rational activity. Yet, for Aristotle, the end is unnatural and irrational. As will be discussed momentarily, it appears, however, that Aristotle makes some concessions regarding the use of unnatural means to attain a natural end, while remaining within the purview of substantive view of the economy. One should notice that Finley’s argument does not necessarily contradict Polanyi’s claim that Aristotle discovered the economy. According to Finley, it is not that Aristotle could not have a formal economic analysis of the economy, by which Finley means a full-blown concept of the market economy, but rather his naturalistic approach to human affairs allowed, or logographically necessitated, him to “ignore the unnatural developments in commercial trade and money-making, despite their growth in the same period and the tensions they generated” just as he had ignored “the careers of Philip and Alexander, and their consequences for the polis, the natural form of political association.”66 Be that as it may, by associating the concept of the economy with its “radical discovery” in the eighteenth century, Finley denies Polanyi’s claim that                                                                                                                 64

Polanyi, “Aristotle Discovers the Economy,” 100, 113. Polanyi, “The Economy as Instituted Process,” in Primitive, Archaic, and Modern Economies, 139. 66 Finley, “Aristotle and Economic Analysis,” 153. 65

Aristotle discovered the economy with his substantivist approach. If Polanyi were to

32  

accept Finley’s assertion that the discovery of the concept of the economy rests upon the development of a formal approach in the eighteenth century, then he would obviously have to give his article a new title. Polanyi is emphatic, however, that Aristotle’s approach remains on the substantivist level and thereby offers a concept of the economy. Moreover, Polanyi would have argued that Finley’s “artificial identification of the economy with its market form” commits the “economistic fallacy.”67 What the concept of the economy means and whether Aristotle indeed remained within the substantivist approach has been taken up in more recent studies on Aristotle’s political economy. Booth and Shulsky on Aristotle’s Political Economy The second stage of the inquiry into Aristotle’s economic thought is more explicitly a discussion among scholars of political philosophy about the importance of the “political” in Aristotle’s political economy. Most do not hold to Finley’s high, or rather misconceived, standard of what qualifies as having a “concept of the economy.”68 The assumption is that Aristotle had a notion of it not only in terms of a natural economy but also an unnatural economy. In fact, Abram Shulsky and Michael D. Chan argue that he abandons the notion of a natural economy as he proceeds through the Politics, especially after the first book when he begins to make a number of concessions to

                                                                                                               

67

See Polanyi, “The Economy as Instituted Process,” 142, note 1, which is not directed at Finley’s article, since it was published after Polanyi’s death. 68 This assertion seems to apply for classicists as well, see Paul Cartledge, “The Economy (Economies) of Ancient Greece,” in The Ancient Economy, eds. Walter Scheidel and Sitta von Reden (New York: Routledge, 2002), 14-16.

commerce.

69

What the natural economy means, which seems to be synonymous with

33  

a substantivist account, and its abandonment entails are briefly discussed here and in the next chapter, since, as I argue, Aristotle does not wholly abandon a natural economic standard but rather modifies it. Before doing so, I begin with William James Booth’s account of Aristotle’s political economy, since it is the one that picks up some of the loose ends or difficulties occurring in Polanyi’s, and then, I proceed to discuss Shulsky’s account. In his Household: On the Moral Architecture of the Economy, Booth, who gives perhaps the most satisfying account of Aristotle’s political economy, renders a critique of Polanyi’s substantivist approach, even though Booth seems to be within this camp regarding the location of the economy in the polis. In the “Introduction” Booth tells the reader that he disagrees with the “body of literature which maintains that there was no such systematic reflection on the economy in the ancient world (Karl Polanyi, Hannah Arendt, and, occasionally, Moses I. Finley are important contributors to this school of analysis) or that, if there was, it was of such a primitive character as to be without value (Joseph Schumpeter).”70 His disagreement as it concerns Arendt and Schumpeter is, as far as I can discern, adequately formulated. Regarding Polanyi and Finley, it is less so, if at all. He seems to make an exception for Finley, who as we noticed earlier associates the concept of the economy with the alleged discovery of formal economic analysis in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. With this in mind, Finley argues that the ancient Greeks, including Aristotle, did not have a concept of the economy, despite                                                                                                                

69

Shulsky, “The ‘Infrastructure’ of Aristotle’s Politics: Aristotle on Economics and Politics,” 101; Michael D. Chan, Aristotle and Hamilton: On Commerce and Statesmanship (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006), 34-36. 70 William James Booth, Households: On the Moral Architecture of the Economy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), 7.

his queer admission, reminiscent of Aesop’s “The Fox and the Grapes” fable, that

34  

they could have should they have so desired, but for some reason they decided such an inquiry would only yield sour results. In turn, Polanyi makes the case that Aristotle had a concept of the economy, even a systematic one to use Booth’s language, 71 which so happened not to be formal but rather substantive. (Finley, remember, agrees with him on this claim but doesn’t think it qualifies as having a concept of the economy, certainly not one on the market level.) Nevertheless, Polanyi clearly makes the case that Aristotle reflected on the economy and even fully divined the orientation toward unlimited gain of the market economy in its incipient stage. What is all the more puzzling is that Booth argues that his intention in returning to the ancients, especially Aristotle, who stood at the center of their economic thought, is to seek to recover from that tradition its reflection on the economy—the purpose of that exercise being, again, the reinstating of ideas from which we may still expect to profit. This reappropriation of ancient economic thought is ground in precisely that same claim that lead Schumpeter and others to reject its possibility, the claim that the Greeks tended to blur the boundary lines between the moral and political on the one side and the economic on the other. They knew of the economy, in other words, but as a moment of the oikos, in its service and informed by its values. And it is just this idea that the economy is fully intelligible only as an ethical domain which is to be counted among the most significant of their contributions.72 Compare Booth’s intention with Polanyi’s: It may seem paradoxical to expect that the last word on the nature of economic life should have been spoken by a thinker who hardly saw its beginnings. Yet Aristotle, living, as he did, on the borderline of economic ages, was in a favored position to grasp the merits of the subject….

                                                                                                               

71 72

Polanyi, “Aristotle Discovers the Economy,” 96. Booth, Households, 7-8.

We have, therefore, every reason to seek in his works for far more massive and significant formulations on economic matters than Aristotle has been credited with in the past. In fact the disjecta membra of the Ethics and Politics convey a monumental unity of thought.

35  

Whenever Aristotle touched on a question of economy he aimed at developing its relationship to society as a whole. The frame of reference was the community as such, which exists at different levels within all functioning human groups. In terms, then, of our modern speech Aristotle’s approach to human affairs was sociological. In mapping out a field of study he would relate all questions of institutional origin and function to the totality of society. Community, self-sufficiency, and justice were the focal concepts.73 Polanyi not only grants Aristotle the right of having the last word on the subject, but also with his “famous distinction,” as quoted above, between natural and unnatural acquisitions of wealth, he gave the first word and best analysis on economics. Booth thus does not appreciate how his intention to return to the ancients is virtually identical to Polanyi’s, at least as it pertains to the ancient economy.74 In what is to follow, I argue that Booth is in fundamental agreement with Polanyi regarding the aim of the economy but differs with Polanyi on some significant points in articulating what the natural, or substantive, economy entails. With this in mind, Booth’s critique of Polanyi, however, should not be seen as being sharply opposed to Polanyi’s but rather as being an improvement or clarification, while, at the same time, remaining fundamentally in agreement regarding the orientation of Aristotle’s political economy.

                                                                                                                73

Polanyi, “Aristotle Discovers the Economy,” 95-96. In other words, even if he did not write a separate treatise dedicated wholly to economics proper, he has certainly thought about the fundamental differences between, at least, two different approaches to the acquisition of wealth. 74 Booth, moreover, argues, “As I noted in the Introduction, however, much of the analysis of this book is sharply in opposition to Polanyi’s claims about ancient and modern economic thought” (Households, 55, note 101). For the purposes of this essay, I concern myself only with Booth’s critique of Polanyi as it pertains to the ancient economy and thus am not concerned with Booth’s treatment of Polanyi in his chapters on the liberal household and Marxism.

What I mean by Booth and Polanyi being in fundamental agreement is that

36  

they understand Aristotle’s political economy to be limited by natural standards. Both acknowledge that the principle of self-sufficiency is central to understanding his economics. At first, as Booth deftly depicts, autarkeia pertains to the self-sufficiency of the household (oikos) and then to the necessary exchanges among households to make up for what the household alone is unable to provide for itself. The notion of autarkeia, after initially taking root as the natural end of the household, is extended as an end orienting the polis, where material autarkeia must be met before political autarkeia is able to bear fruit.75 Such an extension of self-sufficiency from material autarkeia to the political is natural, as the notion of political autarkeia points to our nature as political animals and our ability to rule and be ruled. Polanyi would certainly agree with this statement and indicates as much in a number of places.76 He, however, tends to focus on self-sufficiency in the material, or physiological, sense and does not emphasize enough its political form, as does Booth. By restricting the notion of self-sufficiency to the material realm, Polanyi appears to be unconcerned with the aim of the economy. For instance, Polanyi states, “Autarchy may be said to be the capacity to subsist without dependence on resources from the outside.”77 This definition is not wholly adequate, for when the household is not able to supply all of its needs, it must engage in trade with other households. Even though trade between households entails interdependence, Polanyi’s argument, nonetheless, accommodates itself to this transition, and he ably argues that trade of this sort is natural because it is the manner by which the end of                                                                                                                

75

Booth, Households, 7, 34, 50, 55, 56, 66. See Aristotle, regarding the levels of autarkeia, Politics, 36 (1252b10-1253a1). 76 Polanyi, “Aristotle Discovers the Economy,” 94, 98, 99. 77 Ibid., 96.

78

natural self-sufficiency is attained.

Interdependence need not, then, contradict

37  

Aristotle’s understanding of self-sufficiency. The trade connecting the household to the village simply expands the notion of self-sufficiency from the household to the village. This form of trade is not only natural but is one way in which human beings begin to associate with each other, which lends itself to a fuller expression of our political nature as depicted in the good life. In other words, material or economic self-sufficiency provides the necessary equipment that makes possible the good life, or a life well lived, which is to say the manifestation of political autarkeia. Although Polanyi may not have fully connected the dots, he would have certainly agreed with Booth’s rendition. After all, for Polanyi, that the ancient economy was largely embedded in political institutions indicates that it is not autonomous and cannot be used as a tool for unlimited material gain, since it is a tool constrained by the desire to engage in politics and thus to live well. Booth’s main critique of Polanyi concerns his inability to grasp the notions of scarcity, surplus, and economizing behavior in the ancient economy. Booth argues that the opposite of self-sufficiency is scarcity and thus effort and toil of all sorts are needed in order to achieve self-sufficiency. Were self-sufficiency merely a given and no effort required to attain it, like in the Garden of Eden or Hesiod’s Golden Age, then scarcity would not be a factor, nor would a household be needed to stave off grim poverty. The household, by its very existence, entails that self-sufficiency is not a given, and moreover, the exchange between households demonstrates that scarcity of goods did

                                                                                                                78

Ibid., 96, 97; see Aristotle, Politics, 206-207 (1327a11-39) and 216 (1331a30-1331b3).

79

play a role in the ancient economy.

Polanyi does not want to associate the “scarcity

38  

postulate” with Aristotle’s economics, because he understands the postulate to belong to formal economic analysis and be exhibited in a full-blown market economy. In other words, the scarcity postulate, according to Polanyi, indicates unlimited desire for wealth and is thus unnatural. He says, “The human economy, did not, therefore, stem from the boundlessness of man’s wants and needs, or, as it is phrased today, from the fact of scarcity.”80 This understanding seems to suggest that the scarcity postulate entails an autonomous, market economy, where the predominate motives are “dread of destitution and desire for legitimate profit.” When these motives dominate, it is an indication that reciprocity and redistribution, or rationing, are not widely practiced, as they were commonly held to be in ancient Greece.81 If I am correct, it appears that Polanyi would not entirely disagree with Booth’s assertion that scarcity did exist. That it existed in an economy that was not a full-blown market would suggest that the desire to acquire goods had a limit, such as sustenance or the good life. Given, however, that both Booth and Polanyi recognize that the goal of Aristotle’s economics was in effect to be detached from economic activities so that one could engage in politics, Polanyi would feasibly acquiesce to the need to overcome scarcity in order to attain material selfsufficiency. Polanyi, in a roundabout way, says as much: For the discerning mind [meaning Aristotle] when considering those prizes of life must be struck by the utterly different source of their ‘scarcity’ from that which the economist would make us expect. With him scarcity reflects either the niggardliness of nature or the burden of the labor that production entails. But the highest honors and the rarest distinctions are few for neither of these two reasons. They are scarce for                                                                                                                 79

Booth, Households, 82. Polanyi, “Aristotle Discovers the Economy,” 79; see also 94, 95, 98, 99, 100. 81 Ibid., 82, 84. 80

the obvious reason that there is no standing room at the top of the pyramid. The fewness of the agatha is inherent in rank, immunity, and treasure: they would not be what they are if they were attainable to many. Hence the absence in early society of the ‘economic connotation’ of scarcity, whether or not utilitarian goods sometimes also happen to be scarce. For the rarest prizes are not of this order. Scarcity derives here from the non-economic order of things.82

39  

As it stands, however, Booth’s comments acknowledging scarcity at both the material and political levels are nonetheless an improvement over Polanyi’s, since Booth understands how material scarcity inhibits one from entering into the competition of scarce political honors.83 Booth also criticizes Polanyi for not seeing the concepts of surplus and economizing behavior in Aristotle’s economics. The latter is especially associated with formal economic analysis. As regards surplus, Polanyi thought that surplus played a role in the ancient economy. The act of “giving a share (metadosis), from one’s surplus” was commonly practiced and encouraged in ancient Greece.84 Polanyi states, “it was institutionalized as an obligation of householders to give of their surplus to any other householder who happened to be short of that definite kind of necessity, at his request, and to the extent of his shortage, but only to that extent.”85 For Polanyi, surplus was contained and not oriented toward boundless gain. Since household production, which is needs-oriented, could put the surplus to use politically, such as being generous toward those in need, and thus did not contradict the principle of self-sufficiency but contributed to its political expression.86 Polanyi, then, would be in agreement with                                                                                                                

82

Ibid., 94. See Swanson, The Public and Private in Aristotle’s Political Philosophy, 71-73, 79, regarding her views on scarcity and Aristotle’s economics should be considered in this context. 84 Polanyi, “Aristotle Discovers the Economy,” 96-97. 85 Ibid., 100. 86 Polanyi, “Societies and Economic Systems,” 17. 83

Booth’s statement, “A surplus of economic goods (property and persons) is therefore

40  

vital in order to allow for a surplus of that different and most precious cluster of (interrelated) goods: leisure, community, and noble praxis.”87 Booth’s comments, however, on this point are more off the mark regarding “Polanyi-type claims.”88 Despite this misunderstanding, Booth’s articulation of the need of surplus is, once again, better articulated, in that he elaborates more on its relation to political selfsufficiency. In fact, his critique would have been better aimed had he focused on how the substantive point of view emphasizes meeting the self-sufficiency of needs or “physiological wants” without much consideration for political or psychological needs.89 Only a word is required regarding Booth’s critique of Polanyi’s alleged negligence regarding the economizing behavior of ancient economics. As long as it is directed toward natural or rational ends, then economizing behavior, to use Booth’s apt formulation, “would amount to preventing, so far as was possible, the encroachment of the economy, with its necessary expenditures of time and effort, on the lives of citizens.”90 Again Polanyi’s only fault is that he did not emphasize enough or present his thought in a manner to adequately capture how the pursuit of wealth for Aristotle was limited by the demands of political autarkeia and, hence, the good life. Aristotle, after all, recognizes the importance of a surplus of goods, even if it tends more towards                                                                                                                 87

Booth, Households, 84. Ibid., 77-80. 89 For the tendency of the substantive position to stop short of an analysis concerning the aim of ancient economics, see Polanyi, “The Economy as Instituted Process,” 145. This tendency is easily overcome, since Aristotle emphasized the subordination of economics to politics. On this point of the debate, see Booth, Households, 79: “If the substantivist argument amounts to the claim that not all societies produce for price-setting markets through which profits are realized, then it is not contentious. Surpluses can be embodied, for instance, in material subsistence insurance (food stocks), in leisure, or in conspicuous consumption.” 90 Booth, Households, 85. 88

91

luxury, because then it will allow one to practice moderation as well as liberality.

In

41  

this sense, surplus, not to mention the economizing behavior in attaining it, makes possible a showing of these two virtues, which points not only to material selfsufficiency but to political self-sufficiency. Aristotle is quite clear, as noted above, by what he understands self-sufficiency to be: it is not a life of hermit but begins in the household, including parents, children and a wife and moves the city to include friends and fellow citizens, as human beings are by nature political animals.92 In this definition, one catches a glimpse of how the principle of self-sufficiency ascends from the oikos to the polis. On the level of trade among those who are citizens, that money or currency is sometimes used in trading does not entail that the trade is unnatural or impersonal, since the exchange, even if not wholly commensurable, aims at what is “sufficiently possible” concerning needs.93 Such an exchange, as opposed to the gainful orientation of the market economy, is thought to better preserve community, friendship and justice as well as being oriented toward the end of self-sufficiency. Were gainful retailing deemed to be necessary, it would be carefully contained and carried out by non-citizens (metics) and slaves.94 Exchange only becomes unnatural when unlimited gain rather than self-sufficiency marks the end of the transaction. It should be mentioned in this context, which neither Polanyi nor Booth discuss in any depth, that the friendship associated with the economy exists on different levels. The sort of friendship involved in commercial exchange, regardless of whether it fully                                                                                                                 91

Aristotle, Politics, 65 (1265a27-37). Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, 10 (1097b7-11). 93 Ibid., 90 (1133b11-21). 94 Polanyi, “Aristotle Discovers the Economy,” 96, 97, 101, 113. 92

embraces market characteristics, probably pertains to utility, which is the lowest form

42  

of friendship, and is characteristic of “vulgarly commercial people,” 95 or, translated more favorably, those who frequent the commercial agora. When it comes to a friendship that is based on pleasure or on virtue, the demand for needed goods entails not so much commercial exchange as it does exchange in the sense of generosity or reciprocal giving. Exchange of this sort needs no market per se, since it most likely occurs between significantly self-sufficient households that show a marked preference for a pleasing or virtuous friendship over gain. Although I may receive, for instance, more from my neighbor’s garden than he from mine, I know he is not inside calculating his losses but rather taking more delight in knowing that he has helped his neighbor, which does not preclude my attempt to rival his generosity. To encourage exchange of this sort, Aristotle notes, “This is why people put a temple of the Graces by the roadway, in order that there should be reciprocal giving, for this is a special feature of graciousness, that one ought to do a kindness in return to the one who has been gracious, and ought oneself in one’s turn to take the initiative in being gracious.”96 Given that reciprocal giving is not a market exchange, one must wonder if the graciousness that reciprocal giving cultivates becomes diminished in a consumer society where many relationships are characterized by monetary exchange. Ask yourself, “How many times has someone tried to pay me in exchange for a good deed I have done for him or her, or how many times have I tried to pay someone for a good deed done on my behalf?” Might the need to pay someone for graciousness be an attempt to immediately cancel out any debt of gratitude? In other words, it appears such a behavior                                                                                                                 95 96

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 151 (1158a22). Ibid., 88 (1133a2-6).

may reveal the character of a person who is uncomfortable with waiting for the right

43  

moment to “return the favor.” Be that as it may, the extent to which the market undermines graciousness, turning it into a market transaction, it seems plausible to argue that such a tendency would go against Aristotle’s preference for doing kindness in return for being treated kindly, as well as the challenge to be the first “to take the initiative in being gracious.” This preference seems to suggest that Aristotle’s political economy might strike at the heart of commercialism, that is, if and only if gracious deeds become commercialized. While I am of course drawing an inference, on this point one might wish to consider in the Politics Aristotle’s comment that it is “reciprocal equality which preserves cities,”97 not “compacts” based on alliances or exchange. Even though the latter may concern itself with economic justice, it alone is not sufficient to constitute a polis.98 Agrarian social critics recount the basic gist of this argument numerous times in their defense of the local community. One consequence of the expansion of the principle of self-sufficiency from the oikos to the polis is the notion that in order to attain the natural end of self-sufficiency for the polis those engaged in politics need to practice the art of household management. These statesmen, of course, must have an overseer of their own household, or have some other means to care for their family’s needs, in order to give full attention to politics. When their own needs are met, they may be said to be leisured and able to practice politics, which includes provisioning the needs of the city. However, Aristotle claims that the active or political way of life is unleisured and only

                                                                                                                97 98

Aristotle, Politics, 56 (1261a29-31). Ibid., 98-99 (1280a31-b4, b17-24).

the philosopher, the fullest embodiment of ensouled autarkeia, is leisured.

99

If the

44  

practice of the art of household management is unleisured, then it seems to hold that the practice of the analogue of this art at the political level would be unleisured as well.100 Be that as it may, since Aristotle had an awareness of the public form of household economics, along with the private one, then, it makes all-the-more sense to speak of his economics as a political economy. With this in mind, a brief digression comparing Aristotle and Adam Smith, the alleged founder of political economy, is in accord. Both, for instance, subordinate political economy to statesmanship. Smith viewed it as a branch of political science, which, first, seeks the means to provide “a plentiful revenue and subsistence for the people” or, differently, to enable the people to provide these things for themselves; and secondly, it takes account of the “revenue sufficient for public services.” For Smith, political economy thus “proposes to enrich both the people and the sovereign.”101 In turn, Aristotle understood that, along with generalship, rhetorical skill and lawmaking, “household economics” was one of the “most honored capacities” under the master art of politics.102 Like Smith, Aristotle understood that household economics was an activity that an individual engaged in to supply the daily needs of his family as well as necessary for the polis, since “many cities need business and revenues,” even more so than households. Aristotle concludes, “there are some even among those engaged in                                                                                                                 99

See Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, 192 (1177a11-1178a9), where the contemplative man is the most self-sufficient and the political man is considered to be unleisured. See also Aristotle, Politics, 43 (1255b33-b37) regarding the leisure needed for politics and philosophy. 100 Please note by referring to the political analogue of household management proper, I am observing the distinction that Aristotle makes between household rule and political rule. See Politics, 35 (1252a7-16). 101 Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1976), 428. 102 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 2 (1094a27-b10).

politics who are concerned only with these matters.”

103

In this regard, oikonomike,

45  

the art of household management, has a private connotation as well as a public one for Aristotle, and in both senses constitute Aristotle’s approach to political economy. The acknowledgement that Aristotle’s political economy entails private and public economic behaviors has been adequately grasped by Booth, Swanson, Shulsky, and Chan. Booth and Swanson mainly critique Arendt for claiming that the ancients did not have a concept of political economy because the economy was a private affair.104 Arendt makes the mistake of associating the public wholly with the political and neglects to see how the private, along with the public, forms a part of the political, which is not to say that the private does not in rare moments transcend the political, namely, as witnessed by the contemplative life. Swanson, in response to Arendt’s claim, persuasively argues, “Indeed, since Aristotle contends that both the household and the city aim to achieve self-sufficiency (the self-sufficiency that is possible for each)…, it would be odd for him to offer only a theory of domestic economy.”105 Swanson, along with the other scholars, thus argues that Aristotle had a concept of a public economy.106 The case that Aristotle had a concept of the public economy has already been demonstrated in my digression comparing his thought to Smith’s. What this concept entails needs further elaboration, since it is at this juncture in the inquiry into Aristotle’s                                                                                                                

103

Aristotle, The Politics, 51 (1259a31-35). Booth, Households, 6, 7, 23, 55-56. 105 Swanson, The Public and the Private in Aristotle’s Political Philosophy, 70-71. 106 Ibid., 73; While Swanson argues that Polanyi had such a concept as well, she seems not to appreciate, or plays down, its implicit or not fully articulated presentation in Polanyi’s essay. Be that as it may, Swanson’s argument certainly ranks right up there with Booth’s account of Aristotle’s political economy. It is only lacking when it comes to historical depth, which was not her goal so much as it was one of Booth’s. It also doesn’t commit some of the errors that Shulsky’s interpretation makes, even though they both rightly point out the concessions Aristotle makes to commerce. 104

political economy where the claim is made that he “relaxes his strictures” on

46  

commerce. First, it should be kept in mind that the expansion of the art of household management to the polis entails that part of the art of statesmanship is ensuring that the polis has enough sustenance and revenue to carryout political affairs. Unlike provisioning the autarkeia of the oikos, which, according to Aristotle, “has nothing great or dignified about it”107 (agrarians would certainly disagree, as will be discussed in the section on Hesiod), the practice of public oikonomike, counted alongside rhetorical skill, lawmaking, and generalship, is one of the “most honored capacities” of statesmanship.108 After all, statesmen must be useful when it comes to deliberating on matters concerning “finances, war and peace, and also guarding territory, imports and exports, and lawmaking.” Public finance, for instance, requires an understanding of the city’s expenses and sources of income. As regards food, Aristotle says, “one needs to know how much is sufficient for the city, and what sort, including both the food grown by it and what is imported, and which items they need to export as well as which ones they need to import, in order to make contracts and treaties to be made for them.”109 This last point is important to keep in mind, as it shows how importing and exporting do not run counter to autarkeia. No account of Aristotle’s political economy has fully articulated that the principle of self-sufficiency still allows for foreign trade. This articulation is first applied to trade between households in a village or a polis

                                                                                                               

107

Aristotle, Politics, 43 (1255b33). Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 2 (1094a27-b12). 109 Aristotle, Rhetoric in Plato: Gorgias and Aristotle: Rhetoric, trans. Joe Sachs (Newburyport: Focus Publishing, 2009), 146 (1359b16-1360a16). 108

aimed at “natural self-sufficiency,” which is viewed as the same type of exchange

47  

among barbarian nations.110 It is continued in his discussion on necessary offices: First, then, of the necessary [offices] there is the superintendence connected with the market, for which there should be an office which has oversight in connection with agreements and with orderliness. For very nearly all cities must of necessity buy and sell certain things with a view to each other’s necessary requirements, and this is the readiest way to self-sufficiency, on account of which [men] are held to join together in one regime.111 Here it is shown that autarkeia is not synonymous with isolationism. Rather, all cities are required to engage in trade and commerce, albeit of a restricted nature, in order to meet the end for which they joined together—self-sufficiency. Even the best regime is not exempt from such a necessity. However, Aristotle is clear that a polis “should engage in trade for itself, not for others: those who set themselves up as a market for all do so for the sake of revenue….” Were it to engage in aggrandizing of this sort, it would be best not to have a trading center. Nonetheless, many cities have ports and harbors. They should, then, be situated so as to bring in good things and keep harmful things away and confined to individuals of a certain sort, who are presumably metics (resident aliens) or slaves and thus ought to be kept away from the citizens.112 The main political question that arises out of Aristotle’s notion of autarkeia is whether a lack of local, economic self-sufficiency has a tendency to undermine a regime’s political self-sufficiency. For instance, Booth states, “And down from the city was Piraeus, a trading port into which flowed grain for the no longer (if every fully) autarkic

                                                                                                               

110

Aristotle, Politics, 47 (1257a19-30). Ibid., 193 (1321b12-17). 112 Ibid., 206-207 (1327a11-39). 111

113

Athens.”

Booth, while certainly making a sensible comment, does not fully

48  

appreciate how attaining autarkeia does not preclude foreign trade for Aristotle. In light of Aristotle’s thoughts on economic self-sufficiency, Athens seems nonetheless to still qualify as being self-sufficient in both senses; but of course, the fact remains that its economic self-sufficiency became less secure in becoming more dependent upon foreign trade. Aristotle, unfortunately, is never explicit regarding the possible tension between the economic and political notions of autarkeia. This tension is more fully addressed by contemporary agrarian social critics. What is important to note is that self-sufficiency in the political sense implies that just as the hermit is deficient according to this standard what is beyond one’s fellow citizen is in turn excessive.114 The political sense of self-sufficiency seems to allow for a more distinct line than the economic sense, as Aristotle does not restrict the economic sense of self-sufficiency to that which is within one’s political borders. That Aristotle distinguishes two different senses of self-sufficiency is reasonable, since he subordinates economics to politics and, in so doing, demonstrates the rank ordering within the principle of self-sufficiency. It should come as no surprise that Aristotle is more exacting in what delineates political self-sufficiency. Yet that Aristotle thought that citizens should not be engaged in some economic matters is a prime example of the tension or interface between politics and economics or rather the political consequences of things economic. There is some confusion whether Aristotle’s expansion of household economics entails that he abandons a natural economic standard, which tends to be, in Shulsky’s                                                                                                                 113

Booth, Households, 34; see also 52, 57, 64, 80. Ronna Burger, Aristotle’s Dialogue with Socrates: On the Nicomachean Ethics (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008), 28. 114

and Chan’s account, solely associated with the household proper. Such confusion

49  

implies that Aristotle relinquishes the principle of self-sufficiency and thereby the natural economy when he acknowledges the necessity of trade between households and cities, which is clearly not the case as was just demonstrated. The phrasing of the “natural economy” first crops up, at least as far as I can tell, in Harvey Mansfield’s essay, “Marx on Aristotle: Freedom, Money, and Politics.”115 Aristotle’s “natural economy,” as Mansfield argues, is “determined by the different qualities of men with their different needs that nature presents to us, as it appears, beyond our capacity to change.” Insofar as opinions differ regarding these qualities and need, it can be called a “conventional economy,” since these opinions are of political significance. When the economy is oriented towards fulfilling needs, it is natural and conventional: “natural because the needs men find useful to society are imposed by nature, and conventional, because goods are not useful necessarily by nature and because useful goods do not exchange according to laws of nature or of economics.” Nature thus compels human beings to resort to exchange and politics in order to satisfy the needs of the community.116 In other words, the natural economy does not preclude the use of commerce and politics from a needs-oriented point of view. Even though money, being conventional and unnatural, requires the backing of political authority, the extent to which the needs-oriented economy predominates in a community, currency is employed for the end of “political self-sufficiency and not to transcend or to dispose of

                                                                                                               

115

Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr., “Marx on Aristotle: Freedom, Money, and Politics,” The Review of Metaphysics 34, no. 2 (1980): 351-367, see 357. 116 Ibid., 357.

politics.”

117

Autarkeia thus sets limits on economic activities and discourages

50  

individuals from associating the good life with an unlimited supply of wealth. Mansfield argues, “He thus indicates that the human good must include the subsistence of individuals and that the subsistence of individuals must stop at the human good.”118 Or to use Aristotle’s own words: For self-sufficiency in possessions of [genuine wealth] with a view to a good life is not limitless, as Solon asserts it to be in his poem: ‘of wealth no boundary lies revealed to men.’ There is such a boundary, just as in the other arts; for there is no art that has an instrument that is without limit either in number or in size, and wealth is the multitude of instruments belonging to expert household managers and political [rulers]. That there is a natural expertise for household managers and political [rulers], then, and the cause of this, is clear….119 So some hold that [the art of money-making] is the work of expertise in household management, and they proceed on the supposition that they should either preserve or increase without limit their property in money. The cause of this state is that they are serious about living, but not about living well; and since that desire of theirs is without limit, they also desire what is productive of unlimited things.120 Below this last passage, Aristotle goes on to critique those who are even serious about living well as misusing courage to acquire goods, such as military raids for the sake of gain, for they hold that gratification consists of excess.121 It seems, then, that whenever commerce reaches this point and consumes all with its passion for unlimited wealth, the economy can be said to be contrary to nature. In fact, when wealth maximization                                                                                                                 117

Ibid., 357. Ibid., 363. Mansfield seems to be the first to indicate that the natural economy was largely lost when households came together to form a polis. There is no doubt that the household economy is supplemented as Aristotle proceeds through the Politics. Yet because the economy reaches a fuller political expression doesn’t mean that the natural economy and its goal of autarkeia are discarded. See ibid., 367, where Mansfield says, “But the ‘political’ in ‘political economy’ is a remainder and a reminder of the natural economy.” Yet, given Mansfield’s previous understanding of the natural economy, one would think that the ‘political’ is not a “remainder and a reminder of the natural economy” but rather a fuller expression of how the natural economy is associated with our political nature. 119 Aristotle, Politics, 46 (1256b30-39). 120 Ibid., 48 (1257b37-1258a2). 121 Ibid., 48 (1258a2-13). 118

becomes the end of politics, one must wonder, according to Aristotle’s political

51  

philosophy, if such a polis is even a polis, that is, a regime which is dedicated to the political way of life—the good life. This problem, however, is not easily resolved, since Aristotle counts wealth-oriented Carthage among those that are praised for having good laws. Nonetheless, it is difficult to accept the understanding that Aristotle abandons the natural economy when he concedes the need for public finance and commerce. Yet, Shulsky makes such a claim: “The natural economic doctrines appear to have been totally abandoned. In any case, we are forced to consider what the natural economic standard is intended to mean in the context of a political reality that appears to be more complex and variegated than would appear from the discussion of the economically self-sufficient households of the first book.”122 He associates, then, the natural economic model only with the self-sufficient household. In such a context, Shulsky claims that Aristotle is seeking to persuade those who have “inherited a self-sufficient estate from one’s father” to leave its management in the overseer’s hands and engage in the political, or philosophic, way of life.123 This statement certainly has some merit. Although Aristotle may concede, paradoxically, that “the unnecessary sort of expertise in business [money-making]…we are in need of it,”124 he does not grant that it should be indulged to no end. I will concede that a political economy based solely on households seems to be the most natural of economies, if and only if they are in need of each other and thus can practice moderation and liberality. If households were wholly                                                                                                                

122

Shulsky, “The ‘Infrastructure’ of Aristotle’s Politics,” 101. Ibid., 103. 124 Aristotle, Politics, 49 (1258a14-15). 123

self-sufficient and not in need of one other, then one would encounter the problem of

52  

how such an economy squares with our political nature. Since needs, in terms of both the political and economical, bring us together not only for mere living (economic selfsufficiency) but for a life well lived (political self-sufficiency), then it does not seem to make sense that Aristotle’s admission that commerce, the unnecessary need, has a place in the polis wholly undermines the natural economy. To be more precise, selfsufficiency remains the aim of both politics and economics, not unlimited gain. As long as this remains the goal, then it is hard to say that Aristotle advocates an unnatural economy that is geared toward unlimited gain. Shulsky, unfortunately, does not explicitly say what becomes of the natural standard of self-sufficiency when the natural economic standard is abandoned. If taken far enough, his argument leads down the path I suggested, which I think we are safe to say is not one that Aristotle would advise. Shulsky’s problem seems to rest in not fully comprehending the centrality of self-sufficiency for Aristotle’s political economy. If economic self-sufficiency could only be understood as being attainable by a young aristocrat who inherits his father’s self-sufficient estate, then it would certainly be an odd natural standard. It would entail, as discussed earlier, a notion of self-sufficiency that precludes interdependence upon others, which is not Aristotle’s definition of self-sufficiency as it pertains to politics and economics. Yet, Shulsky argues, “Money is conventional and hence is a symbol of the economic interdependence of men in the city. This notion of economic interdependence goes against the grain for a proud aristocrat who would prefer to believe that in his relations with others (particularly his fellow citizens) he is acting voluntarily and from a

desire for honor, rather than necessity and for the sake of material need.”

125

However

53  

true that may be, Shulsky overemphasizes the rhetorical use of the natural economic standard. Although he is right up to a point, he thus misses how Aristotle modifies, while not rejecting, it as he proceeds through the Politics. Had he rejected the standard, he would have rejected its defining principle—autarkeia. That he does not entails that he has modified his take on the natural economy as he has expanded its end to include that of the city’s. Conclusion Suffice it to say, Aristotle’s interest in things economic did not reach the pitch that it did in modernity. Much to my chagrin, he even says that to spend a great deal of time in discussing economic matters is “crude.”126 In this regard, James H. Nichols, Jr. is right to say, “The subject of political economy has a distinctively secondary interest for Aristotle, and he treats it briefly, almost contemptuously.”127 Some have attributed his “almost” contemptuous treatment of economics to his rhetoric, which is meant to steer the gentlemen toward the good life of politics and away from acquisition of wealth and matters pertaining to mere living.128 The orientation of Aristotle’s political science toward the good life seems to distinguish his approach to political economy from the moderns. Abram Shulsky argues, which serves to show that he might be in agreement with my correction of his argument, “Aristotle’s economics, unlike, for instance, the science of economics as defined by Adam Smith, which ‘proposes to enrich both the                                                                                                                

125

Shulsky, “The ‘Infrastructure’ of Aristotle’s Politics,” 108-109. Aristotle, Politics, 50 (1258b33-36). 127 James H. Nichols, Jr., “Political Economy and the Development of Liberalism,” in The Liberal Tradition, eds. João Carlos Espada, Marc. F. Plattner, and Adam Wolfson (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2000), 121-122. 128 Shulsky, “The ‘Infrastructure’ of Aristotle’s Politics,” 105-110; Chan, Aristotle and Hamilton, 35-36. 126

people and the sovereign, is more concerned with limiting man’s desire for wealth

54  

than it is with showing him the means of fulfilling it.”129 This is not to say that someone like Smith was unaware of or unconcerned with the negative consequences of unleashing man’s desire for wealth. Rather, the striking difference between the two thinkers, as Nichols points out, is that “Smith does not treat political economy sketchily and tangentially, but as the fully developed subject of his largest book, elaborated in vast, if not precisely loving, detail, as comprising the ultimate goals of jurisprudence and of political society as such.”130 Be that as it may, any approach to economics qualified by Aristotle’s understanding of the “political” must recognize that wealth is not the end of politics. The alleged contempt modern economics holds for Aristotle’s political economy, as Polanyi was the first to bemoan,131 is due to the inability to see beyond what Aristotle held in contempt and toward the highest ends of a polis, which it goes without saying are neither unlimited wealth nor unlimited power. The turn toward a normative or philosophic political economy thus requires one to seek “a practical human science which thoughtfully investigates and articulates not only economic activity but the place of such activity in the moral/political whole of human life.”132 It is an acknowledgment that there is a master science or art higher than economics.

                                                                                                               

129

Ibid., 111. This is not to say that Smith was unaware or unconcerned with the negative consequences of unleashing man’s desire for wealth. 130 Nichols, “Political Economy and the Development of Liberalism,” 124. 131 Polanyi, “Aristotle Discovers the Economy,” 76. 132 Nichols, “The Political Economy and the Development of Liberalism,” 130.

CHAPTER II: THE QUARREL BETWEEN REPUBLICS AGRARIAN AND COMMERICIAL IN ARISTOTLE’S POLITICAL ECONOMY Introduction This chapter is to a great degree a continuation of the previous one. I address some of the more provocative, yet thoughtful, claims presented by Michael D. Chan in his Aristotle and Hamilton: On Commerce and Statesmanship. Chan’s analysis continues Shulsky’s line of argument, to whom he is greatly indebted, and advances it to its most pronounced level, in that he believes Aristotle gives “two cheers to commerce” and reserves his highest praise for the “commercial” regime of Carthage, not the “agrarian” regime of Sparta.133 In challenging the alleged agrarianism of Aristotle (Douglass Adair and Victor Davis Hanson being the most notable thinkers to hold this position), Chan’s analysis takes the discussion regarding Aristotle’s political economy to the next stage, which could be termed the quarrel between republics agrarian and commercial. The main difficulty with Chan’s depiction of this quarrel is whether or not Sparta is the best example of an agrarian regime, especially since the citizen-warriors of Sparta were not farmers. That the wealth or economy of Sparta was based on agriculture does not mean it was agrarian, as that term is understood in its political sense, where the farmers are citizen-soldiers. Before confronting Chan’s understanding of Aristotle’s political economy, I will show how the notion of political                                                                                                                 133

Michael D. Chan, Aristotle and Hamilton: On Commerce and Statesmanship (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006), 11-12, 43-53, 216.

134

agrarianism

can be deduced from Aristotle’s political thought and how it bears

56  

upon his principle of self-sufficiency. That it can be deduced does not necessarily mean that Aristotle’s political economy champions political agrarianism. Rather, it is probably better to say that his friendship with political agrarianism is like Tocqueville’s friendship with the democracy of early America: cautious, not zealous; hopeful, not despairing. The principal task of Aristotle’s political economy is to study the exchange between the activities of politics and economics. According to Judith Swanson, one place to begin is by noticing how “economic arrangements of a regime necessarily shape the moral virtues of the inhabitants: what, where, and how often they produce, acquire, and consume affects their potential for happiness.” In turn, one must also study how a people’s “moral constitution, as shaped by their education or training, bear[s] on the economy.”135 Aristotle’s political economy, for instance, takes notice of how an occupation shapes the regime, which is why he speaks of different forms of democracy depending upon the predominate occupation of the multitude. It is to this aspect of his political economy that I now turn. Aristotle’ s Moderate Friendship with Political Agrarianism In Book I of the Politics, Aristotle makes his famed distinction between natural and unnatural forms of acquisition. The natural forms are the nomad, the farmer, the pirate, the fisher, and the hunter. Among these the farming population, who “lives from the land and from cultivated crops,” are the most numerous. Some people, however, “live                                                                                                                

134

While I believe agrarianism properly understood is political, I at times, especially in this chapter, speak of “political agrarianism” in order to emphasis that is not simply an economic order of society. 135 Judith Swanson, The Public and the Private in Aristotle’s Political Philosophy, 93-94.

pleasantly by combining several of these in order to compensate for the shortcomings

57  

of one way of life, where it happens to be deficient with regard to being selfsufficient.”136 Aristotle’s treatment of household management encompasses all the natural ways, save for piracy, of acquiring necessary things for the sake of material autarkeia. In addition to a “free sort of study” of these ways, Aristotle counsels, “experience in them is a necessity.” It appears, although I admit there is some ambiguity here, that those engaged in a free sort of study must experience the natural forms of acquisition and not those of trade or mining, since he only speaks of experiencing the forms of acquisition associated with “primary elements” of “business in its most proper sense.”137 These primary elements make up genuine wealth and supply one with what is necessary for living as well as “useful for partnership in a city or a household.”138 If one understands the production of these elements to be characteristic of an agrarian household or regime, then Aristotle certainly seems to favor agrarianism over trade or exchange, which encompasses the maintenance of a ship, transportation, marketing, money-lending, and wage labor. This brief sketch of Book I, at least, gives the impression that Aristotle is a defender of agrarianism. For instance, Swanson argues, his portrait of the best regime promotes a fundamentally agrarian economy supported by public and private farmers…. Fundamental agrarianism is not, however, pure agrarianism; self-sufficiency cannot be achieved, Aristotle teaches, without a profit-generating market. Furthermore, one must always bear in mind that Aristotle proposes both ideal and second-best measures. Agrarianism can be expected to prevail only among a certain populace. Where virtue is not the norm, legislators should expect money-making will attract most men; accordingly, if they                                                                                                                 136

Aristotle, Politics, 45 (1256a31-b3). Ibid., 50 (1258b9-33). 138 Ibid., 45-46 (1256b26-30). 137

are concerned to preserve the regime, they should legislate only to discourage, not to prohibit, money-making among citizens.139

58  

Swanson makes the helpful distinction between “pure” and “fundamental” agrarianism and seems to imply that the former embodies a notion of self-sufficiency that is impracticable and hence unrealizable. With her emphasis on “fundamental agrarianism,” she moves beyond the narrow interpretation that associates the principle of self-sufficiency solely with the household, even though it is true that households sought to be as self-sufficient as possible. When, however, their needs were not fully met, they joined together in villages and in turn discovered the polis, which marked a fuller sense of self-sufficiency. That there are stages on the way to self-sufficiency does not prove that self-sufficiency is unattainable if a household cannot achieve it. In order to attain this goal, Aristotle makes allowances not only for bartering or displays of generosity with one’s neighbors but also for trade. The acceptance that trade is necessary even for the best regime, however, does not inevitably undermine an agrarian economy, which is Swanson’s point when she speaks of a “fundamental agrarianism.” Swanson, however, retains the economic formulation of agrarianism, save in one place in the quote above, where she implies agrarianism prevails only among a virtuous population, which suggests that cultivation of the soil necessarily entails that of the soul. The association of agrarianism with virtue, for the most part, is a prominent teaching of political agrarianism. Yet, when speaking of what “one would pray for,” Aristotle makes the farmers servile and thus not virtuous in any political sense, for to be spirited or of the same stock would not permit them to be either useful in terms of work

                                                                                                                139

Swanson, The Public and the Private in Aristotle’s Political Philosophy, 76-77.

140

or safe when it comes to rebellion.

That the farmer is to be a slave in the best

59  

regime ought to temper those who claim that Aristotle is devoted to political agrarianism. Swanson’s formulation of agrarianism, then, does not capture the fullest sense of the term. In fact, the “public and private farmers” of the best regime are slaves, and the agrarianism of the best regime is simply economical. Her formulation of the issue is thus misleading when she says, “Agrarianism can be expected to prevail only among a certain populace. Where virtue is not the norm, legislators should expect money-making will attract most men.” She seems to confuse the agrarian democracy of Book VI of the Politics that is based on a “certain quality” of a populace with the virtuous citizenry of the best regime in Book VII. The difference between the two can be understood in Michael Davis’s description of the agrarian populace: “To encourage farming as a way of life is to affect how people will vote—what they will want— without depriving them of their freedom to vote as they wish. They will understand themselves as, and be, free, but their way of life will be the cause of their freedom rather than their freedom the cause of their way of life.”141 The citizens of the best regime, while certainly grounded in an agrarian economy, are free from the concerns of household management, since overseers tend to such matters, and are thus free to pursue the way of life they think best. Her emphasis, nonetheless, on “fundamental agrarianism” is still good, if taken in a strictly economical sense, in that she shows how a fundamentally agrarian regime does not preclude, for Aristotle, those “unnatural” forms of occupations. One only                                                                                                                 140

Aristotle, Politics, 213 (1330a25-27). Michael Davis, The Politics of Philosophy: A Commentary on Aristotle’s Politics (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1996), 114.

141

needs to remember that for Aristotle the polis is composed of many elements—

60  

farmers, artisans, marketers, laborers, and warriors—for the sake of self-sufficiency.142 In this regard, the quarrel between commerce and agriculture is ultimately decided upon the predominate occupation in which the people are engaged and what type of economy contributes most to the public economy. Swanson aptly states, “The need for commerce in all regimes, even in the best, accounts in part for Aristotle’s inclusion of ‘an excursus on liberal economic theory’ in his defense of agrarianism in Book I of the Politics (chap. 8-11).”143 It is worth noting that this formulation depicts commerce as sanctioned by necessity, while agrarianism is more worthy of a defense in being the economic basis of a regime. A defense of an agrarian based economy suggests that the matter is not simply economical, but points perhaps to how an occupation might shape the character of a people. With this in mind, one would be right to wonder why Aristotle prays that the farmers are servile in the best regime. In response to Hippodamus’ best regime, Aristotle provides reasons for attacking his own standard. He argues, “It would have been reasonable to make the farmers a part of the city if they provided sustenance to those possessing arms.” What is curious about this suggestion is that Hippodamus did just that along with making the artisans and warriors share in the regime; however, he neglected to give the artisans and farmers arms. This leads Aristotle to claim, “The artisans and the farmers and those possessing arms all participate in the regime, although the farmers have no arms and the artisans neither land nor arms—so that they become virtually slaves of those possessing arms.” How, then, does Aristotle’s remark regarding the reasonableness of making                                                                                                                 142 143

Ibid., 123 (1290b40-1291a10). Swanson, The Public and the Private in Aristotle’s Political Philosophy, 81-82.

them a part of the city remove the problem that those possessing arms seem

61  

necessarily to be the rulers and citizens? In Hippodamus’ regime, the farmers farm on private land for themselves only, and by making the farmers contribute to the sustenance of the warriors would be one way to enfranchise them. As it stands, Hippodamus’ plan seems to unintentionally require the warriors to either farm their own land, and thus there is no difference between the “fighting and the farming element,” or the warriors must enslave farmers, which introduces an “additional fourth part of the city which shares in nothing and is hostile to the regime.”144 But isn’t this exactly what Aristotle’s best regime would do? He prays, however, for the farmers to be servile and thus dispirited, which suggests a situation that is unlikely, since farmers tend to be courageous and of a free sort of people, at least as far as occupations are concerned. Why, then, did Aristotle not simply follow his own advice regarding what was reasonable? In so doing, the farmers would participate in the regime and contribute to its defense by provisioning the warrior class. It seems, however, that for Aristotle, who in keeping with commonsense, notes that those possessing arms are usually presumed to hold political authority. The advocate of political agrarianism must wonder why Aristotle is seemingly silent concerning the option of having a farmer-citizen-warrior class. It should be mentioned in this context that Aristotle explicitly states, “it is evident from these things that in the city that is most finely governed—one possessing men who are just unqualifiedly and not in relation to a presupposition—the citizens should not live a vulgar or a merchant’s way of life, for this sort of way of life is                                                                                                                 144

Aristotle, Politics, 71 (1267b21-1268b4). See also 219 (1332b21-35).

ignoble and contrary to virtue.” Aristotle nowhere in the Politics blatantly refers to

62  

the farming way of life as being ignoble. Yet, he goes on to argue, “Nor, indeed, should those who are going to be [citizens in such a regime], be farmers; for there is a need for leisure both with a view to the creation of virtue and with a view to political activities.”145 The lack of leisure entails that one lives merely by necessity, not by choice or virtue. Not all farmers, however, lack resources or leisure, and Aristotle even concedes, “it often happens that the same persons bear arms and farm.” In this regard, the farmer-warrior belongs more to the city, since he supplies more than necessary private needs by also belonging to the military element of a regime.146 Those possessing heavy-arms were usually of the farming class and tended to be moderately self-sufficient.147 In one sense, Aristotle seems to be saying that the vast majority of farmers are not self-sufficient enough to engage in politics, whereas elsewhere he concedes that they are self-sufficient enough to own arms and belong to the hoplite class. In the Rhetoric, he goes so far as to give voice to a common opinion regarding the ethos of the agrarian class: Also, people like those who are inclined to do good in matters of money or safety, which is why they honor those who are generous, courageous, and just; and they assume that those who do not live off others are of this sort, and that includes people who make a living by working, among whom are those who live by farming, and most of all, in comparison to the rest, those who work their own land. And they like those who are temperate, because they are not unjust, and those who stay out of other people’s business, for the same reason.148

                                                                                                                145

Ibid., 210-211 (1328b37-1329a2). Ibid., 124 (1291a23-33). See also 104 (1283a17-23). 147 Cf. Ibid., 191 (1321a12-14). 148 Aristotle, Rhetoric, 198 (1381a19-25). 146

Not only are the farmers deemed to be courageous, just, and temperate but also

63  

generous. To be generous requires a surplus of goods, so that one is able to act liberally toward others. Certainly, not all farmers attained this degree of economic selfsufficiency. The praise, however, of those “who work their own land” suggests a middling class of farmers who were small proprietors of moderate economic independence and thus able to meet the necessary property qualifications to be citizens. The farmers who managed to gain the status of small proprietor and citizen were known as the agrarian mesoi (middling element). If Aristotle were friendly toward any form of political agrarianism, it would be those who were self-sufficient enough to be involved in political matters on a need-to-need basis. The political agrarianism embodied in the hoplite soldier, not the cavalrymen of the plains, seems to mark the advent of republicanism. The warrior element, in other words, changed as ancient regimes made the transition from kingly and oligarchic rule to political or constitutional rule. This occurred primarily as a result of the cavalrymen losing out to the strength and preeminence of the hoplites. Aristotle claims, But as cities increase in size and those with [heavy] arms provided relatively more strength, more persons shared in the regime. Hence the regimes we now call polities used to be called democracies. That the ancient regimes were oligarchic and kingly is reasonable: on account of a lack of manpower [cities] did not have much of a middling element, so being relatively few both in number and in organizations, [the people] put up with being ruled.149 The middling sort of people seems to be those associated with the farming way of life. After all, this occupation was the one in which most people were engaged, and the one where people could become moderately well-off to the point of having the means to                                                                                                                

149

Aristotle, Politics, 138-139 (1297b13-28).

possess the hoplite panoply, which served as a badge of self-sufficient citizenry, since

64  

the public did not begin providing the seventy-pound panoply until the fourth century.150 Victor Davis Hanson describes this political arrangement: Greek battle gear was simply the wartime reflection of a yeoman’s plot. Both were beyond the reach of the poor, both nearly uniform-sized possessions of a larger matrix of kindred agrarians, both requiring backbreaking toil ill-suited to nonfarmers. If the countryside was to be a patchwork of roughly similar farms worked by leather-clad yeomen, the phalanx was an analogous grid of identically bronze-clothed fighters. Whether a farmer looked over at his neighbor’s plot, or over at the man next to him in battle, or over at the agriculturalist seated next to him in the assembly, the unique egalitarianism of the agrarian polis was continually reemphasized and enhanced.151 Given the restrictions on commerce and trade prior to the rise of the Athenian empire, it is likely that Aristotle is describing the emergence of a middling agrarian class that gave birth to political rule or republicanism. He describes such an arrangement as follows: “Now when the farming element and that possessing a moderate amount of property have authority over the regime, they govern themselves in accordance with laws. For they have enough to live on as long as they work, but are unable to be at leisure, so they put the law in charge and assemble only for necessary assemblies.”152 This regime imposes a moderate property qualification upon those who wish to have a say in its affairs. It remains democratic because citizenship is open to all who attain the proper amount of property, where moderate economic self-sufficiency is the standard. The transition, then, from the ancient regimes, which lacked a middling element, seems to

                                                                                                                150

Hanson, The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995, 1999, with a new preface and bibliographic essay), 247248. 151 Ibid., 247. 152 Aristotle, Politics, 127 (1292b24-29).

necessarily give way to an agrarian republic that had a strong middling element of

65  

farmer-warrior-citizens. The statement of Aristotle’s that usually receives the loudest applause from the agrarians is the one where he asserts that the best form of democracy arises from the best sort of people—farmers. Not only does he call it the best but also the oldest and apparently the most conservative.153 There is thus no progressivism in Aristotle’s account of democratic regimes, since the last form deviates the most from the best. It did so by enfranchising as many people as possible by offering them pay for public service.154 One thus has some understanding of what Aristotle’s thoughts might be regarding the radical, democratic imperialism of the Athenian empire. Be that as it may, Aristotle’s praise of the best sort of people is often interpreted as being advantageous in keeping “people too busy for politics; they will happily elect—on the basis of wealth or capability—a few among them to rule (Pol 1318b9-1319a4). Encouraging farming is, then, a way to turn democracy into oligarchy or aristocracy.”155 It certainly makes the regime more oligarchic or aristocratic when it comes to filling the offices with the best persons. Since the multitude, however, retains authority over audits, elections, and adjudication, it should go without saying that the regime is balanced nicely. Moreover, his first sort of democracy, not to mention his first sort of oligarchy, seems to pass the test of being a good mixture of democracy and oligarchy,                                                                                                                 153

Ibid., 186 (1318b6-10). Ibid., 128 (1292b40-1293a10), 188 (1319b1-32). 155 Swanson, The Public and the Private in Aristotle’s Political Philosophy, 90-91, note 67. See also Leo Strauss, Socrates and Aristophanes (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1966), 105; and Davis, The Politics of Philosophy: A Commentary on Aristotle’s Politics, 67-68, 76, 79-80, and especially 113114. I have yet to read an account of Aristotle’s Politics that was more philosophically impressive than Davis’s. Even though I disagree with him on the agrarian democracy, his account on this matter is firstrate and thus worth considering. 154

in that “it should be possible for the same polity to be spoken of as either a democracy

66  

or an oligarchy, and it is clear that it is because the mixture is a fine one that those who speak of it do so in this way.”156 Perhaps this is why some interpret such a scheme as encouraging the regime to turn into an oligarchy or an aristocracy. Nonetheless, this interpretation seems to make the case that Aristotle’s praise of the farming way of life is a deceptive device to keep middling farmers away from politics. Aristotle counsels the opposite, for he says, “Many of those who want to set up aristocratic regimes as well [as polities] thoroughly err not only by the fact that they distribute more to the well off, but also by deceiving the people. For in time from things falsely good there must result a true evil, and the aggrandizements of the wealthy are more ruinous to the polity than those of the people.”157 Moreover, the fact that the agricultural population elects the well-off or those who are politically capable to office implies that they are willing to be ruled, while retaining the right to audit those who abuse their rule. Aristotle aptly conveys this willingness of the ruled: “Those who govern themselves in this way must necessarily be finely governed.”158 No deception is required in this regime. Not desiring the things of others, farmers take more pleasure in adorning the domestic life with the goods from the land than they do in the honors bestowed in politics.159 The most remarkable thing, however, regarding Aristotle’s account of an agrarian democracy is that it is considered to be advantageous and customary to arrange the offices this way.160 Aristotle alludes to such an arrangement when he speaks of “the                                                                                                                 156

Aristotle, Politics, 131-132 (1294b13-17); see 133 (1295a31-33), where for practical reasons Aristotle conflates his distinction between aristocracies and polities, and says, “we may speak of both as one.” 157 Ibid., 137 (1297a7-13). 158 Ibid., 186 (1318b32-33). 159 Ibid., 186 (1318b13-17). 160 Ibid., 186 (1318b27-28).

only way possible for democracy and aristocracy to exist together is if someone

67  

instituted this,” that is, profitless rule open to all.161 In being open to all it is democratic, but the poor will be too busy and the notables will be free to engage in profitless rule, or rather rule for the common good. That this way of life was at one point spoken of as customary and now in need of being instituted suggests that the political agrarianism associated with the oldest form of democracy had lost some ground to the newer and lesser forms of democracy in ancient Greece. After Aristotle praises the farmers for governing themselves in a fine way, he comments on the similarity between the farmers and the herdsmen, that is, those who live from ranching livestock. Aristotle says, “These are in a condition very similar to farmers, and in what relates to military activities they are particularly well exercised with respect to their dispositions as well as useful with respect to their bodies and capable of living in the open.”162 Although it is tempting to include this class among the political agrarians, and such an inclusion is probably warranted regarding the “diversified farm,” the similarities between the two in ancient Greece ought to be noted, while understanding that the farming class was the significantly larger of the two and could maintain itself better by settling a small piece of land, usually no more than ten acres, than by herding livestock from place to place. It, perhaps, goes without saying that the constant need of the herdsman to remain with his livestock limited his involvement in politics to a greater degree than even that of the farmer. That Aristotle comments on how their occupations contribute to military activities, however, suggests that their involvement in war was not negligible.                                                                                                                

161 162

Ibid., 164 (130832-1309a14). Ibid., 187 (1319a20-24).

It is only after praising these two natural occupations that Aristotle’s tone

68  

changes toward the other sorts of democratic multitudes. Aristotle asserts, “The other sorts of multitude out of which the remaining sorts of democracy are constituted are almost all much meaner than these: their way of life is a mean one, with no task involving virtue among the things that occupy the multitude of human beings who are vulgar persons and merchants or the multitude of laborers.”163 With this statement in mind, it is easy to understand, as argued above, why Aristotle seems to only counsel the noble youth to take up, in addition to their “free sort of study,” the experience of the natural forms of acquisition and not those that occupy the “much meaner” multitudes. These youth ought, then, to serve in tasks usually associated with servants with a view to what is noble.164 Considering Aristotle’s comments on the political attributes associated with the occupations of farming, it seems likely that these pursuits would be encouraged upon the young as a form of recreation in their education. Not only do such pursuits encourage a healthy disposition in terms of martial virtue. It seems likely that the youth are given an outlet to exercise their youthful desire to rule, while not partaking in political rule before they are ready. The youth, moreover, come to understand that they must look to what will enable them to rule politically and in a fine way by first having been ruled,165 not to mention knowing how to provide first for the necessary things before engaging in a politics.166 It is clear, however, that Aristotle prohibits the youth from engaging in those tasks that would render useless the body, soul, and mind of a free person. These seem not to be farming or herding but what he                                                                                                                

163

Ibid., 187 (1319a24-28). Ibid., 219-220 (1333a7-10). 165 Ibid., 219 (1333a2-3). 166 Cf. Ibid., 233 (1338b32-36). 164

calls “vulgar,” both in the sense of the kind of arts that “bring the body into a worse

69  

state and wage-earning sorts of work, for they make the mind a thing abject and lacking in leisure.”167 This statement gives further evidence to the interpretation that Aristotle in Book I counsels those engaged in a free sort of study to experience the natural occupations and not those of the unnatural, vulgar sort. In fact, Aristotle’s counsel seems to be one that balances out the tendency of the zealous student to neglect his body while pursuing his studies: “while it is not unfree to share in some of the liberal sciences up to a certain point, to persevere overly much in them with a view to proficiency is liable to involve the sorts of injury just mentioned,” namely, the bodily defects associated with the vulgar arts.168 Gymnastics is obviously the preferred remedy to this negative consequence associated with a liberal education. But that Aristotle recommends a student to experience the natural occupations could be considered as praise for these ways of life, even if indirect or incidental. It certainly suggests that if Aristotle were to give “two cheers” to any occupations, it would not be those belonging to commerce or trade. In this light, Aristotle’s political economy to some degree could be described as Rousseau’s has been, namely, as being devoted primarily to “moral education.”169 According to Allan Bloom, The social arrangement of property that he asserts should follow from the study of man’s natural condition is not that of commercial societies but that of agricultural communities, where production requires only simple skills, where the division of labor is not extreme, where exchange is direct and the virtuosos of finance play little role, where inequalities of land and money are, if not abolished, limited, where avarice has little opportunity for activity, and where the motive for work is immediate                                                                                                                 167

Ibid., 230 (1337b4-12). Ibid., 230 (1337b14-17). 169 Allan Bloom, “Rousseau—The Turning Point,” in Confronting the Constitution: The Challenge to Locke, Montesquieu, Jefferson, and The Federalists from Utilitarianism, Historicism, Marxism, Freudianism, Pragmatism, Existentialism…, ed. Allan Bloom (D.C.: The AEI Press, 1990), 220. 168

necessity. The scale should not become such that men are abstractions while money is real. A modest sufficiency of goods and a moderate disposition, not the hope of riches and their perpetual increase, should be the goal of political equality.170

70  

Like Rousseau’s, Aristotle’s political economy is thus not simply concerned with how one attains the necessary things for living but how such a political economy informs the character of the people. This dimension of political economy goes to the heart of the quarrel between commercial societies and agrarian communities. Douglass Adair gives Aristotle primacy of place when it comes to espousing the need of an agrarian base for republicanism. He claims, Aristotle’s agrarianism was in part an economic theory, in part a theory of human psychology, in part a scheme of ethical values, but above all it was a hypothesis of how to base a stable government on popular suffrage. With a society of composed of self-sufficient and economically independent farmers, whose way of life was the golden mean of virtue between riches and poverty, it would be possible, the Greek claimed, to set up a republican government exempt from struggle…. The leaders of ‘Jefferson democracy’ were summing up in American terms a traditional theory whose origins date back to the Fourth Century before Christ; than an agrarian base is necessary for a free republican state.171 Adair, moreover, argues that the leaders of Jeffersonian democracy conceived of their “sociology of occupations” in political terms”: “Their economic theory was political economy.”172 It should be mentioned that the Aristotle with whom both Hamilton and Jefferson were familiar was the one translated by John Gillies, and it is for this reason that Adair himself makes use of Gillies’ translation. This is noteworthy given how Gillies translates what occupations the citizens in the best regime will and will not be                                                                                                                

170

Ibid., 222-223. Douglass G. Adair, The Intellectual Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy: Republicanism, the Class Struggle, and the Virtuous Farmer (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2000; originally published as his dissertation, which was written in 1943, in 1964 by Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture), 1. 172 Ibid., 165. 171

involved. They will not “cultivate commerce” but rather they will “more profitably as

71  

well as more honourably be employed, in cultivation of the soil and in the production of necessaries; the occupation which is of all others the best adapted to the bulk of mankind, the most favorable to the health of their minds and bodies, and therefore the best fitted to promote national prosperity.”173 This rendering of Aristotle seems to establish him as the promoter, if not founder, of the teaching of political agrarianism. Unfortunately, it is not how a more literal translation reads, nor does it match up with his “prayer” that the farmers be dispirited and servile and moreover distinct from the spirited fighting element of the best regime.174 He states explicitly that the citizens are not to be farmers, since “there is a need for leisure both with a view to the creation of virtue and with a view to political activities."175 It is worth remembering that these thoughts pertain to Aristotle’s best regime. Aristotle is careful to advise that the political expert ought not to get carried away with the regime that is superior simply and neglect what is the best possible given the circumstances.176 He reiterates this point when he conflates in his practical inquiry the distinction between aristocracies and polities and begins his praise of the middling element.177 When this middling element takes root in an oligarchy or a democracy, these regimes are in “an adequate condition in spite of departing from the best arrangement. But if someone tightens either of them further, he will make the regime worse first of all, and eventually not even a regime.”178 These “adequate” regimes                                                                                                                 173

Ibid., 48-49. Aristotle, Politics, 212-213 (1329a40-1330a33). 175 Ibid., 210-211 (1328b40-1329a2). 176 Ibid., 118-119 (1288b21-1289a1). 177 Ibid., 133-134 (1295a25-1295b5). 178 Ibid., 166 (1309b17-34). 174

perhaps are better termed a polity, since when the “multitude of middling persons

72  

predominates either over both of the extremities together or over one alone, there a lasting polity is capable of existing.”179 Although polity is a mean between oligarchy and democracy, the regime composed of a middling people is “closer to [rule of] the people than to [rule of] the few, and this is the most stable of regimes of this sort."180 In all likelihood, then, Aristotle’s polity that emerged from the ancient regimes of kingly and oligarchic rule was composed of the hoplite-farmers. It is, moreover, the agrarian republic that seems to have been more customary among the Greek poleis than the ideal polis. Victor Davis Hanson’s The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization has greatly influenced, as should be obvious, my own interpretation of Aristotle’s thought on the mesoi as being agrarians, hoplite warriors, and conservative citizens. Although his book does not deal solely with Aristotle, the references to him are only rivaled by those to Thucydides. And those references that are clearly the most relevant are associated with Aristotle. Hanson thus asserts, “Aristotle, who best of all ancient thinkers understood the equation between yeomanry, constitutional government, and hoplite warfare, felt the agricultural class was the best population, and, once armed, it alone made the polis ‘great.’”181 Hanson’s argument in general, as I have tried to demonstrate on my own terms, has the right reading of Aristotle’s Politics, at least as it pertains to the relevance of understanding the role of agrarianism in it. Furthermore, I must admit to sharing Paul Rahe’s sentiment when he                                                                                                                

179

Ibid., 137 (1296b38-40). Ibid., 131 (1294a40-b1), 149 (1302a13-15). 181 Hanson, The Other Greeks, 238. 180

says, in a review of Hanson’s book, “At every point he is sensitive to information

73  

conveyed in the surviving evidence that city slickers, such as myself, inevitably overlook; and slowly, inexorably, piecing together fragments gleaned from a thousand of sources, he builds up a persuasive picture of a transformation in agricultural technique more profound in its implications for human life than the Industrial Revolution.”182 Were in not for Hanson’s interpretation of Aristotle, I would not have given too much thought to the relevance of agrarianism in giving birth to a distinct way of warfare and government. In this regard, Rahe’s praise of Hanson’s book is appropriate: “No one who teaches ancient Greek history, no one who studies classical civilization, can afford to ignore what Hanson has uncovered. All future work on the polis will take this book as its starting point.”183 My only reservation, however, when it comes to Hanson’s interpretation is that he does not give much attention to Aristotle’s treatment of the farming class in the best regime. When Hanson speaks of what for Aristotle makes a polis “great,” it is likely, given the context of Book VII where this claim is made, he has in mind a warrior class that is distinct from the farming one, such as Sparta. Aristotle implies that this distinction, however, is atypical in the poleis of ancient Greece, since he finds it necessary to call to his audience’s attention that such a division “seems not to be something that is familiar to those philosophizing about the regime only at present or in recent times.” Aside from the obvious example of Sparta, which Aristotle does not mention in this context, he cites Egypt and Crete as examples of the regime he has in                                                                                                                 182

Paul Rahe, “Review of Hanson’s The Other Greeks,” in American Journal of Philology 118.3 (1997): 459-462, see 459 for quote. 183 Ibid., 461.

184

mind. Elsewhere he mentions Sparta and Thessaly along with Crete.

Despite this

74  

possible error, Hanson goes too far when he says, “Fourth-century thinkers like Plato and Aristotle, so troubled by the growing diminution of agrarian conservatism in their own times, so disturbed by the increasing number of nonlanded residents and the amount of capital outside of farming, naturally put egalitarian landowning at the center of their reactionary philosophical utopias.”185 Both Aristotle and Plato in their best regimes make the farmers distinct from the warriors, and Aristotle “prays” that they remain servile. Their philosophical utopias hardly espouse political agrarianism. For this reason, it is difficult for me to accept that Aristotle unqualifiedly was “to champion farm-owning egalitarianism.”186 Be that as it may, my own interpretation is rather moderate and posits that Aristotle was at the most a friend of political agrarianism, since he understood the political benefits that were associated with the farming way of life. His silence regarding these benefits when he gives his version of the best regime should be more discouraging than Plato’s silence, since Aristotle is arguably more practical than Plato in this regard. The fact that Aristotle commends the policies of Egypt and Crete on dividing the farming element from the warrior element demonstrates sufficiently that he thought political agrarianism was not the best practical arrangement. What is puzzling is that Aristotle was well aware of the problems the Spartans and Thessalians had with their enslaved farmers. He, nevertheless, seems to favor such an arrangement in terms of the best regime, not to mention the reputable regimes, which include Sparta, Crete,                                                                                                                 184

Aristotle, Politics, 73-74 (1269a36-39), 212 (1329a40-1329b3). Hanson, The Other Greeks, 400. 186 Ibid., 189. 185

and Carthage. Despite these reservations of mine, Hanson’s articulation that

75  

Aristotle’s mesoi were agrarians remains entirely convincing, and is enough to show that Aristotle does not go so far as to make the best in general or what has the highest reputation the enemy of a good agrarian republic. Aristotle himself cautions, “For one should study not only the best regime but also the regime that is [the best] possible, and similarly also the regime that is easier and more attainable for all. As it is, however, some seek only the one that is at the peak and requires much equipment, while others, though speaking of an attainable sort of regime, disregard those that exist and instead praise the Spartan or some other [single one].”187 Critique of Chan’s “Two Cheers for Commerce” in Aristotle’s Political Economy My claim that Aristotle is a moderate friend of political agrarianism is meant to walk the line between Hanson’s portrayal of him as a whole-hearted champion of political agrarianism and Michael Chan’s claim that Aristotle praises “commercial Carthage” over “agrarian Sparta.” In making this claim, Chan argues that Aristotle gives “two cheers to commerce.” Chan’s interpretation follows in the line of those who point to Aristotle’s concessions to commerce, and in this regard, his indebtedness to Shulsky is apparent. Chan’s main argument for Aristotle’s “two cheers to commerce” is, however, the focus of his study, whereas in Shulsky’s account it is largely contained within in a footnote. Shulsky, first, comments, “it is striking that Aristotle reserves what appears to be his highest praise for a regime that openly honors wealth and in which the leading citizens carry on business activities.” In the footnote to this comment, Shulsky goes on to say,                                                                                                                 187

Aristotle, Politics, 119 (1288b37-1289a1).

In particular, compare 1271b18-19, ‘concerning the regime of the Lacedaemonians, then, let this much be said, for these are the things one might particularly criticize,’ with 1272b24-25, ‘the Carthaginians are also held to govern themselves in a way that is fine and in many respects extra-ordinary compared to others.’ Although Aristotle never explicitly ranks the Carthaginian, Cretan, and Spartan regimes with respect to each other, the contrast between faithfulness of the Carthaginian demos and the frequent uprisings of the helots is striking.188

76  

So what Shulsky finds “striking” in Aristotle reserving “what appears to be his highest praise” for wealth-oriented Carthage, Chan reframes into a quarrel between republics commercial and agrarian in Aristotle’s political economy. Such a reframing puts to the test the alleged agrarianism of Aristotle’s Politics, and as a result, he initiates a new stage in the inquiry into Aristotle’s political economy. Chan understands fully that his conclusions are not orthodox: “my interpretation of Aristotle’s political economy yields the unconventional conclusion that Aristotle, while certainly not an enthusiastic supporter of commerce, nevertheless may be said to give commerce ‘two cheers’ of praise.”189 While I am more in disagreement with Chan concerning his conclusions, I find his general portrayal of Aristotle’s political economy to be one of the bests, and for the most part, it is an improvement over Shulsky’s. My own critique will thus focus most explicitly on Chan’s conclusions regarding the puzzling quarrel in Aristotle’s political economy between republics agrarian and commercial. It is here where I think Chan makes some mistakes due to his boldness in accentuating what others left simply implied or for footnotes. This is not to say that his account is undeserving of study. Such a claim would certainly underappreciate his

                                                                                                               

188 189

Shulsky, The “Infrastructure” of Aristotle’s Politics,” 101. Chan, Aristotle and Hamilton: On Commerce and Statesmanship, 12.

obvious capabilities as a scholar and the need at times to bring to the fore arguments

77  

that have only been kicked around. It should be mentioned at the start that Chan in his general portrayal of Aristotle’s political economy commits the same mistake that Shulsky did in arguing that Aristotle abandons the natural economic standard. The same critique I gave of Shulsky on this point applies to Chan’s. My argument, essentially, was that it is an error to associate Aristotle’s natural economy solely with the self-sufficient household. Rather than rejecting the natural economy when he begins to make concessions to commerce and the need for a public economy, it is better to say that he modifies his understanding of it as he extends the household’s defining principle—autarkeia—to the city. Chan, then, is not entirely wrong when he argues, “Aristotle has in effect conceded that the ‘natural’ forms of acquisition are inadequate for political life, and relaxes his strictures against commerce to the point of, if not abandoning them altogether, then at least sanctioning commerce to the extent it is necessary and useful for the public good.”190 He is wrong, however, to suggest that Aristotle might have abandoned his strictures against commerce altogether and to imply that because the natural forms of acquisition are inadequate for political life that the natural economic standard is abandoned. Yet, along these lines is how his argument unfolds. He asserts,

                                                                                                               

190

Ibid.,, 34.

Two additional considerations likewise contradict the notion that Aristotle sought to impose a natural economic standard on the political community. First, Aristotle’s natural economic standard appears only in the first book despite his subsequent discussion of oligarchy, the rule of the wealthy. Surely if Aristotle were determined to impose a natural economic standard on political life, he would at least mention such a standard when discussing oligarchy. He does not. This silence suggests that he did not believe that such a standard is appropriate for political life. Second, Aristotle praises Carthage, a commercial republic, as one of the three best regimes. If commerce were that blameworthy Aristotle should have withheld such praise.191

78  

First, the natural economic standard should not be understood as being simply concerned with the natural forms of acquisition of the household. The most important part of Aristotle’s natural economy is the principle of self-sufficiency, which is undoubtedly retained, although modified, throughout the Politics. Second, Aristotle’s praise of both the mesoi and agrarian democracy should be enough to convince one that he does not think agriculture is wholly or even significantly “inadequate,” especially since this way of life was the one with which most were engaged. It is more than reasonable to believe that rich gentleman-farmers and middling agrarians formed the foundation of many of the thousand city-states of ancient Greece. With this in mind, Aristotle nowhere speaks on how the oligarchic became rich. For all we know, one reasonable path to wealth could be through the natural forms of acquisition. Moreover, to the extent that the wealthy are not consumed with material acquisition to the utmost degree, they are possibly aristocratic and would thus use wealth to achieve political selfsufficiency. To be wealthy, then, is not bad in itself or contrary to a natural economy. Given the matter of virtue one chooses to exercise, wealth is certainly indispensable. Finally, Chan’s last point seems not to consider that Aristotle’s praise of Carthage                                                                                                                 191

Ibid., 34.

probably does not rest upon it being commercially-oriented. It is more likely, as I

79  

will argue, that its overemphasis on wealth acquisition is what is most corrupt with the republic. Aristotle is right not to be precise when it comes to determining how much wealth a citizen or a regime should have. For a citizen the defining measure of wealth is based upon the self-sufficiency requisite for a good life. In regard to the extent of possessions a citizens needs to live well, he says, “A better defining principle would be ‘with moderation and liberally’ (for when separated the one will tend toward luxury, the other toward a life of hardship), since these alone are the choiceworthy dispositions concerning the use of property.”192 In other words, one could live with moderation but with very little property and thus be of no help to others. The moderation, moreover, practiced in this context would be one based less on choice than on necessity.193 On the other hand, were one to have too much property and not the virtue of moderation, it is likely such a life would be rife with decadence and licentious behavior. Aristotle’s mean in this context points to a life that is self-sufficient, in that it is neither too luxurious nor impoverished but simply enough to enable one to live well. In this regard, Aristotle claims that the individual who is neither well off nor very poor but is “moderate and middling is best.”194 As for the regime, Aristotle invokes again the principle of self-sufficiency:

                                                                                                               

192

Aristotle, Politics, 65 (1265a27-38). Cf. Xenophon, Cyropaedia, where the Persians prior to Cyrus’ ascent are, arguably, moderate in this way. 194 Aristotle. Politics, 134 (1295b1-5). 193

Therefore it is necessary that the regime be organized with a view to military strength…. And similarly concerning possessions: they should be adequate not only for political uses but also for foreign dangers. Hence the extent of them should neither be so much that those near at hand and superior will desire them and those having them will be unable to ward off the attackers, nor so little that they will be unable to sustain a war even against those who are equal and similar…. then, one should not overlook the extent of possessions that is advantageous. Perhaps the best defining principle is that [there should be just so much that] that those who are superior will not gain if they go to war because of the excess, but [will go to war only under such circumstances] as they would even if their property were not so great.195

80  

Chan interprets this passage in the following manner: “And by his own standard, Aristotle recognizes that foreign policy considerations may very well overwhelm domestic ones. The defining principle of the proper extent of possessions is thus a relative rather than an absolute standard. Should one’s neighbors pursue riches so as to increase their military strength, a city may have no choice but to follow suit.”196 One must wonder whether for Aristotle there is a limit to this pursuit, where the chase after riches and power undermines a small, self-sufficient republic and transforms it into an empire. Aristotle’s political philosophy, after all, does not counsel domination of one’s neighbors for the sake of aggrandizing power. He is the furthest from Machiavelli on this point, since enslaving or weakening neighboring countries who are not in need of being mastered is unjust.197 Chan’s interpretation, nonetheless, risks transforming Aristotle’s principle of self-sufficiency into Hobbes’ “general inclination of all mankind,” which is “a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.” Such an inclination undermines any position of a “moderate power,”                                                                                                                

195

Ibid., 69 (1267a19-32). Chan, Aristotle and Hamilton, 42. 197 Aristotle, Politics, 200-201, (1324b2-1325a16); cf. Machiavelli, The Prince, second edition, trans. Harvey C. Mansfield (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998), 11. 196

since one, as Hobbes argues, “cannot assure the power and means to live well, which

81  

he hath at present, without the acquisition of more. And hence it is that kings, whose power is greatest, turn their endeavors to the assuring it at home by laws or abroad by wars; and when that is done, there succeedeth a new desire, in some of fame from new conquest….”198 Yet, Aristotle counsels a regime to be a moderate power and of moderate possessions, not the restless seeking of absolute power and endless acquisitions. His point in the above passage is that a regime needs to have enough resources to sustain a war with a regime similar to itself, but not so much as to entice others to invade it for its wealth. One must also consider the size of a regime’s population and territory in this context. Both point to Aristotle’s principle of self-sufficiency, demonstrating the likelihood that Aristotle is careful, unlike the moderns, not to let matters of foreign policy overwhelm domestic ones. In other words, he primarily takes his bearings by the internal well-being of the polis. He limits the size of the population to one that is surveyable or familiar, which makes it conducive to recognizing merit and thus capable of practicing distributive justice. It is worth mentioning that Aristotle does not discount that the nation could be self-sufficient in an economic sense. It is only incapable of being self-sufficient in a fuller sense, since it appears that the sizeable population of a nation undermines political self-sufficiency, which is why keeping up with the riches and power of the most powerful runs the risk of changing the virtue of the polis into the restless lust of an imperial nation.199 In the like manner, a territory ought to be as selfsufficient as possible, “having everything available and being in need of nothing,” but                                                                                                                

198 199

Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Edwin Curley (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1994), 58. Aristotle, Politics, 205 (1326a25-1326b25).

being in a position to be able to acquire from others when in need. The territory

82  

should be sufficient enough so that citizens can make their living from it in a way as to be able to “live at leisure in liberal fashion and at the same time with moderation.” Limiting the population size, so that the possibility of inhabiting such a territory in just this manner, also entails that the territory is “surveyable” when it comes to defense.200 To contrast this point of view once again with a modern, consider Hobbes’ political philosophy. He takes his bearings concerning the size and sufficiency of a commonwealth by looking not to the concept of distributive justice, which he denies exists in the Aristotelian sense, but by the “multitude sufficient” to repel “the enemy we fear.”201 It is no wonder that the conventional interpretation of Hobbes’ political philosophy shows how his expansionist views depreciate the role of virtue in politics and as a result denies the distinction between good and bad regimes, whereas Aristotle has traditionally been viewed as the champion of small republics and a virtuous way of life, since these are most compatible with each other and thus together they make possible what is best within our political nature. This brief digression is meant to demonstrate that Chan’s reading of Aristotle comes close to turning him into Hobbes or Machiavelli. Chan, however, is much too good of a scholar to commit that mistake. He even notes in his comparison between Montesquieu and Aristotle on Carthage that the former praises Carthage for its prosperity in terms of wealth and power, which needless to say are not identical to Aristotle’s standards of “harmony or moral virtue,” 202 or rather economic and political                                                                                                                 200

Ibid., 205-207 (1326b26-1327a39). Hobbes, Leviathan, 107; see 57, 94, 97 for Hobbes’ thoughts on distributive justice. 202 Chan, Aristotle and Hamilton, 53-54. 201

self-sufficiency. Chan, himself, would have done well to keep this comparison in

83  

mind before making his bold calm that Aristotle gives “two cheers to commerce.” Nonetheless, my digression was simply meant to show the tendency where Chan’s argument is bound to go without being circumscribed by some of the other comments that Aristotle makes, which are arguably more important when it comes to understanding his political economy as a whole. I admit, however, that what Aristotle means by self-sufficiency in both the economic and political sense might not be as concrete as one would wish. For instance, a polis of moderate self-sufficiency may appear closer to an empire from the point of view a village or a polis of minimal selfsufficiency. This happens also to be true from the point of view of the coward as he considers the truly courageous to be rash in his behavior.203 The same difficulty thus arises when one considers economic self-sufficiency to be a mean between deficiency (poverty) and excess (luxury). It shows itself when Chan concludes that Aristotle abandons the natural economy, since he argues that the possessions adequate for domestic self-sufficiency are no longer enough to conduct the affairs of the polis properly.204 Chan is correct in a sense, that is, from the point of view of the polis the household, no matter how self-sufficient it is, will appear impoverished. If we were not political animals, then the extension of self-sufficiency to the polis would not be natural, which I imagine would be the problem encountered when considering the role of self-sufficiency in Rousseau’s political economy. Yet, Aristotle gives a limit, albeit not precise, to what passes for self-sufficiency and what does not, especially with the example of the nation as lacking in political self-sufficiency. In terms of political                                                                                                                

203 204

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 34 (1108b31-35). 48 (111515-22). Chan, Aristotle and Hamilton, 42.

economy, the limit to attaining material autarkeia appears to be more flexible. In

84  

considering the quarrel between a commercial regime and an agrarian one, it nonetheless seems that if, ideally speaking, a territory ought to have “everything available and [be] in need of nothing,” Aristotle would recommend, should a choice present itself, an agrarian economy over a commercial one. Although he does not say specifically why, it appears that dependency upon another country for one’s primary goods risks undermining political autarkeia, which appears to be the case when the Spartan admiral Lysander blockaded Athens, “starving her of the grain from the Black Sea region on which she largely depended, and ultimately forcing her to sue for peace.”205 Athens gamble with the sea and commerce is what, of course, brought her renown and a great deal of military power, as is clear to any reader of Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War.206 Be that as it may, Chan does not pit Sparta against Athens but instead Sparta against Carthage. And so to this quarrel I now turn. Chan labels Sparta agrarian and Carthage commercial. If the quarrel is simply between what occupation is predominant in supplying the republic with revenues and sustenance for the citizens and other inhabitants, then the quarrel is less interesting, although nonetheless important. As mentioned above, Sparta, even though it was a republic based on an agrarian economy, did not embody political agrarianism, where the farmers were citizens as well as warriors. That said, Chan’s portrayal is at least worth considering, especially since Sparta is usually ranked first among the reputable regimes. If Aristotle truly reserves his highest praise for Carthage, then Chan’s point that the                                                                                                                 205

Robert B. Strassler, “Epilogue” in The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to The Peloponnesian War, ed. Robert B. Strassler, with an introduction by Victor Davis Hanson (New York: Touchstone, 1998), 549. 206 See also Aristotle, Politics, 207 (1327a40-1327b6).

neglect the Carthaginian regime has received in the scholarship “leads to a serious

85  

distortion of the classical republican thought of Aristotle, especially his view of commerce.”207 Without going into all of the details, Chan aptly sums up his analysis of the quarrel in the following way: We may sum up our investigation of Sparta and Carthage with Aristotle’s observation that these regimes ‘are very close to one another in a sense, and at the same time very different from’ each other. Sparta and Carthage are similar in the most important way: both are aristocratic polities. Yet for the most part, they represent polar opposites, which can be attributed to their different modes of acquisition. At one extreme is Sparta: agrarian, rooted, homogenous, prone to slave revolts, and warlike. At the other extreme is Carthage: commercial, sea-faring, heterogeneous, harmonious, and less warlike. In this creating a kind of continuum of modes of acquisition for cities, Aristotle seems to be expanding the options of statesmen so that they may choose the mode(s) of acquisition that best fits their particular circumstances (much like he does near the end of book 1)—though he warns them that their regime’s mode of acquisition will be prone to characteristic excesses. In this way the best regime need not hinder statesmen from establishing good regimes.208 Chan’s summary has the merit of giving an account of why Aristotle includes wealthoriented Carthage among the regimes that are “justly held in high repute.”209 I, for one, am not sure how to rank these regimes, since I tend to interpret Aristotle on this matter as comparing and contrasting the regimes in order to bring out what is best in them and not whose number one. Nevertheless, there are several points worth making regarding his judgment of Sparta and Carthage. First, Sparta often experienced slave revolts, because the helots from Messenia were once free warrior-farmers. Although Sparta’s enslavement of them may show how political agrarianism is not the surest path to political freedom, that the Messenian                                                                                                                

207

Chan, Aristotle and Hamilton, 43. Chan, Aristotle and Hamilton, 52-53. 209 Aristotle, Politics, 83 (1273b26). 208

helots continued to revolt demonstrates, at least, that their spirit was not utterly

86  

broken when conquered. Eventually the Spartans were forced to restore independence to Messenia after their own defeat at Leuctra (371 BCE) and the subsequent Theban (Hanson’s political agrarians par excellence) invasion (370 BCE).210 Had the Spartans engaged in agricultural activities alongside their helots, the helots might have been less envious of them. Second, while Lycurgus made it ignoble to buy and sell land, which Aristotle praises, he “left it open to them to give or bequeath it if they wished.” This resulted in land consolidation and dwindled the number who could participate in the regime, since those unable to contribute to the common messes were not permitted to be citizens.211 So where at one point in time the division of the territory enabled there to be fifteen hundred cavalrymen and thirty thousand heavy-armed troops, now it could only sustain a thousand, which was not enough to handle the Thebans. Aristotle thus advises, “it is better for the city to have an abundance of men through the leveling of possessions.”212 Aristotle, when discussing what is useful when it comes to instituting an agrarian republic, mentions three agrarian laws: 1) widely distributed allotments of roughly equal proportion, 2) the prohibiting of their sale, and 3) all ought to be engaged in farming so as to exceed the property qualification for citizenship.213 All three of these taken together foster a robust infantry. Sparta’s problem is that it ignored them and impoverished its people. It almost seems to be the priced paid for being entirely consumed with politics and negligent regarding household affairs. In the end, it appears that Sparta was not agrarian enough.                                                                                                                

210

See Lord’s footnote 60 to Aristotle’s Politics on p. 251; Hanson, The Other Greeks, 207-210. Aristotle., Politics, 77 (1271a27-36). 212 Ibid., 75 (1270a28-40). 213 Ibid., 187 (1319a6-19). 211

As for Carthage, Aristotle thinks were “the multitude of the ruled [to] revolt,

87  

there is no medicine that will restore quiet through the laws.” The freedom the Carthaginians have from factional conflict is then a result of chance and not based upon the intentions of the legislator. It is only by sending out their poor to other cities to become wealthy that they are able to maintain peace at home. Otherwise, they have no remedy for this grave oversight. This problem seems largely to be one that has resulted from their oligarchic nature and thus insatiable desire for wealth. Second, that they are sea-faring is not necessarily a plus. Although it means that they are likely to have a good naval power, it nevertheless encourages, according to Aristotle, the merchant’s ignoble way of life and, if not properly guarded against, could corrupt the shared beliefs of a people, which could lead to factional conflict.214 Third, although it is difficult to determine degrees of being warlike, it should be mentioned that commerce did not have a pacifying influence on the Carthaginians to the point where martial virtue was discouraged. Aristotle mentions how the Carthaginians encouraged warlike virtue through a ritual of adorning those who went on campaigns with “armlets.”215 Such encouragement certainly goads, even if indirectly, the ambition of the great to stir up conflict abroad or even at home, as Hanno did in Carthage.216 And lastly, Chan’s provocative claim that Aristotle follows his “stinging criticism” of Sparta with “high praise” for Carthage is too bold of a claim. He offers, if anything, stinging criticism for all three regimes and only in a lukewarm fashion asserts that all three are justly held in “high repute.” Moreover, if Carthage receives “two                                                                                                                 214

Ibid., 210-211 (1328b24-1329a26). Ibid., 200 (1324b12-14). 216 Ibid., 160 (1307a2-5). 215

cheers” from Aristotle it is not on account of its desire for wealth. His criticism of

88  

Carthage in this regard is what is most stinging. Not only does wealth partly inform who can be elected, but Aristotle judges it to be a “poor thing” that offices can be bought in Carthage, which is likely to result in those who purchased an office to use it to enrich themselves. The notion that all things have their price, especially important political offices, makes wealth honored above virtue, and the “city as a whole greedy.”217 While Chan is right when he points to Aristotle’s concessions to commerce, he is wrong, however, in his emphasis that Aristotle would “cheer,” even if reluctantly, the orientation toward unlimited gain that commerce fosters in Carthage. Conclusion It is my contention that in the quarrel between republics “truly” agrarian and commercial, Aristotle would favor the customary, self-sufficient, agrarian republics that emerged out of the kingly and oligarchic rule of ancient times. Aristotle’s agrarian mesoi, the best sort of people, form the best republic. I admit that my claim is already lessened since Aristotle did not include such a regime among those that are justly held to be reputable. Worth mentioning in reference to the quarrel between republics agrarian and commercial, however, is how he recommends a legislator not to hold assemblies when there is a “mass of merchants” without the moderating presence of “the multitude from the country.” When this policy is implemented, Aristotle believes that from the “much meaner” democracies a “decent democracy or a polity” could be established, which points to the character of the agrarian in general but also specifically

                                                                                                                217

Ibid., 82 (1273a21-1273b7).

218

to the agrarian mesoi of the polity.

Nowhere does he speak in turn of the

89  

moderating influences of commerce and trade. And thus given his praise of the agrarian mesoi, it is not too hopeful to think that his praise of an actual regime of this nature graced the pages of his hundred and fifty-eight constitutions. But as these were lost, so too were the farmer-warrior-citizens of antiquity, only to reappear throughout history but to rarely obtain the political stature that they once achieved, that is, perhaps until the early American republic. Thus when considering Aristotle’s political economy, one would do well not only to recall his judgment that the agrarians are the “best sort of people” but to remember the common opinion of which he reminds us that they were just, temperate, courageous, and generous.

                                                                                                                218

Ibid., 187-188 (1319a28-38).

CHAPTER III: AGRARIAN CHARACTER IN HESIOD, ARISTOPHANES, AND XENOPHON Introduction In the Frogs, Aristophanes has Aeschylus speak of the noble poets. Notwithstanding the playfulness of Aristophanes’ plays, he is able to speak through the straight face of the tragic Aeschylus, singing the praises of the poets and how they have conferred benefits upon human beings. Nowhere is Aristophanes more serious than when he speaks of the purpose of noble poets, obviously including himself, who despite their many masks are one when judged by their common purpose to teach what is beneficial. And while Hesiod is most remembered today for teaching the Greeks about their gods, Aristophanes’ Aeschylus praises him for nobly teaching men about “agriculture, the seasons for crops, and ploughing” (Frogs, 1030-1037).219 The beauty of Hesiod’s Works and Days is that it is good or useful, as it teaches man about his place in the world, counseling justice and faith in Zeus’ will. One might say that its beauty is not as illustrious as Homer’s Iliad, that is, if a noble death in battle is preferable to a long life justly lived but without glory.220 It goes without saying that not all are as blessed as Achilles: the majority of men have neither his fate nor his strength of soul in choosing his path to glory. While it has been said that war is the province of men, its glory belongs predominantly to the heroic. The choice for most, in other                                                                                                                

219

All citations and quotes are from the five volumes of Aristophanes work published by The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998-2007), ed. and trans. Jeffrey Henderson. 220 cf. Iliad IX.410-416 with Odyssey XI.465-503.

221

words, is not between a life of glory or of minding one’s own business.

The latter

91  

is the highest that most men can achieve, which is no mean achievement and may at times rival the deeds of those who seek glory, as the lovers of honor often lose their way. The farmer, it seems safe to assert, embodies the principle of minding one’s own business. As a consequence, he also knows the virtues necessary to defend his keep and attain genuine wealth and weal; otherwise, he would be unable to mind his own business without such practical know-how. He is thus commonly held to possess, whether knowingly or not, courage, moderation and justice. Philosophy aside, does it matter that he may not be able to give an account of these virtues, despite his ability to embody them in deed? How is it that some farmers either imitate or actively embody virtue without the proper education? Is not a public education in the tradition of ancient Greece the initial path in the development of character? How do those who have no time for this education acquire or appear to acquire these virtues? These are the principal questions that guide my inquiry into the common opinion of the virtuous farmer. It is my contention that agrarianism properly understood might serve as an alternative education to that offered by gymnastics and music. I do not wish to delve into whether the education is better than the public education for the elite. I modestly suggest that it might serve as an alternative, even if lesser, that approximates the excellence that was the aim of ancient pedagogy. After all, Xenophon’s Socrates once

                                                                                                               

221

cf. Plato’s Republic, trans. Allan Bloom (Basic Books, 1968), 620c.

claimed that the earth is a teacher of justice.

222

The way of life that is closest to the

92  

soil, it seems to follow, would be the one most exercised in her teaching of justice and those virtues that follow it. The rootless ways of piracy and conquest, in contrast, teaches nothing of the sort. Instead, virtue seems to have grown up in an agrarian republic of self-sufficient farmers, who did not seek the means to a livelihood from others but stripped bare and ploughed the land without shame. Their empire was roughly ten acres settled within the limits of the polis. Their life was undoubtedly hard, but as long as their hearts were steadfast and content with their lot, they did not yearn for Persian robes or imperial greatness. And thus was their peace, harsh but with its rewards. It should be kept in mind that, while they recognized the difficulty of their life, some chose this way of life as opposed to other ways. Such a choice entails that they did not simply make a virtue of necessity but rather brought forth virtue out of their circumstances. While these claims may simply be the common portrayal of the virtuous farmer, and it goes without saying that not all farmers displayed such character, there is a great deal of truth to them. With this in mind, it is perhaps helpful to posit at the beginning of this chapter that the agrarian way of life appears to be a sort of mean between abject poverty and an insatiable desire for wealth and power. The agrarian character, as a result, seems to embody a number of virtues that are useful for a moderate regime. In this chapter I consider the character of the farmer in the works of Hesiod, Aristophanes, and Xenophon; and in doing so, I delve more deeply into the common opinion that associates justice and other virtues with the agrarian class. In short, this chapter is an                                                                                                                

222

See Xenophon’s Oeconomicus, trans. Carnes Lord, in Leo Strauss’s Xenophon’s Socratic Discourse (South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 1998), V.12. All citations and quotes are from Lord’s translation.

inquiry into the genesis and meaning of agrarianism as a moral model, otherwise

93  

known as the agrarian standard. Hesiod: Justice and Moderation in the Agrarian Character As has already been mentioned in the previous chapter, Aristotle in the Rhetoric places before our eyes the assumption that “those who do not live off others,” namely the farmers who work the land they own, are held to be courageous, generous, just, and moderate. These virtues arise out of the farmers’ self-sufficient way of life and not deliberately from any system of education, unless one believes that Zeus has ordained this way of life for human beings, reserving the status of the teacher of justice for the earth. Without this belief the virtues would be thought to be the result of chance or necessity. Yet, for the philosophic, the belief in this belief results in another belief that chance and necessity are disguised in poetry as the gods and right. In denying the existence of the gods, however, we are no better off in terms of wisdom. The poets knew this. The various roles chance, necessity, and choice play in this world are not wholly understood. The poets discovered this well before the pre-Socratic philosophers spoke frankly. Unlike the philosophers, the poets were more discreet in their treatment of the meaning and power of the gods. Hesiod in musing on the genealogy of the gods in his Theogony uses his understanding to habituate Greece through both fear and speech. Were we to only have this work of his, we would not know its relevance for human beings, as it mainly concerns the deeds of gods. Its relevance, namely the triumph of Zeus and his Olympians over the Titans, however, is taught to us in his Works and Days. Here is where human beings are given counsel as to their place in the cosmos ruled by Zeus. Here is where we learn that justice is a gift from the Olympian

that ought not to be treated lightly, even though she lets herself be dragged around.

94  

Here is where we learn that we have choice by Zeus’s will, a choice between right versus wrong living, however limited that choice is thought to be. The Works and Days begins with Hesiod seeking the inspiration of the Muses. He wants to know about Zeus’ will and mighty deeds (1-8), and, given the content of the poem, the place of human beings within his cosmos.223 In the next few lines, he asks Zeus to preside over the “true way of existence” that he describes to his prodigal brother (9-10). What follows can be divided into three main sections: 1) Mythos (11212), 2) Justice and Farming (212-694), and 3) Days (694-828).224 From the mythos, or the stories, we learn about how it is that justice and farming became necessary for the characteristically human age. The section on the Days, in turn, points to what is and is not discernible and seems more than anything else to inspire awe for the one who is able to make heads or tails of them. Their meaning remains hidden to the uninspired. Even though advice is offered regarding what one should do on some of the days, there are some days in which it is better to have not been born. Some things are beyond our control. And while certain events may seem fated, there is nonetheless some hope that the right choice will be rewarded. Hope, after all, is what remained in the jar that Pandora opened. Life is not empty as long as the hope is not. This teaching is derived from the myths and Hesiod’s counsel to be just. I thus focus on the first two sections, as they are they most relevant regarding the livelihood and virtue gleaned from farming.

                                                                                                               

223

All citations and quotes refer to the line numbers in Hesiod, The Works and Days, Theogony, The Shield of Herakles, trans. Richmond Lattimore (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1959). 224 Stephanie Nelson, God and the Land: The Metaphysics of Farming in Hesiod and Vergil (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 47.

The Mythos section can be divided into four subsections: 1) The Goddesses

95  

Strife (11-41), 2) The Pandora Myth (42-105), 3) The Five Ages of Man (106-201), and 4) The Fable of the Hawk and the Nightingale (202-212). The first story reveals that there is not one but two forms of Strife, both of which belong on earth. One is hateful, harsh and responsible for evil wars and slaughter. The other can benefit human beings if they understand her ways. Zeus placed this Strife, who is “far kinder”, “in the roots of the earth and among men.” She is a good friend to those who want to improve their lot. When one neighbor observes another neighbor who is doing well, the good Strife stirs in him a desire to set to work, “plowing and planning and the ordering of his state.” This myth is told on behalf of Perses, Hesiod’s brother, who made off with the greater part of their father’s inheritance by bribing the judges. Perses’ ways are then the ways of the hateful Strife, who seeks to gain a living by taking what belongs to others and not harvesting the yields that Demeter sends forth. Through lawsuits and bribery Perses courts the hateful Strife. In this myth, one can easily see the origins of the belief that an honest living is gained through hard work. Justice is observable in the ways of the farmer who seeks the good Strife in the “roots of the earth”. Injustice, in turn, is characteristic of those who take the hard earned fruits of another’s labors through lawsuits and bribery. Those who spend their time wrapped up in litigations usually do not have “a year’s living laid away” and thus must seize that of others through the guise of law. Crooked judges, Hesiod tells us, make for crooked laws, where Justice is dragged through the mud and accompanied by political discord (220-224). Men who wish to live with relatively little effort must be conniving, as they are not economically

self-sufficient in their own right but become so through unjust means; but of course,

96  

the principle of self-sufficiency has no meaning for them, as greed knows no limits. The second myth is an account of why human beings should not hope to acquire a livelihood from one day of work, as the gods have hidden their livelihood and keep it so (42-46). Why the gods have done such a thing is not immediately known. Of course, we are told that Zeus hid livelihood and fire from human beings because of Prometheus’ devious ways (47-50). It was not then from anything human beings did that warranted the advent of scarcity, but rather they appear to be guilty by association. When human beings have gods who are friends, like Prometheus, who needs enemies. As a lover of human beings, Prometheus retrieved the fire from Olympus and gave it back to human beings. And with this additional deed of philanthropy, once Zeus learned of it, he increased the hardships and sorrows for human beings by sending Pandora, who introduced many evils into to the hearts of men. In one sense, with the introduction of Pandora, human beings became more like the gods and less as they should be. The gods’ indifference to good and bad in their relations to one another, however, is not the model for human beings. The Theogony is not to be imitated but revered, “regardless of whether or not their actions look to our own good.”225 In another sense, after Pandora’s introduction, human beings became more human and less godlike, as prior to her arrival the races of men were “free from all evils, free from laborious work, and free from all wearing sicknesses that bring their fates on men” (9092). Effortless ambrosia, however, is food fit only for the gods. Effort is what is most appropriate for human beings and provides the best seasoning for one’s food (311).                                                                                                                

225

Seth Benardete, “Hesiod’s Works and Days: A First Reading,” Agon I (1967): 150-174; see 152.

While to live well without working may be godlike, it is a disgrace for human beings

97  

as it suggests machinations. Hesiod, in others words, is saying leave the subtly to the Olympians, for their mysterious ways ought not to be the ways of a human being, who “loses his way in delusions” (43). Trust not then in the livelihood that comes from litigations and bribery, but rather trust in the hope that that comes with hard work and honest living, as “there is no way to avoid what Zeus has intended” (105). The third myth pertains to the fives stages of human beings. The men of the Golden Age lived in the time of Kronos, Zeus’ father. They are said to have “lived as if they were gods, their hearts free from all sorrow, by themselves, and without hard work or pain” (109-12). There was no need to work as the “fruitful grainland yielded its harvest to them of its own accord; this was great and abundant” (117-118). These men did not last, but we are not told why. Perhaps it is not right for human beings to be as effortlessly self-sufficient as the gods: “Man as man, Hesiod seems to be saying, is necessarily an imperfect being.”226 However that may be, these men simply perished and became “pure and blessed spirits,” living upon earth, keeping watch over the good and evil deeds of men, defending mortal men from evil in lawsuits and hard dealings, and bestowing wealth (121-126). The generation of the Silver Age follows and is created by the “dwellers upon Olympos”; these are said to be “far worse than the other” (127-128). They remained childlike for a hundred years; and when it was time for them to grow up, they did not live long. They misbehaved toward one another and did not honor the gods, which provoked Zeus’ wrath and he destroyed them, as honoring the gods “is the right thing among the customs of men” (130-139). Next arose the                                                                                                                

226

Ibid., 158.

generation of the Bronze Age, which was not weak, like those of the Silver Age, but

98  

fierce, strong and warlike. Their harsh way of life resulted in their going down to the house of Hades, as they could not refrain from savagery toward one another (143-155). Then comes the Heroic Age, which while being nobler and better than the previous, the heroes are nonetheless subject to “evil war and terrible carnage” (156-161). Some of the half-gods, as the heroes were called, perished while others were transported to the Islands of the Blessed, far from Olympus. Here the delightful yield of Demeter occurs three times each year, and Zeus has placed his own father over these heroes (160-174). And while Zeus is the happiest with the Heroic Age, this generation fades into Hesiod’s, known as the Iron Age. Hesiod’s wish is that he had died before the dawn of the Iron Age or had been born after it (175-176). He thus has one foot in the Heroic Age without having a leg up on those in the Iron Age, as he is the victim of evil deeds done by lesser men. He is like Odysseus who upon returning home from the heroic Trojan War had to deal out death to men not for the sake of glory but for what he deemed to be right. The Heroic Age thus becomes diluted and eventually fades away as the men of the Iron Age become predominant. In this new age, Hesiod laments, “Never by daytime will there be an end to hard work and pain, nor in the night to weariness, when the gods will send anxieties to trouble us” (177-178). Yet as with the Pandora myth, hope remains, since “there shall be some good things mixed with the evils” (179). This generation, however, will be destroyed as the scales are tipped in favor of the evil; cities will seek the wealth of each other, and the righteous and good man, those who keep their oaths, will not be praised. Righteous Indignation, Shame, Decency, and Respect will fly back to Olympus, “forsaking the whole race of mortal men” (197-200). The

rest of the poem, which counsels an agrarian way of life and encourages one to be just

99  

and moderate, evinces that Hesiod does not think that things at the moment are as utterly hopeless as the ending of the story of the Iron Age depicts. The last myth is a fable that acts as a transition to the second section of the poem. It is a fable for political rulers. A hawk has grasped a nightingale in his talons and has carried her high among the clouds. In response to the nightingale’s pitiful wailings, the hawk responds saying it is hopeless to cry, as he will take her wherever he wants. Should he wish to let her go or eat her, these are within his power. It is a shame, the hawk says, that the fool tries “to match his strength with the stronger.” (210). This fable seems to depict the ways of political rulers and especially their mistreatment of the singer Hesiod. Seth Benardete says, “The nightingale does not answer the hawk: its song is inadequate against brute strength. If the kings, then, cannot be directly appealed to, Hesiod must try his song on Perses, who is nothing but a toady of the kings and whose alliance with them may be broken.”227 The kings or barons are deaf to justice as their strength disguised as law has inhibited their ability to have just laws or rule justly. Perses, however, is weak: “But as for, you Perses, listen to justice; do not try to practice violence; violence is bad for a weak man; even a noble cannot lightly carry the burden of her, but she weighs him down when he loses his way in delusions” (213-216). Perses, who has only recently tasted unjust dealings, may be capable of following another path, one that is just. The kings, in turn, are hopeless. They will not take pity, as they have might on their side, believing that this means they have right as well. Hesiod, then, does not cry out in song against the kings but for the sake of those living                                                                                                                 227

Ibid., 159; see Nelson, God and the Land, who interprets this fable differently, 77-81.

under them. By telling of the kings’ transgressions of justice, Hesiod’s aim is to

100  

unite the demos against the kings and to encourage another path. This path is the opposite one of the “bribe-eating men,” who will not listen to the cries of Justice when she is being dragged around. They continue to pass “crooked decisions,” and Hesiod takes leave to invoke the tragic formula, pathei mathos, “The fool knows after he’s suffered” (218).228 As long as the judge is beyond suffering, however, he will not pause to consider the injustice of his ways. The path of pathei mathos is not the only way to learn. Hesiod speaks of three types of men: 1) the best, who is able to work out every problem with a mind to what will be best in the end, 2) the one who is able to listen to the best, and 3) the one who cannot find truth on his own or with the help of another (293-297). The bribe-eating men fall into the last category—their only hope is to learn by suffering. This fate, Hesiod warns, may be Perses, but it doesn’t have to be, as long as Perses can heed Hesiod’s counsel. While Perses has already shown himself not to be the best sort of man, Hesiod holds out hope that he might be the second kind. Hesiod goes so far as to imply that the second sort of men, if they listen to a poet-king, could participate in the best regime: When men issue straight decisions to their own people and to strangers, and do not step at all off the road of rightness, their city flourishes, and the people blossom inside it. Peace, who brings boys to manhood, is in their land, nor does Zeus of the wide brows ever ordain that hard war shall be with them. Neither famine nor inward disaster comes the way of those people who are straight and just; they do their work as if work were a holiday; the earth gives them livelihood, on their mountains the oaks bear acorns for them in their crowns, and bees in their middles. Their wool-bearing sheep are weighted down with fleecy burdens. Their                                                                                                                 228

See Michael Davis’s “Introduction,” in Aristotle, On Poetics, trans. Seth Benardete and Michael Davis (South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 2002), xxvi.

women bear them children who resemble their parents. They prosper in good things throughout. They need have no traffic with ships, for their own grain-giving land yields them its harvest. (225-237)

101  

This image of the best regime is founded upon the proper respect paid to Zeus’ daughter, Justice (266). Zeus placed her among mortal human beings and not beasts, as there is “no idea of justice among them” (278). And thus by necessity they follow the ways of violence, whereas Zeus established justice as the law that human beings ought to follow. When they do so, Zeus grants them prosperity (275-276, 279-280). In honoring Justice, Zeus’ will is obeyed. Such obedience makes life easier, as work becomes like a holiday and earth does not refrain from giving human beings their livelihood. The city thus flourishes as the people follow the “road of rightness.” And while the city may not be great or glorified in battle, the agrarian demos prospers, attains economic self-sufficiency without the aid of ships, and is at peace—the rewards for their just way of life. In other words, economic independence acquired through just means brings into being political self-sufficiency, showing that virtue is required not only in politics but in economics as well. Indeed, it is more often than not difficult to draw a line between the two. Of course, this image is Hesiod’s city in speech and is thus unlikely to come into existence. Hesiod is no utopian but rather has a tragic view of human nature, which is akin to the no-nonsense perspectives of many agrarians. After all, he admits that Zeus will destroy the generation of the Iron Age. Even if Hesiod’s best regime were to come into being, it would eventually diminish, as “Often a whole city is paid punishment for one bad man who commits crimes and plans reckless action” (47). The hope that remains is that one can nonetheless do well by cultivating the good Strife and that those

who court the hateful Strife are punished: “If any man by force of hands wins him a

102  

great fortune, or steals it by the cleverness of his tongue, as so often happens among people when the intelligence is blinded by greed, a man’s shameless spirit tramples his sense of honor; lightly the gods wipe out that man, and diminish the household of such a one, and his wealth stays with him for only a short time” (321-326). Were this a mere belief and not fated, Hesiod admits that it would be difficult to be righteous (270-273). The Works and Days thus offers a more rewarding kind of piety than that encouraged by the Theogony. No human being would work hard if the good Strife remained underground and did not bear fruits. The general providence of Zeus is displayed specifically in the good Strife being placed in “the roots of the earth.” The roots, while nonetheless being gnarly and ugly, are similar to hard work, in that they make possible beautiful blossoms by chewing the dirt of the earth that yields life and fruit. As it is not the lot of humanity to have work be like a holiday, Hesiod counsels that if human beings were to choose the road to virtue, which unlike the easy road to vice, they must endure toil and sweat as that is what the immortals have placed “between us and virtue”: “The road to virtue is long and goes up hill, hard climbing at first, but the last of it, when you get to the summit (if you get there) is easy going after the hard part” (286-292). In other words, “Work is no disgrace; the disgrace is in not working” (311). In choosing the road of virtue, one receives the education that Zeus deems proper and pious for human beings. For Hesiod, piety begins with the deed of honest work. It is shameful to not work, as this turns one’s mind toward greedy actions of acquiring what another man possesses (316-317). As long as one minds one’s own business, seeks a living from cultivating

the land, and prays to “Zeus of the ground and holy Demeter” will there be a

103  

reasonable hope in the prospering (465-466). Not only is hard work not shameful, it seems to reveal the divine benevolence of Zeus. And while Hesiod claims that one ought to do what one has “a talent for doing,” he nevertheless privileges the agrarian way of life over that of the blacksmith’s and merchant’s. As one will encounter in winter crowds loitering and gossiping around the blacksmith’s shop, despite the many things that can be done in winter around one’s farm (493-494). It is the idle man who will incur Zeus’ violence, as he trusts an empty hope, whiling away his time gossiping and reclining when he does not have the means for such leisure (498-501). As one becomes initiated in the labors of hard work, Zeus will lighten the load as virtue is attained. The bitter sweat will become sweet. The only path to such sweetness is hard work, and any conniving effort to skip the toil and sweat necessary for such a journey is liable to leave one worse off. To be a skipper of a merchant vessel, for instance, is ill-advised as the sea is vast and dangerous: “But for when, turning your easily blown thoughts toward a merchant’s life, you wish to escape your debts, and unhappy hunger, I will show you the measures of the much-thundering sea” (646-648). This way of acquiring a livelihood is “snatched” (684) and thus unpredictable and risky. Hesiod’s advice to “Think of working your land instead, as I keep telling you” (623) is time-honored, as hard, honest work is different from hard, risk-taking work. The latter seems to suggest a way of life that aims to use hard labor so as to do without it. Hesiod’s caution against such tactics displays the agrarian reservation against risk-taking and its preference for things that are tried and true. In Hesiod, then, we already witness the origins of agrarian conservatism,

which in our day and age can be seen in the agrarian’s skepticism toward

104  

technological innovation. The agrarian, for Hesiod, as the farming section of the Works and Days demonstrates, fares well by doing well, observing the order of the seasons and acquiring the understanding of when to plough, sow, and harvest. Such a study of the seasons reveals Zeus’ general providence. It does not reveal every detail though, as “the mind of Zeus of the aegis changes with changing occasions, and it is a hard thing for mortal men to figure” (483-484). Things can never be understood perfectly, and any attempt to seek such perfection and extreme precision is likely to end in tragedy.229 As Stephanie Nelson describes it, It is the general pattern of Zeus’ will that we can know. The detail, which may make or destroy us, is inscrutable. A farmer must live this truth. No farmer can succeed by following a set rule…. The farmer must know a good deal more than can be learned by rule. He must know intimately the rhythm of the year, and understand from within the interaction of all the elements that make up that rhythm. This is an understanding that Hesiod can present only dramatically, an understanding that comes not from rule, but from a deep and fine-tuned response to conditions outside of oneself, and outside of one’s control. This is the understanding of due season. It is what allows the farmer to live, work, and succeed within an order both regular and ambiguous. The world of the farmer is, for Hesiod, a microcosm of the greater order of Zeus. The farmer’s understanding of due season is Hesiod’s most powerful image for the way we, as human beings, must live within Zeus’ order.230 An understanding of “due season” is also embodied in a “full barn,” Hesiod’s symbol for economic self-sufficiency, which staves off grim poverty and restrains the greed associated with taking from others (300-301). A full barn, for Hesiod, is evidence of piety and virtues. And thus it is not merely the equipment that makes virtue possible.                                                                                                                 229

See Michael Davis’s Ancient Tragedy and the Origins of Modern Science (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988) and Wendell Berry’s Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition (Washington: Counterpoint, 2000). 230 Nelson, God and the Land, 169.

This agrarian sentiment is what most distinguishes someone like Hesiod from

105  

Aristotle, as the latter denigrates the work of household management, even though economic self-sufficiency and the goods attained from meeting this goal provide the equipment that makes possible the political way of life. As for Hesiod, the attainment of a “full barn” is dignifying, and thus he does not share, nor would any agrarian, Aristotle’s aristocratic attitude toward work, which is another way of saying that the agrarian sensibility is more or less democratic in outlook. Despite this tension, both Aristotle and the agrarian remain in fundamental agreement regarding the foundational role that the principle of self-sufficiency plays in their political economy. Aristophanes: Peace and “Back to the Farm” It would perhaps be laughable to speak seriously about Aristophanes’ point of view if he himself had not said that he speaks seriously. Bringing the high and low together is the grace of Aristophanes’ comedy or, or as he calls it, trugedy.231 Even when the effect seems to be intentionally comic, Aristophanes is quite capable of not forsaking all seriousness. In mere metaphors and similes one can glimpse facts. Everyone knows, for instance, that the description of the Theban woman in Lysistrata, who is said to look “like Boeotia, with all her lush bottomland” and a “bush most elegantly pruned,” suggests not only the diligence with which the farmers keep their land but the fertility that comes from such earnestness (87-89). This simile is supported by the reference in the Acharnians to the Theban trader who, even in a time of war, is self-sufficient enough to have a surplus, enabling him to offer real goods in exchange for those of Dicaeopolis. The Theban is unlike the Megarian whose poverty makes him pass off his                                                                                                                 231

O. Taplin, “Tragedy and Trugedy,” The Classical Quarterly 33.2 (1983): 331-333.

two daughters as piggies in exchange for “a bunch of garlic” and “a peck of salt,” or

106  

even Dicaeopolis, himself, who gives the Theban in exchange for his real goods an informer, which is not found in Thebes but is abundant in Athens (729-958). As one peruses the scholarship on Aristophanes, the claim is often made that his plays are inherently political, especially, in that he aligns himself with the agrarian and against the war-mongering demagogues. A.W. Gomme describes this reading of Aristophanes: “He was all for the older generation, the men of the country, the small farmer who tilled his own land, of simple thought, of little speech, who fought hard and loved the old songs of Phrynichus….”232 Gomme, while recognizing that this may be true, is uninterested in understanding Aristophanes from a political perspective; his view is that of an aesthete, arguing that Aristophanes’ art was for art’s sake. In a similar, yet different, vein Cedric H. Whitman challenges the assumption that “Aristophanes’ conservative agrarian beliefs are embodied in a recurrent character, the old countryman, and that this character is always essentially the same.”233 Whitman’s interpretation, however, seems to overlook that Aristophanes’ intention behind the changing character of the agrarian may in fact correspond to the corrupting influence that the war had on the farmers. My own approach to reading Aristophanes is more akin to G. E. M. de Ste Croix’s, who is puzzled by those, especially Gomme, who are reluctant to see that “Aristophanes was a man of very vigorous political view of a conservative, ‘Cimonian’ variety (not at all untypical among the Athenian upper                                                                                                                 232

A. W. Gomme, “Aristophanes and Politics,” in Oxford Readings in Aristophanes, ed. Erich Segal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 30. This is not Gomme’s point of view. 233 Cedric H. Whitman, Aristophanes and the Comic Hero (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964), 21. Although I am not entirely sure to whom Gomme and Whitman are responding, it appears that they have in mind M. Croiset, Aristophanes et les Parties Politiques à Athènes (Paris, 1906, English trans. J. Loeb, London, 1909). Today, Victor Davis Hanson would be the one offering an agrarian reading of Aristophanes.

classes), the general complexion of which is easily identifiable from the plays and

107  

remained consistent over the period of some forty years during which he was writing his comedies.”234 This charge of conservatism does not necessarily remove the accusation that his comedy was demagoguery. Rather, if ever Aristophanes is accused of demagoguery in his comedy, as he sometimes is,235 Aristophanes’ way of leading the people ought to be seen as paternalistic or aristocratic, not that of the typical demagogue. In this section, I make the case that one aspect of his paternalism can be seen in his attempt to educate the agrarian. Instead of arguing that Aristophanes was an “agrarian conservative,” I argue that he sought to help the farmer understand himself and to educate him about the negative consequences of the war upon his way of life. While I consider Aristophanes to be more of a friend to political agrarianism than Aristotle, my argument here is similar to the one I made in the last chapter. The only ancient authors that I am aware of who were most likely agrarians and advocated this way of life were Hesiod and possibly Xenophon.236 As for agrarian authors in general, who both advocate political agrarianism and are actual farmers, I would say the list is short. What is significant about this claim is that most political agrarianism has been unarticulated, as farmers seem to think that it was not in need of defense. Differently stated, agrarianism was not an ideology but a way of life: thus it was lived and not talked about. It only became an ideology of sorts when its way of life was threatened                                                                                                                

234

G. E. M. de Ste Croix, “The Political Outlook of Aristophanes,” in Oxford Readings in Aristophanes, ed. Erich Segal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 63. See also, Paul Cartledge, Aristophanes and His Theatre of the Absurd (London: Bristol Classical Press, 1990), 52. 235 See Whitman, Aristophanes and the Comic Hero, 13-14, and Cartledge, Aristophanes and His Theatre of the Absurd, 46. 236 Another example might be the lesser known Alciphron.

wholesale, which, according to the agrarian social critics that I discuss in the second

108  

part, was one of the outcomes of industrial capitalism. Thinkers like Aristotle and Aristophanes are thus better interpreted not as agrarians but as their friends, who at times invoke an agrarian way of life as a standard for honest living. In a sense, they represent the possibility of an amiable relationship between town and country. As farming was the predominant form of livelihood in antiquity, one would think that the character of the agrarian would be familiar to those who did not farm, and perhaps it was. Yet, their most characteristic trait of minding their own business would have kept them from being too involved with others.237 The question that must be raised at the outset is, How familiar was Aristophanes with the agrarian? This question does not allow for an easy answer. However, we do know that with the beginning of the Peloponnesian War the presence of rustic citizens in town grew when Pericles advised them to come into the city, staying behind the Long Walls of Athens, so as to weather the first storm of the Peloponnesian forces against Attica. Thucydides describes the event: The Athenians listened to his advice, and began to bring in their wives and children from the country, and all their household furniture, even to the woodwork of their houses which they removed. Their sheep and cattle they sent over to Euboea and the adjacent islands. But they found it hard to move, as most of them had always been used to living in the country.238 It should come as no surprise then that Archidamus, king of Sparta, thought that he could provoke these homesick, rustic Athenians by ravaging the rural deme of                                                                                                                 237

Cf. Xenophon, Memorabilia, trans. Amy L. Bonnette and intro. Christopher Bruell (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), II.9. 238 Thucydides, The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to The Peloponnesian War, ed. Robert B. Strassler and intro. Victor Davis Hanson (New York: A Touchstone Book, 1996), 2.14.

Acharnae, which was the largest Athenian deme and contributed three thousand

109  

hoplites to the Athenian infantry. Archidamus’ believed, according to Thucydides, that the Acharnians, who had since found refugee behind the walls, “would refuse to submit to the ruin of their property, and would force a battle on the rest of the citizens” (2.192.20). While his strategy certainly provoked the anger of the Acharnians, and in speech they aroused contempt among their citizens for the seemingly retiring Periclean strategy of not leading the army out (2.21), 239 they nonetheless remained obedient in deed. Yet once the invasion happened again the following year, the rustics were eager for peace (2.59), as not only was their land laid to waste, but upon arriving in the city the infamous plague intensified (2.52). And thus, once the farmer’s patience had been tried beyond all reasonable limits, they singly took the initiative to send ambassadors to seek terms with Sparta, but these men were unsuccessful (2.59). Yet in a display of sheer rhetorical brilliance, Pericles quieted their panic and eased their despair, turning their attention away from their domestic afflictions and toward the glory of what Pericles considered to be their more momentous inheritance, imperial Athens (2.60-61). According to Thucydides, Pericles says, And men of these retiring view, making converts of others, would quickly ruin a state; indeed the result would be the same if they could live independent by themselves; for the retiring and unambitious are never secure without vigorous protectors at their side, indeed such qualities are useless to an imperial city, though they may help a dependency to an unmolested servitude. (2.64) The rustic citizens, who only a year ago wanted the blood of their ravagers and questioned what appeared to be the retiring strategy of Pericles, are now portrayed in turn as retiring and unambitious and unconcerned with imperial glory (2.64). Pericles                                                                                                                 239

For Pericles’ naval strategy, see Thucydides 1.140-144.

nonetheless succeeds in persuading them, as he manages to turn their attention away

110  

from what they think to be “a great privation,” that is, the loss of the use of their land and houses, to what would be an even greater privation, the loss of the Athenian empire, without which the promises of liberty and more wealth would be abandoned. Thucydides’ depiction of the early events of the Peloponnesian War, then, testifies to the increased presence of farmers in the city. Victor Davis Hanson claims, “During the evacuation Aristophanes had grown familiar with the lives of some of the 20,000 Attic farmers who owned and farmed much of the 200,000 acres that surrounded Athens.”240 Not only did Aristophanes grow familiar with their lives, but he seems to be one of those referred to in Pericles’ speech as “converts” to the agrarian cause for peace after the second invasion of Attica. He may, however, have been for peace all along, not because he himself is a pacifist, which is certainly not the case, as he never grows tired of praising the Marathon fighters. Rather, he seems to have longed for an alliance between Sparta and Athens, a joint hegemony, so as to stave off future invasions by barbarian forces.241 Be that as it may, Aristophanes employs the character of the farmer in a number of his plays. Of the eleven extant plays, six of them use the character of the farmer either as an ordinary, yet remarkable, hero (Acharnians, Clouds, Peace, Wealth) or as (Knights, Wasps) being corrupted by demagogues and jury pay. In three plays of which we only have fragments, Banqueters, Farmers, and Peace II (with Agriculture as a goddess), the themes appear to be either the corruption of the agrarian class due to war

                                                                                                                240 241

Victor Davis Hanson, A War Like No Other (New York: Random House, 2006), 38. Jeffery Henderson’s “Introduction,” 15; see Lysistrata 1120-1156.

242

policies and exposure to city life or the triumph of rural virtues over urbane vices.

111  

In those that portray the farmer as the hero, Clouds is the only one that paints the farmer as a being a dunderhead, who before marrying his haughty, spoiled, and urbane wife lived a “pleasant country life, moldy, unswept, aimlessly leisured, abounding in honey bees, sheep, and olive cakes” (43-48). In order to regain some semblance of his debtfree days of old, he comes up with a plan of action but fails to see at first how it would encourage the breakdown of the family as well as the city. Upon recognizing how his plan of weaseling out of his debts is mistaken, he rights his wrongs and burns down the naturalistic, sophistical thinkery, becoming a zealous, born-again pagan. This play, however, ignores how demagoguery and war have corrupted and threatened the existence of the agrarian way of life. The Acharnians, Peace, and Wealth are more representative of these political themes. They portray the farmer as being a resourceful hero, even to the extent where he is able to outwit the gods, especially in the latter two. In these plays, the farmer is a spokesperson for peace and the “back to the land” movement. Perhaps it is mere coincidence that these themes occur in the agrarian social criticism of the twentieth century. Then again, Aristophanes’ may simply have given voice to their desires or their desires as they should be, since Pericles persuaded many of the farmers to carry on with the war. In what follows, I argue that Aristophanes foresaw, and sought to forestall, the demise of the agrarian mesoi. I limit my interpretation primarily to Acharnians and Knights but also address a few relevant passages in Peace and Wealth, as well as some lines in the other plays.

                                                                                                                242

Aristophanes’ Fragments 160ff., 204ff., 252ff.

The first extant play that we have of Aristophanes’ work is the Acharnians.

112  

It begins with Dicaeopolis, who is one of the farmers who had to leave his land and evacuate to the city, sitting alone in the assembly, waiting for the others to stop their gossiping and come in from the agora (17-29). In this silence, he daydreams, saying aloud, I gaze off to the countryside and pine for peace, loathing the city and yearning for my own deme, that never cried “buy coal,” “buy vinegar,” “buy oil,”; it didn’t know the word ‘buy’; no, it produced everything itself, and the Buy Man was out of sight. So now I’m here, all set to shout, interrupt, revile the speakers, if anyone speaks of anything except peace. (32-39) He longed to return to his economically self-sufficient district and escape those vendors in the market who made a profit from the war. Not only had the war rendered him dependent upon others for food and other essentials, but there was practically no place to live, save for “reclining in the garbage by the ramparts” (71-72). This comment is supported by Thucydides’ description of the living conditions the farmers experienced in the city: “As there were no houses to receive them, they had to be lodged at the hot season of the year in stifling cabins, where the mortality [the plague] raged without restraint” (2.52; see also 2.17). After the assembly convenes and Dicaeopolis realizes that peace in not an option, he orchestrates with the help of a divine messenger a private peace treaty with the Spartans for his family alone (130-132). Unlike the real farmers who failed in establishing peace between Sparta and themselves, Aristophanes makes Dicaeopolis succeed in a similar mission. Was Aristophanes suggesting that had the farmers succeeded their procured peace would have been “just for the city,” which is the meaning of the name Dicaeopolis? However that may be, in Aristophanes’ Acharnians the eponymous farmers are stilling raging at the Spartan destruction of their

vines (182-183, 223-233), and thus they are more akin to the those farmers who were

113  

eager for war during the first Peloponnesian invasion (Thucydides, 2.21), not like those who experienced a change of spirit after the second (2.59). Conversely, Dicaeopolis, after procuring a thirty-year private peace treaty, is as happy as can be and off to celebrate the “rural Dionysia,” as he is now free from a life of campaigning and the generalship of war-mongering “Lamachuses”(194-202, 241-). Yet, he is not entirely free, as the Acharnians are after him for being a traitor to his country (287-292). Once they catch up to him, their leader commands that they pelt him to death; however, the chorus of the Acharnians seems to withhold their assault, leaving Dicaeopolis time to go into his home and bring out comical hostages, which quiets their anger. Gaining their attention, he reprimands them for their behavior and for being “unwilling to listen to something evenly balanced, even when I’m ready to say over a butcher’s block everything I have to say on behalf of the Spartans, though I value my life” (352-357). At this moment, Dicaeopolis seems to become Aristophanes himself, while nonetheless still using the name Dicaeopolis, and he is frank with them: I know the way country people act, deeply delighted when some fraudulent personage eulogizes them and the city, whether truly or falsely; that’s how they can be bought and sold all unawares. And I know the hearts of the oldsters too, looking forward only to biting with their ballots. And in my own case I know what Cleon did to me because of last year’s comedy…. So now, before I make my speech, please let me array myself in guise most piteous. (370-384) And thus from the mouth of a rustic, who was previously self-sufficient before the war, Aristophanes criticizes the fickleness of the Acharnian farmers, who eventually allowed Pericles and other lesser demagogues to persuade them to keep up the war. Another criticism surfaces here that the demagogues corrupted the agrarian soldiers of Marathon

with jury pay, which is best seen in Aristophanes’ Wasps, and is thought to have

114  

paved the way for the emergence of radical democracy and low-minded demagoguery. A character in another play seems to speak Aristophanes’ mind when she says, “Nowadays, we do convene [assemblies], and the people who draw pay praise [a demagogue] to the skies, while those who draw none say that the people who attend for the pay deserve the death penalty” (Assemblywomen, 185-188). After Dicaeopolis reveals himself as the voice of Aristophanes, he seeks help from Euripides, who fits him out in the attire of a beggar so as to become an imitation of the beggar Telephus (429444).243 This choice of character is important, as Telephus sought to show the Greeks who were on the Trojan expedition the point of view of their enemies. Dicaeopolis’ disguise is then apposite, as he seeks to show that the Spartans are not at fault, even though he says he hates them terribly for the vines of his that they have cut down (509511). Rather, blame is placed on some young Athenian men who stirred up trouble in Megara, causing the Megarians to retaliate, and thus provoking the “wrath of Pericles, that Olympian” (513-530), who decreed that the Megarians “should abide neither on land nor in market nor on sea nor on shore” (532-534). The result of this decree forced the starving Megarians to enlist the help of the Spartans, who then actively sought the reversal of the decree many times, but the Athenians failed to listen (535-537). After making his speech, the chorus of Acharnians becomes divided. Dicaeopolis seems to have won some over to his side, claiming that he says what is                                                                                                                 243

See Jeffery Henderson, “Introductory Note,” 50-51. Telephus, however, was actually the king of Mysia, which was attacked by the Greeks on their way to Troy. After being injured by Achilles, an oracle informs Telephus that the hand that harmed him is the only one that can heal him. Thus he sets off in disguise as a beggar, seeking Achilles. He is said to have made a speech in which he questions the “Greek motives for the war against Troy (Paris’ abduction of Helen) and urged them to consider matters from the Trojan/Mysian perspective.”

right (560-561), which is repeated again in the parabasis when the chorus is wholly

115  

on his side (655). While it is unclear how the chorus becomes unified again and this time on the side of Dicaeopolis, it occurs after Dicaeopolis defeats in speech Lamachus, the war-mongering general, and subsequently banning him from “trade in my marketplace,” while allowing the Peloponnesians, Megarians, and Boeotians to trade (623-625). And thus he becomes that which he hated at the beginning of the play, a market vendor. At least in this circumstance, in being the small proprietor of the shop he sets up, he calls the shots, regaining some level of economic independence while at the same time keeping informers and warlords out of his market. Immediately after this episode, the parabasis occurs, where the chorus on Aristophanes’ behalf claims, But since he has been accused by his enemies [namely, Cleon] before Athenians quick to make up their minds, as one who makes comedy of our city and outrages the people, he now asks to defend himself before Athenians just as quick to change their minds. Our poet says that he deserves the rich rewards from you, since he has stopped you from being deceived overmuch by foreigners’ speeches, from being cajoled by flattery, from being citizens of Simpletonia…. For this he’s the source of rich benefits for you, and also for showing how the peoples of the allied states were ‘democratically’ governed. That’s why the allied emissaries who bring you their tribute will henceforth come: they’ll be eager to lay eyes on this outstanding poet who have ventured to tell the Athenians what’s right…. He promises to give you plenty of fine direction, so that you enjoy good fortune, and not to flatter or dangle bribes or bamboozle you, nor play the villain or butter you up, but to give you only the best direction. (628-659) Clearly at this juncture, we see that Aristophanes seeks to guide the people, not bamboozle them. All seems to end well for Aristophanes’ comic hero Dicaeopolis. He has even inspired within the chorus leader the hope of being united with Reconciliation, where the leader dreams of what he would do with his newfound peace: “First, I’d shove in a long rank of tender vines, and beside that some fresh fig shoots, and thirdly a

well hung vine branch—this oldster would!—and, around the whole plot, a stand of

116  

olive trees, so that you and I could anoint ourselves for the New Moon feasts” (995999). Although we are never given the faintest hint as to why the chorus thinks it will share in Dicaeopolis’s private peace treaty, as he seems to be quite stingy with letting others have a taste of it (1037-1039, but not entirely so, see 1058-1068), at the end of the play he nonetheless asks them to follow him, singing “Hail the Champion!” If reconciliation, and thus peace, were to bring about all of what the leader of the Acharnian chorus dreams, it is likely that Dicaeopolis would eventually give up his market once his lands have had time to heal, especially, if Dicaeopolis renews his contempt of the agora and gives voice to the just Better Speech of the Clouds (991).244 The transformation of a self-sufficient agrarian into a shopkeeper plausibly, although not definitively, points to another Aristophanic theme, that is, the corruption of the agrarian demos due to the war and the emergence of a radical democracy favoring the urban poor. Unlike Pericles, who voted for war and coveted glory, Aristophanes appears to champion the cause of peace and justice, doing so not in a retiring or unambitious manner but boldly and comically for the sake of what is right. “Right” possibly understood as what was right for the landed aristocracy and the small farmers, who were the losers regarding Pericles’ navel strategy, as they respectively had either more

                                                                                                               

244

See Fragment 402: “You fool, you fool! All of it’s in this life of peace: to live in the country on his small plot of land, free of the rat-race of the market, owning his very own yoke of oxen, and hearing the bleating of his flocks and the sound of new wine being bottled up, snacking on little finches and thrushes, no hanging around the market waiting for smallfry days old, overpriced, weighed out for him by a crooked fishmonger with a thumb on the scales.” See Knights (213-222, 293).

taxes and liturgies demanded of them or their lands raided without a fight.

245

Since

117  

some of the poor were enfranchised during the war, it is understandable that the poor were on the side for war, and thus one of Aristophanes’ leading characters could say, regarding whether to launch a fleet, “the poor man votes yes, the wealthy and the farmers vote no” (Assemblywomen, 197-198). This statement leads one to believe that the conservative class tended to be composed of the wealthy and the small farmers. Yet, we know that the farmers did not always vote against war, as Aristophanes openly criticizes them in the Acharnians for allowing themselves to be fooled by demagoguery and then voting against their very own interests. This theme is especially the case in the Knights, where the slaves of Mr. Demos, who is a personification of the real demos, the assembly on Pynx Hill, complain about their master’s farmer’s temperament, [who is] a bean chewer, prickly in the extreme… a cranky, half-deaf little codger. Last market day he bought a slave, Paphlagon [Cleon], a tanner, an arch criminal, and a slanderer. He sized up the old man’s character, this rawhide Paphlagon did, so he crouched before the master and started flattering and fawning and toadying and swindling him with odd tidbits of waste leather, saying things like, “Mr. Demos, do have your bath as soon as you’ve tried only one case.”—“Here’s something to nibble, wolf down, savor: a 3-obol piece.” (40-52) But behind Demos’ back, Paphlagon sells cheap leather to the farmers at a “dishonest price” (315-319, see also 824-827), admitting also that “I can make a fool of [Demos] as much as I want’ (713-714). Aristophanes is thus shaming the agrarian demos into realizing how they have been tricked in the Assembly, saying “no to the fine upstanding ones, but [you] give yourself to lamp sellers and cobblers and shoemakers and tanners”                                                                                                                 245

Jeffery Henderson, “The Demos and the Comic Competition,” in Oxford Readings in Aristophanes, ed. Erich Segal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 76; see also Peace 1172-1190, where Aristophanes claims that the citizen rosters were manipulated to exploit the agrarian infantry and “less so the city folk.”

(738-740), that is, men not of good birth but of “low birth” and “marketplace

118  

morals” (217-218).246 Rather, Aristophanes wishes to persuade his agrarian audience of a time when the assembly did not meet and still could detect who was a scoundrel; whereas presently they have been fooled into accepting pay for public service while praising misfits (Assemblywomen 183-188).247 Through the mouth of the Sausage Seller, Aristophanes rails against the war-mongering demagogues who claim to cherish the agrarian demos, but have allowed him to live in “barrels and shanties and garrets for eight years now and feel no pity, indeed shut him in and rifle his hut,” while they decline peace proposals that would improve his way of life (792-796). The message should be clear, especially for those farmers who have been corralled in the city, leaving their lands to be plundered. How could a lengthy war be in their interest? Yet, as was witnessed with Pericles’ speech, the farmers seem to be susceptible to becoming supporters of the war, even when it undermines their agrarian way of life. Aristophanes thus seeks to open their eyes as to how they are being hoodwinked, reminding them of their former virtue. Aristophanes, reminiscent of Hesiod, seeks to unit the demos against corrupt politicians who are unable to learn from his comic song. His comedy holds out hope that the agrarian demos will heed his advise and turn away from the flattery and bribery of the base politicians. Again, through the paternalistic demagoguery of the Sausage Seller, Aristophanes aims his spear at the low-minded demagoguery of Cleon, which was breed from the “marketplace morals,” arguing                                                                                                                 246

Cf. fragment 581, where the market, in disregarding the seasons, and thus the principle of due season or appropriateness, sells things from all over and makes things worse for the people, in that they spend their money when they otherwise would not. 247 See Peace 632-648, where their helplessness after coming in from the countryside partially excuses them of being fooled by the low-minded orators.

You certainly aren’t figuring how he can rule Arcadia, but how you can steal and take bribes from the allied cities, and how Demos can be made blind to your crimes amid the fog of war, while mooning at you from necessity, deprivation, and jury pay. But if Demos ever returns to his peaceful life on the farm, and regains his spirit by eating porridge and chewing the fat with some pressed olives, he’ll realize the many benefits you beat him out of with your state pay; then he’ll come after you with a farmer’s vengeful temper, tracking down a ballot to use against you. You’re aware of this, so you keep fooling him and rigging up dreams about yourself. (801-809)

119  

Aristophanes is recalling here the same sort of agrarian demos that Aristotle claims is the best sort of people, who mind their own business, allowing the best and those who are financially able to rule with the interests of the farmers in mind, so that they do not need to convene the assembly. This demos was the one that “At Marathon…outduelled the Medes in defense of our country…and bequeathed to our tongues matter for minting great phrases” (781-782). In other words, had Athens not stooped to low-minded politics Aeschylus’ tragedy would have served the city well; however, given the state of things, Aristophanes’ comedy in the service of right must ridicule the demagogues into submission and remind the demos of their former stature or at least their “vengeful temper”. He seeks to do this with such characters like the Sausage Seller, whose real name is Agoracritus, meaning “chosen by the assembly.” Such a name suggests, as was suggested with the name Dicaeopolis, the actions that the assembly should follow. In so doing, Aristophanes wishes to make the demos young again or to at least regain their former glory, not that of the future glory associated with the ever-expanding Athenian empire. While his art is limited as to what it can achieve in real life, in his poetry he works wonders and restores Mr. Demos to his youth, “smelling not of ballot shells but peace accords, and anointed with myrrh” and in a condition that “is worthy of the city and the trophy of Marathon” (1331-1334). He makes Demos confess his shame in

being duped (1355). Once transformed, Demos restricts, among other things, who is

120  

allowed in the marketplace (1373), as did Dicaeopolis, and proves himself worthy of reliving the “good old days,” which is secured by thirty-year peace treaties (1387-1389). Upon receiving the treaties, Demos is encouraged to go back home to his farm (13911394). Here he will preserve himself against the corruptions of the city and jury pay, living in abundance and with the kin of Peace, Agriculture (Fragment 305). In the Peace, Aristophanes seems to be saying that the recovery of peace is up to the farmers and not politicians. Like the Acharnians, Aristophanes’ Peace portrays a farmer who understands his true interests and succeeds in resurrecting peace not only for himself but for all of Greece. In fact, avarice, war, and imperial ambitions are described as being the “farmer’s loss,” who are “wholly blameless men” (625-627). Aristophanes seems to imply that domestic self-sufficiency and thus genuine wealth are compatible with agrarianism, not goods won by imperial conquests. He, moreover, makes the farmers in general solely responsible for rescuing the “greatest of all goddesses, and the one most friendly to vines”—Peace (306-308, 507, 511). In acquiring peace, those who profited off the war cringe, while those who will gain in peace are elated (546-547). Here the comic hero, the farmer Trygaeus gives the rallying cry of peace, “Now everyone raise the paean, and be off to your work in the fields.” Such a cry was “long craved by farmers and righteous people” who are ready to greet their vines and embrace the fig trees they planted in their youth (554-559), returning to their “old way of life” full of bountiful goods with which the goddess Peace afforded them (572-581). Again, as with the Acharnians, once the farmers have triumphed they set up a market (999-1000), one that seems to be rather free, as in open to all, save for

servile informers, who elsewhere confess to not knowing how to use a shovel or how

121  

to be engaged in a respectable occupation (Birds, 1432-1435; cf. Wealth, 898-950), along with oracle-mongers (1045-1126) and ambitious youth (1290-1294). It seems that the free markets of Peace and Acharnians only promote fair trade, which is to say, trade among those who justly acquire their wealth. Perhaps, the turn to being a market vendor does not imply that the agrarian has been corrupted but rather points to how agrarian judgment has made the market better. Unfortunately, peace and wholesome wealth did not last for Aristophanes’ farmers. The last extant play we have by Aristophanes is Wealth, which shows an impoverished farmer wrestling with the question he poses to the oracle of whether his son should not follow in the footsteps of his “just and godfearing” father, who has always been “poor and unsuccessful,” and instead, “he should change his ways and become a criminal, unjust, completely unwholesome, considering that that’s the way to get ahead in life” (28-29, 32-38). While Aristophanes is having fun with the piety of the farmer, who expects to prosper from his just way of life, an obvious allusion to Hesiod’s dilemma in Works and Days (267-273, 280-281), he nonetheless is serious in how wealth in his day and age seemed to be blind to the deeds of the just. It is likely that during the course of the Peloponnesian War that the divide between the rich and the poor became wider as the agrarian mesoi diminished in stature.248 In a chapter entitled Aristophanic ‘Economics’, which is on the play Wealth, Paul Cartledge asks, “Was it, for example, a utopian dream put forward by a conservative thinker anxious to mask real socioeconomic antagonisms within Athenian society? Or a ‘progressive’ social                                                                                                                 248

Cf. Cartledge, Aristophanes and His Theatre of the Absurd, 64.

critique from an ex-conservative radicalized by the hardships experienced by peasant

122  

farmers in the final phase of the Peloponnesian War and its immediate aftermath?”249 However that may be, Aristophanes once again makes a farmer and his friends save the day by restoring sight to Wealth, who is the genuine child of the agrarian divinity Demeter,250 so that Wealth can returned to his boyhood dream of visiting the “houses of just, wise, and decent people,” that is, before Zeus in his hatred of good people blinded him (87-92). This comment seemingly undermines Hesiod’s teaching of Zeus who gave Justice as a gift to humankind, holding out prosperity as a reasonable hope for practicing justice. Aristophanes, however, seems to be saying that that hope is now empty. Of course, we should recall that for Hesiod one bad man can, although doesn’t necessarily, ruin a city. And moreover, Hesiod saw that the Iron Age would only become worse as the scales tip in favor of evil men. The most thought-provoking part of Wealth occurs, however, when Poverty gets word of Chremylus’, the main character, plan to restore Wealth to the just. She argues that no one will want to work once they have wealth and thus things will be worse off (532-535). Her claims bare a resemblance to Hesiod’s description of the good Strife, which sets men to work, as work is not shameful for men and is in fact conducive to a just and pious way of life. Aristophanes seems to be arguing through the mouth of Poverty that the just are just because they are not wealthy, and that as long as they are not beggars, but “thrifty and hardworking” and equipped with all of the necessities of life, they will be better men, free from bodily diseases and of arrogance. In being poor, yet self-sufficient, and not impoverished, they display good behavior and are not                                                                                                                

249 250

Ibid., 66. See Jeffery Henderson, “Introductory Note” to Wealth, 417.

miserly but eager to “do right by the people and the state” when they are politicians.

123  

It is when they seek the spurious form of wealth that they become corrupt (550-570). And thus Aristophanes anticipates Aristotle’s praise of the middling element, the agrarian mesoi, as being the best sort of people, as they are moderate and just. In fact, Aristotle, like Aristophanes’ Poverty, makes the claim that politicians of middling means are the best legislators.251 In making this point, Aristophanes seeks to keep Chremylus on the right path and thus becomes the comic version of Hesiod. And like Hesiod, Aristophanes sees the inherent worth in the agrarian way of life that is the surest way to make an honest living. Aristophanes thus continues Hesiod’s defense of the agrarian standard, while nonetheless showing some of the weaknesses of the farmer. Xenophon: The Agrarian Education of the Gentleman-Farmer It has been finely argued that Xenophon’s Oeconomicus is “in a properly subdued manner a comical reply to Aristophanes’ comical attack on Socrates.”252 Xenophon’s Socrates does not pass up a chance to criticize Kritoboulos for passing his time watching comedies and neglecting the art of farming (III.7). Although it is difficult to date the Socratic turn from natural philosophy to political philosophy, one must wonder if Aristophanes’ Clouds played a role in turning his attention to things of the city. In other words, is comedy somehow responsible for inspiring in Socrates an interest in human affairs and asking questions of what a perfect gentleman is? In turn, is comedy somehow responsible for the opening conversation of the Oeconomicus between Socrates and Kritoboulos, the son of a farmer, where the topics of household                                                                                                                 251

Aristotle, Politics, 135 (1296a17-21). Leo Strauss, Xenophon’s Socratic Discourse: An Interpretation of the Oeconomicus, ed. Allan Bloom, with a new, literal translation of the Oeconomicus by Carnes Lord (South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 1998), 164. 252

management, the acquisition of wealth, and the perfect gentleman are discussed?

124  

These questions, while being impossible to answer, nonetheless consider the role of comedy in human affairs. Let us suppose for the moment that Aristophanes’ attempt to educate the people about their true desires stops there. After becoming aware of these desires, they nevertheless must learn how it is that they can support them. For instance, Aristophanes in the Clouds made fun of Socrates’ idleness and trivial wisdom, at least trivial from the point of view of the city. It was left to Socrates to discover political philosophy. Likewise, could Aristophanes’ agrarian plays have inspired in Kritoboulos the desire to increase his wealth through farming? Perhaps, but they certainly did not teach him how to farm or to increase his wealth, that is, unless riding to heaven on a dung beetle could be viewed as a strategy for resurrecting Peace and the ensuing abundance that comes from her reign. In other words, comedy at its best is able to nourish certain desires within its audience and educate them about their true desires primarily by shaming them when they veer from what is right; however, it is limited, given the scope of its modus operandi, as to be unable to teach anything as serious as the practical knowledge of an activity. Not because Aristophanes is necessarily ignorant in this regard, although he perhaps may be, especially concerning Socrates’ activity. Rather, the medium of comedy is inherently limited in what it can do for the city. The Oeconomicus, it would appear, is the natural companion to Aristophanes’ agrarian comedies, as it finishes what the latter cannot. Of course, this claim only holds if Socratic dialogue is unable to pique the interests of its listeners and interlocutors but nonetheless able to educate them on how best to attain these interests.

However that may be, Xenophon’s Oeconomicus is the founding text on

125  

household management or, as we might say, the household economy. The household economy looms large in agrarian writings. For instance, Wendell Berry, an agrarian thinker I discuss in the second part, has a book of essays called Home Economics. In a chapter called the “Two Economies,” he demonstrates through his agrarians sensibilities how the industrial economy displaced the domestic, household economy.253 While this distinction is lost on most of us who no longer grow our own food, bake our own bread, or brew our own beer, it points to how the industrial economy promises through the lure of efficiency a more plentiful supply of goods at a cheap price than what the household alone can produce. Xenophon’s Oeconomicus gives those of us who are unfamiliar with a household economy a glimpse into how things used to be for the greater part of Western civilization, that is, up until the Great World Wars, when the rise of the industrial economy eclipsed the household economy in many Western countries. But more will be said on this topic later. The Oeconomicus begins suddenly with Socrates questioning Kritoboulos about whether household management is a type of knowledge similar to that of medicine, smithing, and carpentry (I.1). They both hold it to be a type of knowledge as are the other arts. Unlike smithing and carpentry, household management is primarily concerned with the right ordering of wealth, or disposition toward it, so that something such as money is not used to make a person become worse in body or soul or a household impoverished (I.12-13; see also III.5). Whereas smithing and carpentry make something that others will use for a certain purpose, household management, we                                                                                                                

253

Wendell Berry, Home Economics: Fourteen Essays (New York: North Point Press, 1987). In this collection, see “Two Economies,” 54-75.

might say, is more similar to medicine, or rather gymnastics, in that both are

126  

concerned with using things in an appropriate way so as to attain a goal, such as wealth or health. While household management is concerned with the right ordering and use of one’s possessions, it nonetheless relies upon the art of farming. Farming seems to be more akin to smithing and carpentry, in that they use knowledge to make something, such as a shield, a house, or a cultivated field. Unlike smithing and carpentry, however, the art of farming is the easiest to learn and the most philanthropic art (XV.4, 10; XVIII.10; XIX.16-18). In being the easiest and the most philanthropic, it is thus the one most proper for a gentleman (cf. XX.17 with VI.8). It is considered the easiest not in terms of effort but in terms of relative ease as to how one can make use of the art. In other words, a horse-seller could easily deceive someone who is unlearned in the art of horsemanship, whereas the worth of a land is much easier to assess, as “it doesn’t show itself deceptively, but reveals simply and truthfully what it can do and what it cannot” (XX.13).254 Based upon the honest ways of the land, Socrates pronounces, “the earth, being a goddess, teaches justice to those who are able to learn, for she give the most goods in return to those who serve her best” (V.12). In a sense, the earth is the most democratic divinity, in that understanding her ways does not demand a sophisticated education or a prolonged apprenticeship. In diligently practicing the cultivation of her, she in turn                                                                                                                

254

Cf. Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, 461-462: “Country gentlemen and farmers are, to their great honour, of all people, the least subject to the wretched spirit of monopoly. The undertaker of a great manufactory is sometimes alarmed if another work of the same kind is established within twenty miles of him. The Dutch undertaker of woolen manufacture at Abbeville, stipulated that no work of the same kind should be established within thirty leagues of that city. Farmers and country gentlemen, on the contrary, are generally disposed rather to promote than to obstruct the cultivation and improvement of their neighbours farms and estates. They have no secrets, such as those of the greater part of manufacturers, but are generally rather fond of communicating to their neighbours, and of extending as far as possible any new practice which they have found to be advantageous.”

supplies one with plentiful goods as well as teaches justice. It appears that the

127  

justice she teaches is the ability to be economically self-sufficient, standing on one’s own two feet, rather than to increase one’s wealth by means of war. She thus teaches the virtue requisite for a republic of small farmers, which is compatible with Aristotle’s claim that an agrarian democracy is the best form of democracy. A democracy like Athens, for instance, became worse off as it slighted its farming class and enfranchised the urban poor. The Peloponnesian War hastened such a transition when the political rulers of Athens sought to expand the tyrannical rule of the radical democracy over other cities, as “in war it is often safer to seek to maintain oneself with arms rather than with instruments of farming” (V.13). And while war can be used to increase wealth, and thus at times may be a more convenient way of providing for oneself, it requires the act of taking from others, which is why Socrates is silent regarding justice in the section on the Persian king’s praise of farming and the art of war (IV.4-24).255 Under the rule of the king of Persia, the farmers are slaves, and although the earth may bestow a healthy crop for those that work the land, given the circumstances, she is unable to bring forth her most virtuous blossom—the gentleman-farmer. In fact, only in the soil of a republic can such a possibility occur, and moreover, only here is farming truly ennobled as an occupation and not simply some pet pleasure of an imperial despot. That said, even the king of Persia cannot resist the temptation of farming, as he has his pleasure gardens that he planned and even planted (IV.22). Upon seeing these gardens,                                                                                                                 255

As regards the public economy, Xenophon in Ways and Means argues with Athens in mind that peace ought to be preferred over war: If, on the other hand, any one supposes that financially war is more profitable to the state than peace, I really do not know how the truth of this can be tested better than by considering once more what has been the experience of our state in the past. He will find that in old days a very great amount of money was paid into the treasury in time of peace, and that the whole of it was spent in time of war. (V.11-12)

the Spartan Lysander commented on the beauty of them, and it was only after

128  

hearing that he had a hand in the cultivation that Lysander thus praised Cyrus: “You, Cyrus, seem to me to be justly happy, for you are happy while being a good man” (IV.25). This praise is curious, as in Sparta free men were forbidden to take up farming as a way to make money. Rather, their way of increasing wealth was war. Leo Strauss comments, While the authority of original Sparta or of Sparta as a city spoke against money-making in any form, i.e., against the activity to which Socrates encourages Kritoboulos, the greatest living Spartan seemed to have shown profound respect for the practice of farming, at least on one outstanding occasion. We are unable to say whether Lysander was aware of the critique of Sparta that seems to be implicit in what he said to Cyrus; we are surely aware of the critique of Sparta that is implicit in the Oeconomicus as a whole. We must also note that Lysander calls Cyrus a good man; he does not call him a perfect gentleman.256 The orientation of the perfect gentleman is toward what is noble. It appears, then, that the Spartan regime is defective to some degree, in that it fails to see the virtues derived or associated with economics. If indeed the Oeconomicus is a critique of Sparta, it would be along the lines of what Aristotle says in the Politics regarding Sparta: “They consider that the good things [men] generally fight over are won by virtue rather than vice, and rightly so; but they conceive these things to be better than virtue, which is not right” (1271b6-10; cf.1324b2-9, 1333b10-1334a10). One ought not to fight then for the sake of gain but for what is noble. Aristotle also says, “Even those who also aim at living well seek what conduces to bodily gratifications, and since this too appears to be available in and through possessions, their pursuits are wholly connected with business,                                                                                                                 256

Strauss, Xenophon’s Socratic Discourse, 119.

and this is why the other kind [that is, commercial] of business expertise has

129  

arisen…. For it belongs to courage to produce not goods but confidence; nor does this belong to military or medical expertise, but it belongs to the former to produce victory, to the latter, health” (1258a2-13). Thus a class of perfect gentleman, which Sparta sought to produce, ceases to be when virtue becomes simply mercenary. What is truly a wonder, and thus must be considered, is how the gentleman-farmer, in turn, moves beyond the profit farming produces and toward gentlemanliness. In the Oeconomicus, the reader is introduced to Ischomachus, a gentlemanfarmer who makes economics serve virtue. He is supposed to be a model for Kritoboulos as to how one can increase his wealth through farming but more importantly as to what it means to be a gentleman-farmer. A gentleman is high-minded and “is really a great man who can do great things by means of the mind rather than by means of strength” (XXI.8). Mindful persuasion and skill at ruling have the potential to beget the willingness of those ruled; such an ability is divine and the one who wields it has “been genuinely initiated into the mysteries of moderation; but tyrannical rule over unwilling subjects, it seems to me, they give to those whom they believe worthy of living like Tantalus in Hades, who is said to spend unending time in fear of a second death” (XXXI.12). Wisdom’s rule rests upon moderation and such a rule steels a man against any fear of death. Given the context of the Oeconomicus, the “mysteries of moderation” seem to present themselves in the domestic domain, where the man of the house has the chance to rule like a king while remaining a citizen of a republic. Did the goddess Earth through teaching justice preside of these mysteries?

Some years after having heard Ischomachus talk about farming, Xenophon’s

130  

Socrates responds to Kritoboulos’ concern of practicing an art that is “reputed to be the finest and would be especially suitable” (IV.1) with the suggestion that he ought to practice farming, not the mechanical arts: For indeed those that are called mechanical are spoken against everywhere and have quite plausibly come by a very bad reputation in the cities. For they utterly ruin the bodies of those who work at them and those who are concerned with them, compelling them to sit still and remain indoors, or in some cases even to spend the whole day by a fire. And when the bodies are made effeminate, the souls too become much more diseased. Lack of leisure to join in the concerns of friends and of the city is another condition of those that are called mechanical; those who practice them are reputed to be bad friends as well as bad defenders of their fatherlands. Indeed in some of the cities, especially those reputed to be good a war, no citizen is allowed to work at the mechanical arts. (IV.2-3) What is significant about Socrates’ recollecting the bad opinion of the mechanical arts is that Ischomachus, the actual farmer, never voices such an opinion. Socrates is the one who paints a vivid picture of the debased life of an artisan. For Ischomachus, it seems that if the taskmaster of a mechanic can get him to willing do his job and fare well at it, then it is still a great, as well as divine, thing (cf. XXI.11). The only comment that Ischomachus makes that could be considered as being derogatory toward artisans is when he says that they “conceal the most important features of their arts” and farmers do not, which is why farming “renders those who are engaged in it extremely well-bred in their characters” (XV.60). How then does farming make one well-bred? How does the earth teach justice? These questions seem to point to an alternative route to virtue that does not necessarily proceed through music and gymnastics. It is akin to Hesiod’s path of virtue that is paved at first with bitter sweat but then turns sweet as one reaches the peak. This path

was certainly known to Xenophon (Memorabilia, II.i.17-34). Pheraulas is one of

131  

Xenophon’s characters in the Education of Cyrus who has gone down the path of virtue. He even appears to be a mirror image of Cyrus were it not that the latter had royal blood running in his veins. This claim, however, must await scrutiny in another project. As for the purpose of this chapter, it is enough to mention that as a boy Pheraulas was privileged enough to be exposed to the public education of Persia but had to discontinue this education when he was the age of a youth due to his father being unable to support his studies (VIII.iii.37). Like Cyrus, he receives a mixed education but one that is certainly different. The second education of Pheraulas occurs when he was led off to the country by his father and commanded to work. He says, “Then, of course, I supported him in return, while he lived, I myself digging and sowing a very small bit of earth, yet not a worthless one, but the most just of all, and from what seed it received, it nobly and justly gave back a return of both the seed itself and some interest, but not much at all. Once, owing to its gentility, it gave back a return of twice what it received” (VIII.iii.38). If the political merits of farming are true, it is no wonder, then, that once Cyrus levels the playing field between the Peers and the Commoners, Pheraulas is quite pleased not to be barred from a “contest of virtue” due to a lack of wealth (II.iii.8). He encourages his fellow Commoners by stating that although the Peers take pride in their education, where they had to “endure against hunger, thirst, and cold,” the Commoners, themselves, were taught by a teacher superior than the Peers—necessity. Necessity has taught what the Peers learned but did so only “too thoroughly.” As a result, the burdens that the commoners had to face in working the land makes bearing arms seem “more like wings than a burden.” Cyrus, then, makes possible, even in Persia, a “democratic

struggle,” where Pheraulas could be said to have risen to the top due to his agrarian

132  

education (II.iii.7-15). Perhaps, however, it is relevant that in Persia the earth is said to be just and noble. In other words, she is not said to have taught these traits but to possess them, whereas in Athens and other republican Greek city-states, the earth teaches justice while also being so. Yet, in being characteristically Persian, Pheraulas is unable to bring forth republican virtue out of his circumstances. And while his way of life has made him a robust man in body, he complacently prostrates himself toward Cyrus’ imperial ambitions. That is to say, a nation of small farmers needs more than the earth as a teacher. Laws respecting and preserving well-distributed private property seem essential to fostering the republican virtues of political and economic freedom. Whether laws like these originated from sensible agrarians or were the laws that gave birth to political agrarianism is difficult, if not impossible, to discern. All that needs to be said regarding the education of Pheraulas is that the practice of farming is beneficial for producing the muscle necessary for martial virtue. In the Oeconomicus, the gentleman-farmer is also said to be practiced in the art of war, and the art of farming gives him ample conditioning and opportunities to exercise this capacity. Socrates makes this case by arguing why “the cities” or republics repudiate the mechanical arts: they seem to ruin the bodies utterly and …. enervate the souls. One would have the clearest proof of this, we asserted, if, as enemies were invading the country, one were to seat the farmers and the artisans apart from one another and question each as to whether it seemed better to defend the country or, giving up the earth altogether, to guard the wall. Those who are bound to the earth we supposed would vote to defend it, while the artisans would vote not to fight at all but rather to sit still as they had been educated to do, neither toiling nor risking danger. (VI.5-7)

He seems to anticipate Aristotle in siding with the predominately agrarian republic

133  

over the commercial, manufacturing republic, especially as the predominant occupation of the former is capable of producing virtues that are able to sustain “the cities”. His defense of farming is then not primarily based upon its ability to increase wealth. Rather, it rests upon the possibility of cultivating the perfect gentleman. Socrates, perhaps better than anyone else, articulates the main gist of political agrarianism: We came to the conclusion that for the gentleman the best kind of work and the best kind of knowledge is farming, by which human beings supply themselves with the necessary things. For that kind of work seemed to be at once the easiest to learn and the most pleasant to work at; it seemed to produce at once the finest and most robust bodies, and as for the souls, it seemed least of all to cause any lack of leisure for joining in the concerns of friends and cities. It seemed to us further that farming incites to bravery those who work at it, by bringing forth and nourishing the necessary things outside the fortifications. This manner of living is, as a result, held in highest repute by the cities, for it seems to provide the best and the best-willed citizens to the community. (VI.8-10; see also V.1-11) Farming hardens the body and makes gentle the soul, proving itself to be a worthy alternative to an expensive public education in gymnastics and music and thus certifying itself as being well-bred. Ischomachus says, “For as it is most beneficial and pleasant to work at, the finest and most beloved of gods and human beings, and in addition the easiest to learn, how can it be anything but well-bred? For indeed, of living things we call those well-bred that are fine, great, beneficial, and at the same time gentle toward human beings” (XV.4). Well-bred then means what is fine, great, useful, and gentle regarding human beings. And thus the wealth acquired from farming, as Ischomachus demonstrates, can nobly be put to use in service of one’s friends and city. The acquisition of wealth for Ischomachus is not simply derived from a love of gain. As his soul is moderately ambitious, he finds it to be pleasant to have the means to

“honor the gods magnificently, to aid friends when they need something, and to see

134  

that the city is never unadorned through lack of wealth” (XI.9). It appears then that if Ischomachus were considered as the highest achievement of political agrarianism we would see that his love of farming serves his devotion to what is noble. His choice of an occupation, furthermore, is evidence of such devotion as it habituates one to be wellbred, not lame. A host of questions could be raised about my interpretation of the Oeconomicus, especially as to whether Socrates is genuinely defending agrarian republicanism.257 Moreover, we do not even know if Socrates persuaded Kritoboulos to be like Ischomachus. What we do know is that Xenophon was present when Socrates recalled his conversation with Ischomachus (I.1, III.1). Why would Xenophon be so thorough in outlining the practical knowledge of farming toward the end of the book if he himself did not take an active interest in what he learned from Socrates’ conversation with Kritoboulos and Ischomachus? Why would he reiterate some of the points made in the conversation in his other works, like the Education of Cyrus, or in a treatise offering advice for the public economy of Athens, where he counsels at first self-sufficient agriculture as the “fairest way” to obtain food and wealth (Ways and Means, I.1-5), despite knowing that the Athenians are too insatiable to yield to the “mysteries of moderation”? As such, he offered another way for the Athenians to acquire wealth, but ends the treatise by telling the Athenians that they should consult the oracles to see if the design is a good one, and then if they consent, which gods should they propitiate so                                                                                                                

257

Cf. Wayne H. Ambler, “On the Oeconomicus,” in Xenophon, The Shorter Socratic Writings: “Apology of Socrates to the Jury,” “Oeconomicus,” and “Symposium,” ed. Robert C. Bartlett (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), 111-112.

as to make their plans prosper (VI.2-3). This suggestion is reminiscent of Socrates’

135  

advice to Xenophon before he has agreed to make the journey with the younger Cyrus to his fatherland, where Xenophon fails to wholly follow Socrates’’ advice and neglects to ask the oracle whether he should make the journey (The Anabasis of Cyrus, III.i.7). Xenophon appears to have learned from his mistake, seeing that although he returned from the journey, he we was nonetheless exiled. His exile perhaps is punishment for not wholly following Socrates’ advice. In exile, however, Xenophon takes to heart, it seems, the conversation Socrates had with Kritoboulos and Ischomachus. His description of his own home and the activities that take place on his farm more than rival Ischomachus’ wealth in gentlemanliness (The Anabasis of Cyrus, V.iii.7-13). Who is to say that Xenophon is not the pinnacle of political agrarianism? Conclusion However one might answer this question, we nonetheless find that Hesiod, Aristophanes, and Xenophon confirm and even had a hand in producing the common opinion associating virtue with the agrarian way of life. Hesiod’s contribution to this common opinion emphasizes that the economic self-sufficiency is the surest way to observe justice and piety toward Zeus’ will. He, then, is the founder of the agrarian standard that others have so often invoked in their writings, as was shown regarding Aristotle’s political economy and its preference for an agrarian republic over a commercial one. Aristophanes’ contribution to the common opinion is not as straightforward. While he recognizes the virtues of the farmers, he does not turn a blind eye to some of their faults. He thus would probably make the sensible argument that the education that farming bestows upon its practitioners does not necessarily confer

political wisdom, despite its ability to habituate one towards courage, justice, and

136  

moderation. After all, one of Aristophanes’ themes points to how the agrarian demos lost it way among the flattery of low-minded, war-mongering demagogues. That Aristophanes’ plays seek to remind the agrarian demos of their past glory suggests that agrarianism is politically significant and desirable. The political significance of the agrarian way of life, however, is best portrayed in Xenophon’s Oeconomicus. As was argued, the gentleman-farmer seems to be the perfect bloom of the agrarian way of life, in that he not only displays the virtues of justice, courage, and moderation but is able to give an account to Socrates of the noble deeds that his way of life makes possible. Even though Socrates may be said to arguably deepen the practical wisdom displayed in Ischomachus’ account, this should not distract from the tenable point of view of a thoughtful farmer, who while not necessarily attaining the philosophic standard embodied in a Socrates is nonetheless rightly deemed a useful citizen. Such is Xenophon’s contribution to the common opinion. All three taken together support the belief that the agrarian way of life is a venerable political tradition and worthy of preserving. With this in mind, it is now time to turn to the second part, where the agrarian standard and the political judgment and rhetoric of its twentieth century defenders are more fully examined.

PART II: THE POLITICAL JUDGMENT OF AGRARIAN SOCIAL CRITICS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA The common opinion of the virtuous farmer is one of the longstanding beliefs of Western civilization. And as long as there are a significant amount of farmers in a political regime, this belief will likely endure. The twentieth century, however, witnessed the rise of the agrarian social critic, and it is important to keep in mind that his social criticism was largely in response to the spread of industrial capitalism and the global economy. What occurred in this century was the transformation from an agrarian standard to an industrial one in farming. While the Industrial Revolution in its infancy left farmers relatively to themselves, it did not do so indefinitely. With the combination of policies favoring both large-scale agriculture and industrial technology, which is to say agribusiness, the family farm barely survived the century and some say that the odds are against it surviving the next. Agrarian social critics, although knowing they are fighting a rearguard battle against the expansionism of agribusiness, are generally not believers in the modern mantra that proclaims progress to be inevitable. Instead they are firm believers in the Biblical teaching of “you reap what you sow.” In other words, the greed that is often the mover of economic things is something that comes from within. Left unchecked, it is a weed that will choke out the seeds of civilization, rebarbarizing the fields of the family farm. On the surface things may indeed look fine

to the untrained eye. Agrarian social critics, however, assure us that they are not. It is the task of this section to outline and discuss the political judgment of these critics.

138  

CHAPTER IV: AQUINAS, POPE LEO XIII AND THE DISTRIBUTISTS: DEFENDING THE SMALL PROPRIETOR Introduction Thomas Aquinas follows Aristotle’s lead on a number of points, and in many regards his thought is traditionally viewed as a continuation of Aristotle’s. Aquinas’ thought, in turn, has been preeminent among Catholics of all ranks. It is to be expected, then, that one would find the spirit of Aristotle’s political economy living on, whether directly or indirectly, in the Catholic social thought of Aquinas, Pope Leo XIII, and the English Distributists. And thus were one to think about what Aristotle might have to say in response to modern developments, the Church would be one place to look for suggestions, as there exists a remarkable continuity of thought on political economy from Aristotle to the Catholic social critics of the past century. The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate that Aquinas, Pope Leo XIII, and the Distributists are in fundamental agreement with Aristotle in the need to limit economic activity. This is not to say that they would agree on everything, but to focus on every little detail would possibly blind us to their common ground. If there is one thing that I desire to make clear it is that the economic teachings of both Aristotle and these Catholic thinkers are opposed to the economy that favors the unlimited growth of wealth and unfettered competition, which for the sake of brevity will be referred to as capitalism or commercialism. This should not be construed as saying that Catholics are

wholly opposed to capitalism or that they ought to be. There is a reputable strand of

140  

Catholic social thought that attempts to bring out into the open the merits of capitalism, the leading proponent being Michael Novak. I can only say a few things in passing on Novak’s political economy. Novak’s argument for “democratic capitalism,” while being thoughtful and and at times persuasive, proves a point that needs to be stressed as to how his political economy is fundamentally different from Aristotle’s. He contends, “A market economy may be as much an expression of the Jewish-Christian ‘historical energy’ in the economic order as democracy is in the political order. Indeed democracy itself may not be able to be realized apart from a market economy and personal incentives.”258 Subsumed under this one concept of democratic capitalism are three systems: capitalistic economics, democratic politics, and the Judeo-Christian moral-cultural system. He argues, “These three systems are relatively autonomous. Each is coordinate with the other two. None is subordinate to the others.”259 Aristotle’s political economy, however, subordinates economics to politics and morality. In doing so, it is my contention that this separates his political economy from the one that Novak advocates, especially, since the latter views economics as being “relatively autonomous”. The distinction rests upon the orientation and status of economics within the outlook of each: where the former is oriented toward the goal of self-sufficiency and the good life, the latter is oriented toward the desire for unlimited wealth. It should be kept in mind that Aristotle’s emphasis on self-sufficiency as the guiding principle of his political                                                                                                                 258

Michael Novak, “On the Governability of Democracies: The Evangelical Basis of a Social Market Economy,” in Three in One: Essays on Democratic Capitalism 1976-2000, ed. Edward W. Younkins (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2001), 31. 259 Ibid., 32.

economy does not preclude economic gain or surplus, as was demonstrated in the

141  

first and second chapters. Gain and surplus are properly the grounds by which the virtues of generosity and moderation can be exercised. Aristotle’s limitation on the acquisition of wealth is meant to protect men from being consumed with the desire for riches and thereby neglecting their nobler capacities. If wealth is growing but oriented toward what is self-sufficient for an individual or a nation, it does not conflict with Aristotle’s political economy. On the other hand, the statement that economics is not subordinate to politics and morality and is thus “relatively autonomous” finds no place in Aristotle’s political economy. I admit in practice democratic capitalism has many merits but also has its fair share of shortcomings, as does any political economy. And while the relative harmony between its trinity may perhaps endure in practice for a time, are we not right in asking whether the capitalistic economic system has a tendency to hold sway over the political and religious systems?260 If so, to counter such a tendency

                                                                                                               

260

As regards the theory of democratic capitalism in The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: The Free Press, 1993), Novak argues, “the system as a whole comes under three quite different reality checks. This tension places the system regularly in crisis, each becoming an opportunity for fresh restructuring” (58). Nowhere that I am aware of does Novak entertain the idea that crises from such tension may not lead to restructuring (yet, see p. 55, where he seems to be worried about the exclusion of religion from public life in America and the resulting “reemergence of raw economic passions and ‘pocketbook issues’ in public life”). There are no “organic laws”, to use Novak’s’ expression, that state that the animal of democratic capitalism will nurse itself back to health after a crisis. My interest in the political economy of Aquinas, Leo XIII, and the English Distributists is that they contemplate the need to subordinate economics to politics, so that ‘pocketbook issues’ are not the only conversation of the public life. Catholics and agrarians, moreover, are not as big of believers in the “innovative spirit” that drives restructuring. They are skeptical of it. Even Novak himself seems somewhat afraid of what can come from the innovative spirit as well: “In recent decades, however, the advent of television (and computers) has given the intellectuals immense and disproportionate power over the working people and the poor, often with devastatingly bad results that American society has not yet found a way of reversing” (Ibid., 56). But then on the very next page, he argues that democratic capitalism has alleviated the conditions of the poor because now, in addition to other goods, “95 percent of the American poor have television sets” (57). How is this considered to be positive given his previous comments?

it is worthwhile to explore a religious political economy, or a “theological

142  

economy,”261 that subordinates economics to politics and morality. To facilitate this inquiry, I begin this chapter with a discussion of how Aristotle influenced Aquinas on economic matters and then proceed to demonstrate Aquinas’ influence in Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, which, according to Father Ernest Fortin, “marks the spectacular reentry of the Church into an arena from which it had been excluded as a major player by the great intellectual and political events of the Enlightenment and its aftermath.” One of the chief tasks of this section will be to discuss the Pope’s defense of private property as a natural right. Being the shrewd observer that he was, Father Fortin, after paying Rerum Novarum a grand compliment, says that in reentering the political arena it “resorts to a number of categories that are proper to modern thought and not easily squared with its basic Thomism. Two of these merit special consideration: the overwhelming emphasis on the naturalness of private property and the doctrine of natural rights.” 262 While Father Fortin seems to be in the main correct, his emphasis, as I argue, underappreciates how Rerum Novarum is premodern in the limitation on how private property ought to be used. Understanding Fortin’s critique is of the utmost importance, since Rerum Novarum is traditionally understood as setting the tone for a “third way” in between unrestrained capitalism and collectivist socialism. Its emphasis is on limited, self-sufficient private property, which is clearly seen within the political thought of Distributism.

                                                                                                                261

Diana Wood, Medieval Economic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 1. Ernest L. Fortin, “ ‘Sacred and Inviolable’: Rerum Novarum and Natural Rights,” Theological Studies 53 (1992): 203-233. See p. 209 for the quotes. 262

The last section of this chapter discusses the English Distributists’

143  

contribution to political economy. They rest many of their arguments upon the shoulders of Aquinas and Rerum Novarum, while often acknowledging Aquinas’ debt to Aristotle. Following Rerum Novarum, they emphasized the “widespread distribution of property” as being not only the best foundation for a political regime but more importantly the renewal of Catholic civilization, otherwise known as Christendom. They have been some of the fiercest social critics of the novel developments ushered in after the Reformation, which marks for them the decline of Christendom and thus of the West. Most of their political judgment is aimed at industrial capitalism, which transformed the pious peasant into the proletariat and threatened to do to agriculture what it did to the crafts with its imperative to industrialize, which it eventually accomplished toward the last half of the century. The greatest implementation of Distributist ideas, the British Catholic Land Movement, sought the restoration of the small, self-sufficient family farms. The impetus behind the Catholic Land Movement was the idea that the Catholic proletariat could change from being industrial workers and return to the agrarian ways of their peasant forebears, who had been persecuted since the Reformation and whose lands were enclosed to make pasture for the boomindustry of raising sheep for exportation of wool. The Distributists point to this land policy as what undermined England’s national self-sufficiency and fostered their image as the “workshop of the world,” as many displaced peasants were swept into the cities, taking up manufacturing jobs in place of farming. Given that Catholics made up a significant amount of the population within industrial cities, the clergy and laity were concerned that Catholic culture had unduly suffered in such circumstances and a return

to rural life was a necessity, since it was among the peasantry that Catholic culture

144  

had flourished. The Distributist point of view is rather uniform given the number of social critics who subscribed to its main tenets; but there are naturally nuances, which are discussed where it is deemed appropriate. Of course, I cannot give an account of everyone who contributed to developing and defending this point of view. Instead, I will focus on the thought of G. K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, and Father Vincent McNabb. The Legacy of Aristotle’s Political Economy in Aquinas Regarding the basics of life, that is to say, food, shelter, and clothing, Aquinas notes nature has not provided for human beings as it has for other animals: “Nature has prepared food for all other animals, hair to cover them, and defenses, such as teeth, horns, or claws, or at least speed for flight.” Human beings, however, were given reason and the ability to use their hands to procure the necessities of life. Yet, Aquinas furthermore states, “One person acting alone is not enough to obtain a sufficient life, so it is natural for human beings to live in the society of many.”263 Obtaining a “sufficient life” is not only the goal of an individual but also that of a city. In De Regimine Principum, which was “very popular and influential in the Middle Ages,” Aquinas emphasizes the principle of self-sufficiency and contrasts its with “mercantile transactions”. He begins this chapter with a story that Vitruvius had reported:

                                                                                                               

263

Ptolemy of Lucca with portions attributed to Thomas Aquinas, On the Government of Rulers: De Regimine Principum, trans. James M. Blythe (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997), I.i.3. In this compilation there are four books altogether, with Book I to II.iv.7 attributed to Aquinas. For the claim regarding its influence see Blythe’s “Introduction,” p. 1.

[W]hen the architect Dinocrates, a man of extraordinary skill, demonstrated to Alexander of Macedon that he could construct a city of distinguished appearance on a certain mountain, Alexander asked him whether there were fields that could provide a copious amount of grain to the city. When he found out that these were lacking, he responded that anyone who built a city in a such a place would deserve to be censured: For: ‘just as a newborn infant could not be fed nor induced to grow without the milk of a wet-nurse, a city without an abundance of food cannot support a throng of people.’264

145  

Alexander seems to follow the advice of his tutor in his critique of the architect. After all, it is only commonsensical that the first order of business when founding a city is to see to it that primary needs can be easily met. Even someone so taken with himself, as Alexander was, could see the importance of placing first things first, no matter how attractive a city on the mountain would be. While beauty, or noble deeds, may be the end of city, it comes into being, as Aristotle tells us, for the sake of living, that is to say, economic self-sufficiency.265 Once Aquinas is through relating this story to his reader, he outlines two ways in which a city can meet the primary needs of its people: “One is through the fertility of the region, which brings forth abundantly all things necessary for human life. The other is through the practice of mercantile transactions, through which the necessities of life are transported from various other places.”266 This points to the difference that Aristotle establishes between an agrarian economy and a commercial one.267 After making this distinction, Aquinas proceeds to demonstrate why an agrarian economy is more suitable for a city by using the following standard: “[t]he more worthy something is, the more it is found to be self-sufficient, since that which lacks                                                                                                                 264

Ibid., II.iii.1. Aristotle, Politics, 36-37 (1252b27-30). 266 Aquinas, De Regimine Principum, I.iii.2. 267 Aristotle, Politics, 44-50 (1256a1-1258b39). 265

something is deficient.” Thus the city that is more fully self-sufficient would be one

146  

that has an abundance of goods from its own soil and not from “mercantile transactions”. With this statement, he is merely following the ideal that Aristotle puts forth in his section on the best regime. Aristotle states, “it is clear that everyone would praise the territory that is most self-sufficient. That which bears every sort of thing is of necessity such, for self-sufficiency is having everything available and being in need of nothing. In number and size [the territory should be] large enough so that the inhabitants are able to live at leisure in liberal fashion and at the same time with moderation.”268 As Carnes Lord points out in his translation the “number and size” perhaps points to the size of individual land holdings and the size of the city’s territory.269 His suggestion is further supported by Aristotle’s claim that private property makes possible the virtues of moderation and liberality, as it certainly would be difficult to practice liberality or generosity in the use of possessions if one did not have a sufficient amount of land to produce a surplus.270 Of course, this should not be construed as an argument for large-scale agriculture, where the one with the biggest farm has the potential for being the most generous, for it appears that both Aristotle and Aquinas favor a wide distribution of property, which will be discussed in a moment. The charge could be leveled at Aquinas that he is simply unreasonable. After all, even Aristotle argues, “nearly all cities must of necessity buy and sell certain things with a view to each other’s necessary requirements, and this is the readiest way to self-

                                                                                                               

268

Aristotle, Politics, 205 (1326b26-31). Carnes Lord, “Notes,” in Politics, 266n.15. 270 Aristotle, Politics, 61 (1263a41-1263b13). 269

sufficiency, on account of which [men] are held to join together in one regime.”

271

147  

In other words, it is difficult to find the land that is praiseworthy in being wholly selfsufficient while at the same time being surveyable. But like Aristotle, Aquinas is merely stating what is simply best, and he acknowledges that the best possible city would have to practice “mercantile exchanges in moderation.”272 Aquinas, again following Aristotle, recognizes that the business of a merchant gives him more occasions to indulge in the desire of unlimited gain, namely, greed. While the exchanges that belong to household managers or statesmen are directed toward the “goods necessary to sustain life,” the merchant or moneylender is devoted to the “desire for profit, and such desire knows no bounds and always strives for more. And so business, absolutely speaking, is wicked, since it does not essentially signify a worthy or necessary objective.”273 Yet, right after indicting the business expertise, he moderates his tone and concedes that profit when directed toward what is necessary or worthy redeems commerce, making it lawful: “For example, one may order a moderate business profit to support one’s family or even to help the needy. Or one may engage in business for public advantage, namely, lest one’s country lack necessary goods, and seek profit as payment for one’s labor, not as an end.”274 When profit becomes the end of business, insatiable greed springs up in the soul, breeding numerous other vices, thus making it a capital sin.275 Whereas the wealth acquired from agriculture is limited and oriented toward primary needs. Business, on the other hand, is more susceptible to dishonesty and covetousness. And thus Aquinas’s concession to the business expertise                                                                                                                

271

Aristotle, Poltiics, 193 (1321b11-17). Aquinas, De Regimine Principum, II.iii.8. 273 Aquinas, ST II-II, q.77, a.4. 274 Ibid., II-II.q.77, a.4. 275 Ibid., II-II. Q.118, a.7. 272

is carefully circumscribed by the virtue of moderation, where he holds that the

148  

practice of mercantile exchanges should be moderate as well as the profits gleaned from such transactions. It is no wonder then that Aquinas argues that self-sufficiency, not covetousness, is the condition for happiness, as it limits the desire for happiness, thus making it truly an ultimate end.276 Covetousness, on the other hand, is by nature unlimited. It is only reasonable then that Aquinas would favor an agrarian economy, where many obtain their sustenance by the sweat of their brow. His reasons, however, are not only based upon the condition of the soul. His main political critique of commerce is that it leads to insecurity in the city in a number of ways. First, to become dependent upon trade for one’s sustenance is dangerous as “the fortunes of war and the various hazards of the roads, transportation of food can easily be impeded and the city oppressed through a lack of food.”277 What is surprising about this claim is that we do not find it in Aristotle, who after all certainly knew about how the Spartan general Lysander brought Athens to her knees by starving her of the Black Sea grain she so desperately depended upon.278 Aquinas’ comment, however, is in the spirit of Aristotle’s political economy, which views the land that makes its citizens economically self-sufficient as praiseworthy. This leads to a further question, to be addressed in the section on Distributism, of whether economic self-sufficiency is necessary for political freedom.

                                                                                                                276

Ibid., II-II. Q.118, a.1 and a. 7. Aquinas, De Regimine Principum, II.iii.3. 278 See Xenophon, The Landmark Xenophon’s Hellenica, ed. Robert B. Strassler, trans. John Marincola (New York: Pantheon Books, 2009): 2.1.27-2.2.23. 277

Another reason Aquinas favors an self-sufficient economy is that where a

149  

“city needs a multitude of mercantile transactions for its own sustenance [it] must endure continual interaction with foreigners.” Citing the “doctrine of Aristotle,” Aquinas states that the influx of foreigners has the tendency to corrupt the customs of the citizens, who may be provoked to follow alien customs, disturbing the civil peace and intercourse.279 This doctrine, while understandable in a premodern world, is perhaps the one that appears to be most barbaric to our cosmopolitan age. As commerce becomes more and more global, however, it might be the doctrine that is most worthy of reflection, since economic imperialism undermines certain trades of a country and thus potentially undermines their way of life.280 The third case against commerce, however, is turned inward, where Aquinas argues that citizens who are devoted to commerce are throwing open “the door to many vices”: Since the enthusiasm for business especially involves striving for gain, cupidity is led into the citizens’ hearts. The result is that all things in the city become venal; when faith is gone the place is thrown open to deceptions; when the public has contempt for the good, everyone is devoted to their own profit and enthusiasm for virtue ceases, and                                                                                                                 279

Aquinas, De Regimine Principum, II.iii.4. I should one day like to dedicate my efforts to fully articulating this point of view. I would begin with Chesterton’s example of Aquinas as the “International Man” as opposed to the Free-Trader, Manchester School of Economics’ Richard Cobden, see G. K. Chesterton, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Francis of Assisi (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002), 48, and his The Well and the Shallows (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990), 384, 466. This should be considered in relation to Chesterton’s stance against the Boer War. For a good summary of this episode in Chesterton’s life, see Jay P. Corrin’s Catholic Intellectual and the Challenge of Democracy (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002): 91-92. It would be worthwhile to try to square, if possible, Chesterton’s Burkean response to the Boer War with his surprising critique of Burke in his What’s Wrong with the World (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1994), 179-180. All of this should, in addition, be consider in regard to Father Vincent McNabb’s St. Thomas Aquinas and Law (Blackfriars, 1955), esp. 12-13, where the origin of International Law is traced from Grotius back to Francis de Victoria and then finally to Aquinas. Lastly, for an example of American “economic imperialism,” see Michael Pollan’s “A Flood of U.S. Corn Rips at Mexico: Under Free Trade, Small Farmers and the Nation’s Ecology are Suffering,” Los Angeles Times, April 23, 2004, which can also be found at http://www.michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=23; accessed on December 30, 2009. 280

everyone prefers reward to the honor that comes from virtue. It follows that in such a city civil intercourse will necessarily be corrupted.281

150  

This reminds us of the picture that Hesiod paints at the end of the Iron Age, when the scales will be tipped in favor of evil men. Yet, I do not believe that Aquinas, in turn, would concede that farmers are somehow miraculously free from the sin of greed. As sin comes from within, it is more reasonable to think instead that Aquinas would probably hold that farming gives less of an occasion to sin than the activity of commerce. As long as the merchant is not wholly a merchant, but also a citizen and a pious man, there is no reason to doubt that business can be made to serve nobler things than the mere making of a wealth. This entails, however, that business is appropriately subordinated to the common good and religious ends. Thus the crucial difference to be emphasized between Aristotle’s political economy and a commercial one is that the intention of the former to make economics serve some higher political good is deliberate, whereas with the latter this would be incidental to the primary goal of amassing wealth. If one thinks about the relation between Aquinas’ second and third case against commerce, the dangers caused from commerce come not only from without but also from within, where in both situations they may weaken customs that had safeguarded human beings against greed. The forth and fifth cases against commerce seem to be a reference to Aristotle’s defense of the agrarian democracy. As regards the first of these, Aquinas argues, “the practice of business does more harm to military activity than do most occupations.” The harm is done to both the body and soul, as resting in the shade and enjoying                                                                                                                 281

Aquinas, De Regimine Principum, II.iii.5.

282

delights softens the soul and enfeebles the body to make it unfit for the military.

151  

The fifth case against commerce, which is reminiscent of Hesiod’s counsel, is that to be able to practice it people must crowd into the city, where the “frequent concourse of persons provides the occasion for disputes and the matter of seditions.” Aquinas states, “According to Aristotle’s doctrine, it is more useful for the people to be employed outside the cities than to remain constantly within the walls.”283 In doing so, the city will be more at peace as the farmer’s tend to be occupied with minding their own business, whereas city life gives more occasions for people to think about getting rich with relatively little effort, as well as the diminishing of frugality when faced with luxury items. Reasoning from these five cases against commerce, Aquinas concludes, “it is better that there be a copious amount of food at hand for a city in their own fields, than that it be completely open to business.”284 We must keep in mind, however, that this is what is best, and as mentioned above, he recognizes that the businessman ought not to be exclude from the city entirely, since a land that is plentiful in all things necessary for life is rare and thus not easily discovered. He even finds it to be expedient to export what is in surplus, as things in abundance can “become harmful to many if they cannot be transferred to another place through the office of merchants."285 According to Aquinas, merchants serve a purpose for the city and thus can rightly be said to contribute to its common good. The city then is justly able to practice commerce but on                                                                                                                 282

Aquinas, De Regimine Principum, II.iii.6. Cf. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Volume II (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1976), 692-698, 786-788. 283 De Regimine Principum,, II.iii.7. Cf. Smith, Wealth of Nations, 795-796, where he shows the moral superiority of the country village over the city. 284 Aquinas, De Regimine Principum, II.iii.8. 285 Aquinas, De Regimine Principum, II.iii.8.

a moderate level. The merchant, in turn, is able to aspire to moderate profits, as long

152  

as they are directed toward noble ends.286 These qualifications hold a model up for merchants, where the desire of greed is restrained and the commercial occupation is subsumed under the political art rather than opposed to it. Let this much be said for the moment about Aquinas’ thoughts on political economy. More is to come on this topic in the next two sections, as Thomism witnessed a revival with Pope Leo XIII and Distributism. Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum: Not Merely a Defense of Private Property Along with Aristotle, the Church believes that the acquisition of wealth ought to be in accord with morality. This point is crucial, as it suggests that self-sufficiency in wealth is what properly limits acquisition, so that human beings can lift their minds to nobler thoughts and deeds. An example of such a deed would be the generosity the rich might show toward the poor or to how the poor and the rich can be reconciled in politics. Both Aristotle and the Church seek to play the political role of a mediator between the classes. Aristotle held friendship to be “the greatest of good things for cities, for in this way they would least of all engage in factional conflict.”287 He seems to argue that it is the task of the philosophic statesman to help each class see the merits of the opposing points of view.288 In the papal encyclical Rerum Novarum (May 15, 1891), Leo XIII reminds the poor and the rich of their need of each other and their duties and obligations                                                                                                                

286

Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, 117. Aristotle, Politics, 59 (1262b7-10). 288 Cf. Ibid., 100 (1281a11-38), for Aristotle’s dialogue between the multitude and the wealthy, which aims at reconciliation and thus political friendship. Cf. the example of the statesmanship of Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, especially, during “the great London dock strike of 1889” in Jay P. Corrin, Catholic Intellectuals and the Challenge of Democracy (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), 43-54. It should be noted that Manning carried on a correspondence with Pope Leo XIII on labor questions and played a role in helping to draft Rerum Novarum. 287

to justice. It is a grave mistake, he argues, to believe that the classes are “naturally

153  

hostile” toward one another, even though they are in need of an intermediary.289 Yet, it is not enough that the rich refrain from exploiting the poor. Leo XIII argues, “But the Church, with Jesus Christ as her Master and Guide, aims higher still. She lays down precepts yet more perfect, and tries to bind class to class in friendliness and good feeling.”290 And thus both Aristotle and the Church see friendship as the greatest good for a regime. While it may be impossible that “all the citizens should feel benevolent toward the regime…they should at least not consider those in authority as their enemies.”291 It is crucial then for wise statesmen to consider, according to Aristotle, what laws are advantageous for their regimes, since “all these preserve the regimes, as does the great principle that has often been mentioned—to keep watch to ensure that the multitude wanting the regime is superior to that not wanting it.”292 It is thus paramount in a democracy that the multitude of people not be “overly poor”: the first remedy for protecting against this circumstance is that “a plot of land” should be acquired for the poor, or “failing this, for a start in trade and farming.”293 The first remedy is intended to make people relatively self-sufficient on the land, while the second entails becoming an artisan or a farm day-laborer. The economic self-sufficiency that the first remedy seeks to achieve is preferred over that of economic dependence, as the latter always runs the risk of exploitation and the ensuing passions of envy and resentment. Now it goes                                                                                                                

289

Rerum Novarum, no. 19, see also no. 16; http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerumnovarum_en.html. Accessed on 1/6/10. 290 Ibid., nos. 20-21. 291 Aristotle, Politics, 189 (1320a14-16). 292 Aristotle, Politics, 166 (1309b14-17). 293 Aristotle, Politics, 190 (1320a33-40).

without saying that the “back to the land” remedy that Aristotle offers would be in

154  

tune with his recommendations on how to institute an agrarian democracy. Recalling from Chapter II, Aristotle believes that the following laws are useful: “forbidding the possession of land beyond a certain measure,” “forbidding the sale of the original allotments,” “forbidding borrowing against any part of the land belonging to an individual,” and “all engage in farming…to enable them to exceed the assessment [that is required for citizenship].”294 While Aristotle does not make the case that this is the best arrangement simply, he seems to think that if it is not the best possible it is certainly close to it. In Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII’s social teaching is fundamentally in line with Aristotle’s political economy. He argues, The law, therefore, should favor ownership, and its policy should be to induce as many as possible of the people to become owners…. Many excellent results will follow from this: and, first of all, property will certainly become more equitably divided…. If working people can be encouraged to look forward to obtaining a share in the land, the consequence will be that the gulf between the vast wealth and sheer poverty will be bridged over, and the respective classes will be brought nearer to one another.295 This statement is the chief policy recommendation that Leo XIII puts forth in Rerum Novarum. Ownership, in other words, is preferable to wages, as ownership makes possible the goal of economic self-sufficiency, which is to say economic freedom. Being a self-sufficient farmer entails being one’s own boss, so to speak. Lifting the wage-earner up to the level of a small landholder enables the formation of an agrarian middle-class or a robust, free peasantry.                                                                                                                 294 295

Aristotle, Politics, 187 (1319a4-19). Rerum Novarum, no. 47.

While Leo XIII does not refer to Aquinas in calling for this “back to the

155  

land” policy, it is likely, given his devotion to Aquinas, whom he christened the “Angelic Doctor,”296 that he may have come across similar recommendations in the Summa Theologica. In the Summa, Aquinas is simply following Aristotle’s lead in establishing Agrarian Laws: But with regard to possessions, it is a very good thing, says the Philosopher (Polit. ii, 2) that the things possessed should be distinct, and the use thereof should be partly common, and partly granted to others by the will of the possessors. These three points were provided for by the Law. Because, in the first place, the possessions themselves were divided among individuals: for it is written (Num. 33:53,54): "I have given you" the land "for a possession: and you shall divide it among you by lot." And since many states have been ruined through want of regulations in the matter of possessions, as the Philosopher observes (Polit. ii, 6); therefore the Law provided a threefold remedy against the regularity of possessions. The first was that they should be divided equally, wherefore it is written (Num. 33:54): "To the more you shall give a larger part, and to the fewer, a lesser." A second remedy was that possessions could not be alienated forever, but after a certain lapse of time should return to their former owner, so as to avoid confusion of possessions (cf. ad 3). The third remedy aimed at the removal of this confusion, and provided that the dead should be succeeded by their next of kin: in the first place, the son; secondly, the daughter; thirdly, the brother; fourthly, the father's brother; fifthly, any other next of kin. Furthermore, in order to preserve the distinction of property, the Law enacted that heiresses should marry within their own tribe, as recorded in Num. 36:6.297 Of course, Aquinas was not only following the lead of Aristotle but that of the Old Law as well. Despite all the dust stirred up in the quarrel between philosophy and biblical religion, the pagan Aristotle and Christian Aquinas, as well as the Jewish Moses, agree on the agrarian basis of a regime. These Agrarian Laws, it should be pointed out, do                                                                                                                 296

Aeterni Patris (August 4, 1879), http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_04081879_aeternipatris_en.html; accessed on December 30, 2009. 297 Aquinas, ST I-II, Qu. 105, Art. 2. Found at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa.FS_Q105_A2.html; accessed on December 30, 2009.

not wish, however, to make income equal, but rather they endeavor to endow all

156  

men with an equality of “natural resources from which to draw produce (i.e., income) in proportion to their toil.” Bertrand de Jouvenel claims, as a result, “Thus, the agrarian principle is fair reward and not equality of incomes.”298 It seems, moreover, that the wide distribution of land was meant to guard against the policy of redistributing wealth, which tends to evoke the resentment of the wealthy toward the poor. The recommendation for widely distributed land, then, appears to be a middle position that seeks to keep the classes friendly toward one another, guarding against resentment all around. Be that as it may, the regulation of possessions was deemed to be necessary in order to preserve the well-being of the regime. And thus the Pope’s social teaching is in line with both Aristotle and the Biblical tradition when he recommends the agrarian policy of land ownership, where land is to be “more equitably divided.” This recommendation, however, is rather difficult to comply with in an industrial, capitalistic economy, as captains of industry are in need of manpower to run their factories. Nonetheless, in recognizing the predicament of workers in such an economy, Leo XIII reiterates the obligations that the employer has to the worker, one being that “wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved wage-earners.”299 In this context, sufficiency is defined by the amount that “enable[s] him comfortably to support himself, his wife, and his children.” The worker is encouraged to “practice thrift,” with the hope of saving a modest amount, where he might find the inducement to become an owner in his own

                                                                                                                298 299

Bertrand de Jouvenel, The Ethics of Redistribution (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1990), 8-9. Rerum Novarum, no. 45.

right.

300

The determination of the wage is then orientated toward the ownership of

157  

land. The first advantage of a “more equitably divided” land ownership, as mentioned above, is to bridge over the gap between “vast wealth and sheer poverty,” which would reconcile the classes or, I might add, frustrate those who wish to profit from exploiting the poor or those who might incite the latter against the former. The second advantage to land ownership is that a “spirit of willing labor” would drive the proprietors to work hard while learning to “love the very soil that yields in response to the labor of the their hands, not only food to eat, but an abundance of good things for themselves and those that are dear to them.” Of course, this abundance is not the same as what most Americans would consider a high standard of living, but nevertheless it is what is conducive to a wholesome life where human needs are duly meet from honest work. The third advantage from land ownership would be that “men would cling to the country in which they were born, no one would exchange his country for a foreign land if his own afforded him the means of living a decent and happy life.”301 This advantage is so worthy of consideration that even Adam Smith notes, “A small proprietor, however, who knows every part of his little territory, who views it with all the affection which property, especially small property, naturally inspires, and who upon that account takes pleasure not only in cultivating but in adorning it, is generally of all improvers the most industrious, the most intelligent, and the most successful.”302 In turn, Smith concedes, “A merchant, it has been said very properly, is not necessarily the citizen of any particular country. It is in a great measure indifferent to him from what                                                                                                                 300

Rerum Novarum, no. 46. Rerum Novarum, no. 47. 302 Smith, Wealth of Nations, 423. 301

place he carries on his trade; and a very trifling disgust will make him remove his

158  

capital, and together with it all the industry which it supports, from one country to another.”303 Agrarianism thus seems well-qualified for cultivating the love of country and the common good, but not as qualified in generating opulence or improvements. This distinction is no small difference in indicating the main perks and perils of each type of economy.304 After stating these three advantages of widely distributed property, Leo XIII cautions that they can only be “reckoned on” if taxation on one’s property does not become excessive. In support of this claim, he argues, “The right to possess private property is derived from nature, not man; and the State has the right to control its use in the interests of the public good alone, but by no means to absorb it altogether. The State would therefore be unjust and cruel if under the name of taxation it were to deprive the private owner of more than is fair.”305 The Pope, however, is by no means granting the proprietor free rein over his property, although he contends that “a working man’s little estate…should be as completely at his full disposal as are the wages he receives for his labor.”306 Full disposal being limited by the “laws of individual races” and laws grounded in “wise statesmanship,” which balance “public well-being and private prosperity,” thus making the “citizens better and happier.”307 Leo XIII, in stating that the “end of society is to make men better, the chief good that society can possess is virtue,”308 would hardly think it is best for someone to use their property in                                                                                                                 303

Smith, Wealth of Nations, 426. Cf., again, Smith, Wealth of Nations, 266-267. 305 Rerum Novarum, no. 47. 306 Ibid., no. 5. 307 Ibid., nos. 8, 32. 308 Ibid., no. 34. 304

an inappropriate way in order to demonstrate that they are the supreme masters of

159  

their land. Would he sanction, however, state intervention in this case, possibly confiscation? It is difficult to say. We might first ask: What are Leo XIII’s thoughts on private property? In a passage reminiscent of John Locke, the Pope, although acknowledging “God has granted the earth to mankind in general,” declares that private ownership is “in accordance with the law of nature.”309 Moreover, in a passage reminiscent of Adam Smith, the Pope explicitly expresses, “The first and most fundamental principle, therefore, if one would undertake to alleviate the condition of the masses, must be the inviolability of private property.” In this context, he also invokes the “natural rights of mankind” against the socialist idea of a “community of goods”. 310 Socialism, then, is not the remedy for settling the labor question, which arose due to “the greed of unchecked competition” and “rapacious usury”.311 Between socialism and capitalism, Leo XIII urges instead, “We have seen that this great labor question cannot be solved save by assuming as a principle that private ownership must be held sacred and                                                                                                                 309

Ibid., nos. 8, 9. Cf. John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), Book II, sec. 25- 27; Fortin, “Rerum Novarum and Natural Rights,” 214-215: “To my knowledge, nobody prior to the 17th century had claimed that labor was of itself a title to property, let alone the only title to it.” Cf. with Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, 24-25: “In justifying individual ownership, Aquinas had linked property and labour—common possession would lead to skiving….[Sir John] Fortescue [ 1396-1476], too, saw the origin of individual property rights in labour, and regarded it as in a sense natural, although he followed the tradition that property originated after the Fall.” Fortescue, as quoted in Wood, says, “in which words there was granted to man property in the things which he by his own sweat could obtain… For since the bread which man would acquire in sweat would be his own, and since no one could eat bread without the sweat of his own countenance, every man who did not sweat was forbidden to eat the bread which another had acquired by his sweat… And thus the inheritable ownership of things first broke forth.” 310 Rerum Novarum, no. 15. Cf. Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, 138: “The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable.” See also Smith, Wealth of Nations, pp. 188 (“sacred rights of private property”), 582 (“violation of the most sacred rights of mankind), 665 (regarding produce of the land as a “sacred fund”), and 666 (“advanced rent ought to be regarded as sacred and inviolable”). 311 Rerum Novarum, no. 3.

inviolable.”

312

Fortin traces this reverential language accorded to private property

160  

back to the Lockean tradition. Although Locke never speaks of private property in terms of being “sacred” or “inviolable,” Fortin states that he may as well have given the “preeminence accorded to it as the cornerstone of his political system.” Smith, according to Fortin, was the first to praise private property as being “sacred and inviolable,” and the language is also to be found in Article XVII of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (August 26, 1789) and J. S. Mill.313 Fortin contends, “It is to this emphatically modern tradition that, consciously or unconsciously, the encyclical owes its extraordinary doctrine of the sanctity of private property.”314 In making a distinction between the premodern and modern points of view on the status of private property, Fortin argues that with the former private property was the “practically best solution” concerning the arrangement of property in a regime.315 The premodern point of view, according to Fortin, never speaks about private property as being a law of nature or a natural right. As such, it is not inviolable or sacred for that matter: “Simply put, private property is a good idea. Although not an absolute demand of natural right, it is entirely in accord with it and ought to be favored whenever possible.”316 While the Church has long been a defender of private property, Fortin’s main claim is that with Rerum Novarum the Church tried to place the right to private property on much firmer ground by asserting that it is sanctioned by nature, not man.317 He contends that in sanctifying the natural right of private property all of the laws                                                                                                                 312

Ibid., no. 46. Fortin, “Rerum Novarum and Natural Rights,” 212. 314 Ibid., 212. 315 Ibid., 215. 316 Ibid., 209. 317 Ibid., 209; Rerum Novarum, no. 47. 313

(divine, natural and civil) approve of it: “Since it is not conferred by civil society, it

161  

cannot be taken away by it and must be protected by it.”318 For the most part, Fortin is right to point out how in the attempt to protect private property Leo XIII invokes modern ideas, as neither Aristotle nor Aquinas argue that private property is a natural right or based simply upon the law of nature, even though they claim that it is natural for men to possess property.319 He also questions the encyclical’s understanding of a prepolitical state, where man possessed natural rights and the commonwealth comes into being for the protection of those rights.320 It should be noted that in Rerum Novarum Leo XIII holds that human beings by nature tend to “dwell in society,” raising a family and forming associations. While this statement is not wholly premodern, as those within the moral-sense tradition hold it, it is certainly distinct from the “state of nature” teaching associated with Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, which largely presupposes an atomistic and atheistic understanding of human things and the world.321 In a sense, however, Rerum Novarum may be more closely linked to the moral-sense tradition, if a distinction is made between being a “social” animal and a “political” one. 322 Take for example Leo XIII’s claim: …inasmuch as the domestic household is antecedent, as well in idea as in fact, to gathering of men into a community, the family must necessarily have rights and duties that are prior to those of the community, and founded more immediately in nature. If the citizens, if the families on entering into association and fellowship, were to experience hindrance in a commonwealth instead of help, and were to find their rights attacked

                                                                                                                318

Ibid., 210. Ibid., 219. 320 Ibid., 219; Rerum Novarum, nos. 7, 13, 47. 321 Ibid., 51. 322 Cf. Joseph Cropsey, “Adam Smith,” in History of Political Philosophy, Third Edition, ed. Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987), 638-642, esp. 640. 319

instead of being upheld, society would rightly be an object of detestation rather than of desire.323

162  

If the notion that the “household is antecedent, as well in idea as in fact, to the gathering of men into a community” means that it is not only prior temporally but also in terms of what is best for human nature, then it must be admitted that neither Aristotle nor Aquinas would completely accept this claim.324 They, of course, would agree that the household is antecedent in time but not prior in terms of what is best for human nature. I wonder, however, if there is a precedent for Leo XIII’s claim in the Bible, where the seed of Abraham is emphasized, and thus the family, over the cities of man. Be that as it may, it must be kept in mind that Leo XIII may have employed the doctrine of “natural rights” and the rhetoric of “sacred and inviolable” merely as a way to guard against the attack on the family and private property that socialism incited. Fortin concedes that the encyclical’s defense of the family is a “clear sign” that it “desires to work within a premodern framework.” He points to other passages where Leo XIII does not wish to oppose duties to rights, and thereby he does not grant that the moderns are correct in assuming the primacy of rights.325 The right to private property, in other words, rests not only upon self-preservation of an individual human being but on that of the family: The right to property, therefore, which has been proved to belong naturally to individual persons, must in like wise belong to a man in his capacity of head of a family; nay, that right is all the stronger in proportion as the human person receives a wider extension in the family group. It is a most sacred law of nature that a father should provide food and all necessaries for those whom he has begotten….326                                                                                                                

323

Rerum Novarum, no. 13. See no. 7: “Man precedes the State, and possesses, prior to the formation of any State, the right of providing for the substance of his body.” 324 Fortin, “Rerum Novarum and Natural Rights,” 225. 325 Ibid., 223-224. 326 Rerum Novarum, no. 13.

163  

The family’s primacy over the individual is clearly articulated, but so to is the family’s status over the State. If being a political animal entails fulfilling one’s nature in the context and standard of Aristotle’s polis, such an actualization would undoubtedly be rare today or even throughout history. But its rarity does not discount it. I will leave it to the reader to ponder if being a political animal, one who is endowed with reason, is something that can be approximated in a household if the polis model is now largely obsolete. After all, in the section alluded to, Aristotle claims, “For it is peculiar to man as compared to the other animals that he alone has a perception of good and bad and just and unjust and other things [of this sort]; and partnership in these things is what makes a household and a city.”327 The household appears to be a microcosm of the city. But of course, one should note that the “city is thus prior by nature to the household and to each of us” in terms of the whole being prior to the part, and thus the city is the end of the households and villages, since full self-sufficiency is attained there and not in the households.328 While it must be the task of another project to determine if Rerum Novarum “Christianize[d] the rights theory by inserting it into a properly moral framework,” what is noteworthy for this project is that Leo XIII does not sanction economics as an autonomous sphere of action. It is true that Leo XIII does not always appear to be consistent on this point, as he believes, as noted above, that no one is justified in telling a man how he is to dispose of his property and wages or prohibiting a man from

                                                                                                                327 328

Aristotle, Politics, 32 (1253a1-18). Aristotle, Politics, 36-37 (1252b27-1253a1, 1253a19-28).

impressing his personality on the land he owns.

329

Yet clearly these comments are in

164  

the context of a man bettering his condition, especially rising above his proletariat status, and providing for his family. The natural right to private property, in other words, serves the goal of economic self-sufficiency, thus fulfilling duties towards one’s family. Rerum Novarum does not stop there, however; Leo XIII follows Aquinas in counseling people to give what is superfluous to their needs. He recognizes that some require more in order to sufficiently maintain one’s social status, as “no one ought to live other than becomingly.”330 Aquinas clearly understands self-sufficiency to be the mean that one ought to aim for in economic activities and anything beyond what is necessary, taking into consideration social status, one is commanded to give to those in dire need.331 The command, Leo XIII states, does not belong to justice but to Christian charity, which is “a duty not enforced by human law.” Rather, it is the judgment of “Christ the true God, who in many ways urges on His followers the practice of almsgiving,” and thus “Whoever has received from the divine bounty a large share of temporal blessings, whether they be external and material, or gifts of the mind, has received them for the purpose of using them for the perfecting of his own nature, and, at the same time, that the he may employ them, as the steward of God’s providence, for the benefit of others.”332 Leo XIII also cites the authority of Aquinas should there be a question as to how property ought to be used, where Aquinas argues that, although private property is lawful, no one should consider that his possessions are his own;

                                                                                                                329

Rerum Novarum, nos. 5, 9. Ibid., no. 22; ST II-II q. 32, a. 6. 331 ST II-II, q. 32, a. 5, II-II, q. 66, a. 7; see Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, 56, 61-62. 332 Rerum Novarum, no. 22. 330

instead, he should hold that they are common and thus share them without

165  

begrudging the borrower. The Church recommends this “without hesitation”.333 If anything is incompatible with Leo XIII’s Thomistic outlook, it appears to be the language of “sacred and inviolable” applied to the natural right of private property. I am, however, not entirely convinced that the use of the doctrine of natural rights is incompatible with Aristotle or Aquinas, even if they never speak precisely in such terms.334 While it is certainly prudent to bear this in mind, Aquinas does speak of both divine law and human laws adding to the natural law when things are discovered that are beneficial to human life. In this context, private property is mentioned as an invention of human reason, which is “not contrary to the natural law,” and is an example of a human law that is added to the natural law.335 Yet, if this is a natural law, it is not sacred or inviolable, as in cases of necessity all things are common property.336 Nonetheless, in times of normalcy, Aquinas argues, following Aristotle, “the possession of external goods is natural to human beings.”337 Does this contradict Aquinas’ claim that private property is an invention of human reason? Or is private property deemed natural here because human reason concurred that such an arrangement was most in line

                                                                                                               

333

Ibid.,, no. 22; Cf. Fortin, “Rerum Novarum and Natural Rights,” 215, 216, 218, where Fortin appears to have misread this section to say that Leo XIII condones the distinction between ownership and use; whereas, he seems to be arguing that ownership entails proper use and not use as one wills. He clearly favors the former and thus premodern view. 334 I should say “natural right” understood in a premodern sense and without out the “state of nature” teaching attached to it. 335 ST I-II, q. 94, a. 5; II-II, q. 66, a. 2. 336 Ibid., II-II, q. 66, a. 7. 337 Ibid., II-II, q. 66, a. 1; Aristotle, Politics, 45 (1256a39-1256b23), this passage is the closest Aristotle comes to Locke’s understanding of labor as the source of property, which appears to be fairly close. The question, however, is whether acquiring possessions through hunting, farming, fishing, etc. entitles one to claim such possessions as a natural right in the modern sense. I have my doubts.

with human nature? Whether or not this is enough to constitute a natural right to

166  

private property is a matter of dispute.338 What is not in dispute is that the political economy of Rerum Novarum recommends widely distributed ownership of land as a means to economic selfsufficiency and thus as a remedy to graduate the impoverished proletariat to a freeholding peasantry, while, at the same time, urging the proper use of one’s possessions and the giving of one’s superfluous goods as a restraint upon greed. It is from the Christian morality that men are encouraged to prefer “right dealing to mere lucre, and the sacredness of duty to every other consideration.”339 Despite some of the difficulties with Rerum Novarum, the primacy of duty is arguably more preeminent than that of rights. The English Distributists: Defending the Small Proprietor It could be said that the English Distributists stood on the shoulders of intellectual giants, especially, Aquinas’. Giants, however, usually fall sometime or another from their summits, be it justly or not. Such had between the case with Aquinas prior to the papacy of Leo XIII. The Pope did what he could to revive Thomism during his tenure, and in 1879, Leo XIII established Aquinas “as the Church’s foremost authority in matters of philosophy and theology.”340 Part of Leo XIII’s own greatness is rightly attributed to his lifting his intellectual hero up again. Yet, his own stature grew after Rerum Novarum, which beginning in 1931 the papacy has commemorated every                                                                                                                 338

For a reputable position that takes the opposite point of view of Fortin’s, see Heinrich Pesch, Liberalism, Socialism and the Christian Social Order: Private Property as a Social Institution, Book 3, trans. Rupert J. Ederer (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2001), 72, 73, 77n.1,4; it must be decided whether one can infer from the commandment “Thou shalt not steal” the natural right of private property. Pesch believes so; Fortin doesn’t appear to agree (222n.50). 339 Rerum Novarum, no. 60. 340 Fortin, “Rerum Novarum and Natural Rights,” 230.

decade. For instance, in the first encyclical celebrating Rerum Novarum, Pope Pius

167  

XI says, “under the leadership and teaching guidance of the Church let all strive according to the talent, powers, and position of each to contribute something to the Christian reconstruction of human society which Leo XIII inaugurated through his immortal Encyclical, On the Condition of Workers,”341 the popular name for Rerum Novarum. In its centennial celebration, Pope John Paul II says, In doing likewise for the hundredth anniversary, in response to requests from many Bishops, Church institutions, and study centres, as well as business leaders and workers, both individually and as members of associations, I wish first and foremost to satisfy the debt of gratitude which the whole Church owes to this great Pope and his "immortal document". I also mean to show that the vital energies rising from that root have not been spent with the passing of the years, but rather have increased even more. This is evident from the various initiatives which have preceded, and which are to accompany and follow the celebration, initiatives promoted by Episcopal Conferences, by international agencies, universities and academic institutes, by professional associations and by other institutions and individuals in many parts of the world.342 The “immortal” encyclical’s “vital energies” were certainly strong among the English Distributists. The three most prominent theorists of distributism, Hilaire Belloc (18701953), G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), and Father Vincent McNabb (1868-1943), consistently praised not only Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical but also his hero, Aquinas. The Distributists thus drank from a deep well when they turned their pens at the industrial capitalistic economy of their day, offering in its stead a political economy with intellectual pedigree.

                                                                                                                341

Pope Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno, (5/15/1931), http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19310515_quadragesimoanno_en.html. Accessed on 1/09/10. 342 Pope John Paul II, Centesimus Annus (5/01/1991), http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG0214/_INDEX.HTM. Accessed on 1/09/10.

The Distributists humbly do not make any claims to originality in articulating

168  

their point of view. They seem to urge their followers to not linger theorizing about the details of the political theory of distributism; instead, look to the Gospels, Aquinas and Rerum Novarum, they said all that needs to be said. McNabb, in this vein, states, Yet it is the doctrine of the Rerum Novarum that the Law and Policy of nations should be to increase the number of owners and thereby to decrease the number of wages earners. The laws and administrative action needed to bring about this extension of Ownership System and this diminution of the Wage System are for Legislatures and State departments to consider. For us, Catholics, the Distributive State (i.e., the State in which there are as many owners as possible) is not something which we discuss, but something we have to propagate and institute. No advance in social thought or social action is possible if we are seeking to prove to ourselves as a theory what we should be trying to realize as a fact.343 The Distributists thus did not believe that their task was to construct a utopia. Rather, they believed that it was their duty to preach the social teachings of Aquinas and Leo XIII. In The Outline of Sanity (1926), Chesterton says, “About fifteen years ago a few of us began to preach, in the old New Age and New Witness, a policy of small distributed property (which has since assumed the awkward but accurate name of Distributism), as we should have said then, against the two extremes of Capitalism and Communism.”344 He preached as if the “agrarian war in England” was a Crusade.345 Fortunately, for lovers of thought, the Distributists not only preached but they also theorized, leaving us with priceless gems to speculate upon. In turn, for lovers of action, the Distributists inspired with their speech the deeds of the Catholic Land                                                                                                                 343

Father Vincent McNabb, The Church and the Land, preface by William Fahey (Norfolk: IHS Press, 2003), 81-82. 344 G. K. Chesterton, Collected Works: Family, Society, Politics, Volume V: The Outline of Sanity, The End of the Armistice, Utopia of Usurers—and others, (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1987), 45. 345 Chesterton, The Outline of Sanity, 204.

Movement in Great Britain, not to mention colossal tabs at taverns—a monument to

169  

good spirits and camaraderie! It is no secret that Chesterton, the convert to Catholicism, used this elixir to keep his hopes alive for social renewal, even against the despair to which Belloc and McNabb, both Catholics from birth, were at times given.346 We should by now have some understanding for what distributism stood, especially, knowing that Aquinas and Rerum Novarum informed its outlook. Yet, given the awkward name distributism, as Chesterton freely admits, most of the contemporaries of the Distributists were not entirely clear on what their political teaching was. Yet in the early works of distributism it seems that the political teaching was certainly there, even though the name setting it apart from capitalism or communism was only on the horizons. Some of the names tossed around were the Cobbett Club, the Luddite League, the League of Small Property, the Cow and Acres, and the Lost Property League, and the League of Little People.347 The use of William Cobbett’s name is simply a synonym for “rustic”, as surely he was a champion of the small, self-sufficient farmer, which is demonstrated in his Rural Rides and, especially, Cottage Economy. From these names, we have more of an inkling of their point of view. In their own works, they used other names for the political model that they wished to take root in England, such as “the proprietary state” or “the peasant state”. These names are telling, and those who are familiar with their work know that Belloc,                                                                                                                 346

See ibid., 177 for Chesterton’s faith in hope: “They run with eager feet before and beyond the lingering and inconveniently slow statistics; like as the hart pants for the water-brooks they thirst to drink of Sytx and Lethe before their hour; even the facts they show fall far short of the faith that they see shining beyond them; for faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” For examples of his friend’s pessimism, see Hilaire Belloc, An Essay on the Restoration of Property (Norfolk: IHS Press, 2002), 21, 54, 74, 99, and Vincent McNabb, O.P., Old Principles and the New Order (New York: Sheed &Ward, 1942), 155, 206. 347 Edward S. Shapiro, “Postscript: A Distributist Society,” in Chesterton’s Collected Works, Vol. V, 211212.

being the accomplished historian among the group, was the Distributist who did the

170  

most to flesh out what the distributive state looked like and its legacy in history, even though Chesterton and McNabb dressed it up with their wit and eloquent prose. In the Servile State, Belloc moves from the “Servile State” of antiquity to describing the origins of the “Distributist State” in the Middle Ages, which once failing yields to the “Capitalist State” of modernity. He, then, ends his work with solutions that will replace capitalism; they are the “distributive solution” (property), “collectivist solution” (socialism), or the “servile solution” (slavery). The inherent instability of capitalism, for Belloc, means that it contains no solution within itself. But next to the distributist state it is difficult to discern which one Belloc would rank as second best. By his standards, a state is best that meets three needs: 1) security, 2) sufficiency, and 3) freedom. According to Belloc, if capitalism is given free rein, it does not relent from creating an impoverished proletariat and a few millionaires, at least such was the case in Great Britain during Belloc’s time. Capitalism meets the first two needs for the wealthy few but fails regarding the many, and it only meets the last one nominally. For without economic freedom, the English “were in a worse posture than free citizens have ever found themselves before in the history of Europe.”348 He thus asks, What turned an England economically free into the England which we know today, of which nineteen-twentieths are dispossessed of capital and of land, and of which the whole industry and national life is controlled upon its economic side by a few chance directors of millions, a few masters of unsocial and irresponsible monopolies?349 It was not, however, through the “material process” of the Industrial Revolution. Rather, it was the result of “deliberate action of men, evil will in a few and apathy of                                                                                                                

348 349

Hilaire Belloc, The Servile State, intro. by Robert Nisbet (Indinapolis: Liberty Classics, 1977), 86. Ibid., 82.

350

will among the many”.

Had the Industrial Revolution occurred when guilds were

171  

strong and the moral law held economic activity in check, it might have been beneficial to England. Yet, as it took place in a state that was already capitalistic, evils rather than good were the first consequences of its discoveries. With this in mind, Belloc plainly states, “It was not machinery that lost us our freedom; it was the loss of a free mind.”351 The free mind existed, according to Belloc, in the Middle Ages, where distributism is said to have flourished. This state originated out of the servile state that was everywhere characteristic of antiquity. Slavery was taken for granted. Belloc, however, notes that in “Pagan Europe” that, although slavery was deemed necessary, owners often enfranchised their slaves, who after a spell of time would enter into the “ranks of free society.”352 While slavery was a fact of life, Belloc points out that antiquity “remained a world of free proprietors”.353 It was also largely a world where security and sufficiency were meet for all classes, even if freedom only resided with the citizens. For this reason, Belloc seems to favor the servile state over capitalism: “I say nowhere in the book that the reestablishment of slavery would be a bad thing as compared with our present insecurity, and no one has the right to read such an opinion into this book. Upon the contrary, I say clearly enough that I think the tendency toward the reestablishment of slavery is due to the very fact that the new conditions may be found more tolerable than those obtaining under capitalism.”354 The tolerability of the servile state rests upon meeting the needs of security and sufficiency for all, as opposed to the intolerability of industrial capitalism, where a few control the means of                                                                                                                 350

Ibid., 82. Ibid., 83. 352 Ibid., 65. 353 Ibid., 67. 354 Ibid., 28. 351

production, leaving the dispossessed citizens, that is, the proletariat, in a state of

172  

“perpetual anxiety” concerning the basic necessities, despite the fact that they retain their political freedom.355 In this light, Belloc seems to favor the servile state over capitalism. Furthermore, he seems to favor socialism over capitalism: “State ownership is better, of course, than ownership by a few very rich individuals, or even the ownership by many small shareholders who are at the mercy of a few rich ones, as they are under our English company law”.356 However that may be, Belloc leaves no doubt that distributism is the best economic order. In its origins, it appears to have retained from the servile state the importance of “free proprietors”. But in time, as Catholic civilization spread, slavery gradually came to an end. Of course, early on the Church did not condemn slavery. Belloc observes that there was no attack on slavery during the first to forth centuries, when the world was converted to Christianity.357 After this initial period came the Dark Ages, spanning roughly from the fifth to the tenth century, where the dominant economic structure of Western Europe was organized around great landed estates called villas. In the beginning of this period, the slave’s labor was still considered property of the lord just as the land was. But as time went on things began to change for the slave; the buying and selling of slaves decreased, and families of slaves remained tied to where their fathers had lived. In addition, the amount of produce that the lord demanded became more and more fixed, and eventually, the slaves were granted ownership of the surplus. This long transition                                                                                                                

355

Ibid., 53 and Hilaire Belloc, The Restoration of Property, 28. Belloc, The Restoration of Property, 68. 357 Belloc, The Servile State, 71-72. 356

obviously was significant as slaves began to improve their lot. The lord’s great

173  

estate, as a result, which had previously been absolutely held by him, soon became divided into three sections: 1) the lord’s domain of arable land and pasture, 2) the “land in villenage” worked by slaves under their own officer, either nominated or elected by them, with a fixed portion of the produce going to the lord, and 3) the common land, where land was divided between the lord and the slaves.358 According to Belloc, “during the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries this system crystallized and became so natural in men’s eyes that the original servile character of the working folk upon the villa was forgotten.”359 Belloc admits that documents of this time are rare and his own study is a “matter of inference than of direct evidence.” That said, he emphasizes how before the end of this period the buying and selling of men was “almost unknown”. With the advent of the “true Middle Ages” (the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries), the slave became a serf, which meant that while he was legally tied to soil of his birth, he and his family only had to “till the quota of servile land, and that the dues to the lord shall not fail from his absence of labor.” When these requirements were met, serfs could take up a profession in town or even with the church, and as a result, they slowly came to be treated almost as free men. At the end of the fourteenth century and beginning of the fifteenth, the squire and peasant could both claim that the holding was his own, and moreover, the peasant only had to pay but a fraction of what was produced from the land.360 In addition to the well-being that the serf enjoyed, there was also an increase in the number of free peasants or yeomen. Both of these events taken together                                                                                                                 358

Ibid., 72-76. Belloc, Servile State, 76. 360 Ibid., 76-78, and Hilaire Belloc, The Crisis of Civilizatioin (Rockford: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1992), 56-76. 359

mark, for Belloc, the transformation of the servile state into the distributist state,

174  

where property is widely distributed. Adam Smith observes how in England the security of the tenant grew to be the same as that of the landowner. In fact, Smith claims that England out of perhaps all the countries of Europe is “where the yeomanry has always been most respected.”361 Such privileges soon changed as industrial capitalism matured. Before moving on to describe the Distributist response to these changes, a few more things need to be said about the distributive state of the Middle Ages. Belloc notes that in the distributist state there were three forms of labor: “the serf, secure in his position, and burdened only with regular dues, which were but a fraction of his produce, the freeholder, a man independent save for money dues, which were more of a tax than a rent; the guild, in which well-divided capital worked cooperatively for craft production, for transport and commerce.” These forms of labor rested on the “principle of property.”362 Similar to the Agrarian Laws of Aristotle and Aquinas, Belloc remarks that although men of the same craft were bound together in guilds, or peasants bound to a village, they nonetheless were secure in their property, or holdings, which supplied them with sufficient food, clothing, and shelter. The effects of such an arrangement guaranteed “the small proprietor against loss of his economic independence, while at the same time it guaranteed society against the growth of a proletariat.” Restrictions on buying and selling prevented the “growth of an economic oligarchy which could exploit                                                                                                                

361

Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 392; see also 424-425, where England is said to have advanced commerce and manufacturing at a more rapid pass than agriculture, although it to was advancing. In this context, regarding protectionism, Smith comments on the “illusory” efforts, which signify the “good intention,” “of the legislature to favor agriculture. But what is of much importance than all of them, the yeomanry of England are rendered as secure, as independent, and as respectable as law can make them.” 362 Belloc, Servile State, 79-80.

the rest of the community.” Belloc thus concludes that the distribute state of the

175  

Middle Ages was directed toward economic freedom.363 All the restrictions on economic activity “were restraints designed for the preservation of liberty.”364 But what of political freedom? It appears that freeholds of a certain size entitled a yeoman to vote for a member of parliament. Most yeoman in England met the property qualification, and in turn, their political privileges increased their respectability among landlords and others.365 Belloc understood the rise of the distributist state to affirm the notion that economic freedom is a good. The grounds for such a good fundamentally rest upon the principle of property, since without land to which one can legally make a claim, it is impossible to achieve security, sufficiency, and economic freedom.366 Yet, in the case of the serf, he seems to meet all three conditions, but it is difficult to say that he enjoyed complete political freedom. Yet to demonstrate the importance of economic freedom to political freedom, one only needs to consider in contrast the proletariat in nineteenth century England, who were political free but often fell short of securing basic needs. And furthermore, in theory the socialist is politically free and attains security and sufficiency but is not economically free. In practice, this arrangement, however, has yet to persuasively manifest itself. Does it follow, then, that a regime that relatively respects the economic freedom of its citizens thereby encourages political freedom? The Distributist response to this question would be whole-hearted, cheery “yes”.                                                                                                                

363

Ibid., 80. For a more recent account of events, which corroborates Belloc’s account, see Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, 34-36. 364 Ibid., 80; see also Chesterton, The Well and the Shallows, 426: “Individual men must sacrifice their own liberties, but only to restore liberty.” 365 Smith, Wealth of Nations, 392. 366 Belloc, The Restoration of Property, 28-30.

Belloc claimed that distributism was one of the flowers of Catholic

176  

civilization, which “can neither be created nor maintained in an atmosphere deprived of Catholic philosophy. The conclusion of the series is therefore that in the reconversion of our world to the Catholic standpoint lies the only hope for the future.”367 Chesterton, however, is more moderate regarding the grounds for a return to the distributist state. He concedes that Catholicism need not be the only religious doctrine behind distributism, but there must be some doctrine behind it that is “in a sense religious.” In this context, Chesterton speaks of the “sacredness of private property,” following perhaps Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, and how sacramental religion has championed the “rights of men.”368 Yet, Chesterton is his clearest when he speaks colorfully of the need for a “poetry of small property”: And it is quite true that, in our movement as much as any other, there must be a certain amount of this romantic picture-making. Men have never done anything in the world without it; but ours is much more of a reality as well as a romance than the dreams of the other romantics [that is, ideals of the capitalists and socialists]. There cannot be a nation of millionaires, and there has never yet been a nation of Utopian comrades, but there have been any number of nations of tolerably contented peasants.369 In making this point, Chesterton is simply supporting Belloc’s claim that the “Distributist State is the natural state of mankind.”370 For Chesteron there exists an instinct for private property, which when not impeded will revive itself, just as health returns when one is cured of a disease.371 Chesterton emphasis on peasants being “tolerably contented,” as compared to insatiable capitalists and frustrated socialists,                                                                                                                

367

Belloc, The Crisis of Civilization, 4. Chesterton, The Outline of Sanity, 206-208. 369 Ibid., 191-192. 370 Hilaire Belloc, Economics for Helen: A Brief Outline of Real Economy (Norfolk: IHS Press, 2004), 89. 371 Chesterton, Outline of Sanity, 172. 368

rests upon what he considers to be the “aim of human polity,” that is, “human

177  

happiness.” His elaboration on this point is worth quoting: But happiness, the making glad of the heart of man, is the secular test and the only realistic test. So far from this test, by the talisman of the heart, being merely sentimental, it is the only test that is in the least practical. There is no law of logic or nature or anything else forcing us to prefer anything else. There is no obligation on us to be richer, or busier, or more efficient, or more productive, or more progressive, or in any way worldlier or wealthier, if it does not make us happier.... I am only stating, in answer to a hundred confused assumptions, the only ultimate aim and test. If we can make men happier, it does not matter if we make them poorer, it does not matter if we make them less productive, it does not matter if we make them less progressive, in the sense of merely changing their life without increasing their liking of it. We of this school of thought may or may not get what we want; but it is at least necessary that we should know what we are trying to get. And those who are called practical men never know what they are trying to get.372 Chesterton, better than any of the other Distributists, confronted full on the belief that he and his cohorts were impractical. It is true that they often looked to Medieval society for inspiration, but they did not view such inspiration as being impractical, as certainly it was more practical than the utopian dreams of collectivist socialism. Many good arrangements, institutions, and discoveries came out of the Middle Ages. That these are antiquated is not an argument against them. Only those with a belief in inevitable progress look at the peasant state as being “monotonous” or “unprogressive”. Chesterton argues, “the first fact in the discussion of whether small properties can exist is the fact that they do exist.” 373 The only offense that Chesterton seems to have taken to being called “medieval” was in response to the ignorance of his socialist critics, who

                                                                                                               

372 373

Ibid., 145, 147. Ibid., 46, 47.

believed that their theory was more practical than an arrangement that had actually

178  

occurred in history.374 While circumstances were certainly against the revival of the peasant model in early twentieth century England, the Distributists’ belief in the will of man and not in some inevitable material process lead them to agitate for a revival of the free, English peasantry. Just as capitialism, according to Belloc, was a deliberate act of the will of evil men, the reconstruction of an agrarian class must be to some degree artificial and thus recourse to state intervention is justified. Such a mean is almost necessary in order to restore widely distributed property, the economic order most “consonant to the nature of man,” considering his “fallen nature”.375 Against any naysaying aimed at the implementation of distributism, Chesterton responded, “I disregard the view that such ‘reaction’ cannot be. I hold the old mystical dogma that what Man has done, Man can do. My critics seem to hold a still more mystical dogma: that Man cannot possibly do a thing because he has done it. That is what seems to be meant by saying that small property is ‘antiquated.’”376 And while Chesterton certainly championed with vigor a return to the distributist state of England, he did not think distributism would “save England” but rather he thought that “Englishmen will save England, if they begin to have half a chance.”377 Yet to have “half a chance” required that circumstances and laws be formed to make possible a revival of the peasantry. The other half rested upon the will, that is to say, the volunteerism of the potential peasantry.378 Chesterton, as noted above, did not contemplate the odds against such a revival, nor was he unaware of                                                                                                                

374

See ibid., 54, 62-64, 80. Bellco, The Crisis of Civilization, 164-165, 166-167, 172-173. 376 Chesterton, The Outline of Sanity, 52. 377 Ibid., 70. 378 Ibid., 126, 133. 375

the difficulties that had to be surmounted in order to revive the English countryside.

179  

The call to “save the land” must be met with a “heroic” remedy, one like the call for volunteers in 1914, which “raised three million heroes with the blast of a bugle…the trumpet we hear to-day is in a more terrible sense the trump of doom.”379 The commitment to such an endeavor must be strong: “We are not asking people to cut a coupon out of a newspaper, but to carve a farm out of a trackless waste; and if it is to be successful, it must be faced in something of the stubborn spirit of the old fulfillment of a vow. St. Francis showed his followers the way to a greater happiness…. But we live in a time when it is harder for a free man to make a home than it was for a medieval ascetic to do without one.”380 Chesterton’s trumpet was heard. It is noteworthy that when distributism is remembered in works of political economy, Chesterton’s name comes to mind. Bertrand de Jouvenel writes, “the feeling that the true way to social justice lies in some redistribution of capital is the basic ingredient of all reforming schemes set up against the collectivist program. These seek to make the agrarian principle applicable to modern societies, this is what Chesterton advocated. The secret of achieving it in practice has not been found, but many confused strivings [that is, ‘a property-owning democracy’] testify that the old concept is very much alive. Indeed it will never pall.”381 As long as the Church remains under the sway of Rerum Novarum, the agrarian principle will remain alive. According to Novak, the tradition of Catholic social thought “does not yet teach or promote the ethos on which a free economy is                                                                                                                

379

Ibid., 127. Ibid., 127. 381 de Jouvenel, The Ethics of Redistribution, 11. 380

based: saving, investment, entrepreneurship, invention, and the virtues of

180  

commercial and industrial life. Its own traditional predispositions are agrarian (as in G. K. Chesterton’s ‘distributism’).”382 Given these statements it is no wonder then that English distributism grew out of the Church’s response to the plight of the urban poor, which was weighed down by industrial capitalism working itself out. After the Reformation, when the state seized Church property, Catholics were routinely persecuted in Great Britain, and whenever possible, they were driven from the land by reformers and the wealthy, which in effect destroyed the Catholic peasantry, leaving only those who found aid among noblemen and recusants. As of 1934, it was estimated that 95 percent of the Catholic body was urban, and 80 percent of Great Britain, regardless of sect, was urban, making it the “most urbanized State in the

                                                                                                               

382

Michael Novak, Catholic Social Thought & Liberal Institutions: Freedom with Justice, second edition, (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1989), 194. Novak himself seems to share some of the same sentiments as the Distributists in his desire for small business: “In Eastern Europe today, as in Latin America and North America, the key to dynamic growth from the bottom up lies in the small-business sector, not in the more glamorous large industries (which are necessarily more bureaucratic); here is where most new jobs are created. Here, too, a law of Christian theology makes itself felt: It is among humble things, often overlooked, that the most creative impulses are found” (The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 60). Yet when it comes to the small proprietor of a patch of land, Novak seems to be unaware of how the family farmer has been unable to compete against the “glamorous large industries” of agribusiness. He thus seems to assume that small family farmers are prevalent as food is still coming to the table. Yet, in his “Introduction: Saving Distributism” to Chesterton’s Outline of Sanity, he uncritically cites Edward Shapiro’s comment given in 1984, “The Distributist ideals of a nation of independent proprietors living close to the soil is alive and well in America,” and demonstrating his ignorance, which he alone does not exhibit, as at that point in time small farmers were less than 2 percent of the population. Assumptions like these by the defenders of commerce prove that the agrarian point of view has yet to be thoroughly considered. Novak, nonetheless, finds “Chesterton’s salvoes against ‘capitalism’—keeping in mind what he means by it—warning shots well-fired” (Ibid., 15). My main question for Novak would be, how does democratic capitalism protect the small proprietor, which he seems intent on protecting, if economic competition is not restrained from underselling the small proprietor? What happens if the relative autonomy of the capitalistic economy corrupts politics and religion/morality? It is my contention that a political economy that subordinates economics to politics and morality is confronting this question head on rather than believing in a resurrection to an equilibrium among morality, politics, and economics.

383

world.”

In response the Catholic Land Movement grew out Chesterton’s, and of

181  

course his fellow Distributists, rallying cry, “Back to the Land!” While Chesterton also petitioned for the small shopkeeper in addition to the small farmer, Father Vincent McNabb focused all of his efforts on the Catholic Land Movement. Jay P. Corrin describes McNabb in the following way: Father Vincent was one of the best-known Catholic personalities in Britain, an indefatigable campaigner for Distributist causes, and the single most important influence behind the many Catholic back-to-the-land movements of the interwar years…. He was the most unabashedly radical of all the Distributists, always insisting that his close friends Gilbert Keith Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc were too meek in their criticisms of modern society. McNabb believed that the only wholesale return to self-sufficient agriculture could provide the social and economic sustenance for a true Christian life. 384 In The Church and the Land, McNabb lives up to this description, where he argues, almost reluctantly, that “there is little hope of saving civilization or religion except by the return of contemplatives of the land!”385 McNabb derived much of his inspiration from Leo XIII and Aquinas. In The Church and the Land, he even translated Book II, Chapter III of Aquinas’ De Regimine Principum, titling the chapter “St. Thomas Aquinas on Town Planning,” and also attributes to Aquinas the honor of being the “first to recognize in the Mosaic code of laws a collection of economic principles…. His work in summarizing and, if we may be allowed the phrase, in codifying the Mosaic laws has made his Summa Theologica one

                                                                                                               

383

Harold Robbins, “The Line of Approach,” in Flee to the Fields: The Founding Papers of the Catholic Land Movement, preface by Hilaire Belloc (Norfolk: IHS, 2003, originally published in 1934), 50; for other effects precipitating the decline of the peasantry before the Reformation, see in the same volume Mgr. James Dey, “The Church and the Land,” 94-96. 384 Corrin, Catholic Intellectuals and the Challenge of Democracy, 159. 385 McNabb, The Church and the Land, 31.

386

of the indispensable introductions to scientific economics.”

In his chapter “The

182  

Economics of the Exodus,” McNabb portrays Moses as leading one of the first back-tothe-land movements, where the Hebrews had been considered as a “city-fungus on the very rich,” even though it was the economics of Egypt that impoverished the poor. McNabb argues, “No agricultural civilization has every produced them [that is, the very poor]. But city life, with its unstable industrialism, not only produces and fosters them for its self-existence, but keeps them within the city by unfitting them for life on the land.”387 He thus views the poor people of London as he viewed the Hebrews of Egypt. The task of converting the poor to farmers was daunting but divine.388 While McNabb claimed that returning to the land would save civilization and religion, he firmly believed that “religion alone can lead men out of the cities to the land, or keep them on the land in spite of the lure of cities.”389 This claim is weighty and worth considering, as it is difficult for a people to sacrifice the “damnable conveniences of city life,” especially when they become soft from even the most petty of comforts.390 In calling for the “return of the contemplatives to the land,” McNabb was not simply scorning suburbia or recommending a simple life, but he understood that life on the land was more conducive to the worship of God than life in the city:391 Doomed, as most of our town workers are doomed, to the dismal routine of office or factory, let them go out from the towns which man has made and meditate on the land as God has made it. If it can be arranged, they should to go to some farmhouse, as far as possible from what we pathetically call the conveniences of modern life.392                                                                                                                

386

Ibid., 73. Ibid., 78. 388 Ibid., 78-79 389 Ibid., 77. 390 Ibid., 79. 391 Ibid., 33, 154-156. 392 Ibid., 154. 387

McNabb favoring of the country over the town was based on his

183  

commonsensical observation that the country was largely self-sufficient, whereas the city was dependent upon the country for primary things. He seems to move back and forth between self-sufficient homesteads and self-sufficient “groupings of families working in cooperation”.393 Regarding the former, he goes as far to argue that as soon as the farmer seeks money for his produce, he opens the door to “the thralldom of (1) Transport and (2) Market.”394 In welcoming transport, one welcomes the trader and all the tricks of finance. Slowly as the “self-supporting” farmer accepts “tokens” from a city-dweller for his “things,” McNabb argues that the farmer has “taken the first step away from self-subsistence and has set his face towards death. He does not realize that in accepting the townsman’s token for his own reality he has begun to play the townsman game. Defeat is inevitable…. Thus the countryside that loves markets is hugging its chains.”395 One gets the impression that this argument is what makes Corrin rightly call McNabb the “most unabashedly radical of all the Distributists.” First of all, this stance seems to put him not entirely in line with his patron saint, Aquinas. McNabb, nonetheless, seems to rightly interpret Aquinas’ commentary on several Psalms as being “political wisdom” that guides one toward “good government”. Aquinas’ commentary on these Psalms, however, is reminiscent of parts of his De Regimine Principum, in that national self-sufficiency is emphasized. McNabb’s interpretation even admits so much: “the self-sufficient community is the unit of political organization. Self-sufficiency is not merely the first line of national defence;                                                                                                                

393

McNabb, Old Principles and the New Order, 46-47, 143-144. Ibid., 46. 395 Ibid., 139-140. 394

but the first line of national life.”

396

Yet, if we recall, Aquinas recognized that the

184  

trader was necessary, and if moderate, he is even beneficial to the city, not a deathdealer. Chesterton, too, seems to surprisingly follow McNabb on this point: “We want to find out how many peasants there are, actual and potential, who would take over the responsibility of small farms, for the sake of self-sufficiency.”397 Chesterton, however, does not desire to reduce everyone to being a farmer, as McNabb seems earnestly to want.398 He understands that “[i]n all normal civilizations the trader existed and must exist. But in all normal civilizations the trader was the exception; certainly he was never the rule; and most certainly he was never the ruler. The predominance which he has gained in the modern world is the cause of all the disasters of the modern world.”399 Chesterton nevertheless desires to produce a class of people who simply live off the land, not engaging in commercial activity. Such a class of people would be “truly independent” and know the whole “social circle”. He does not claim that such a way of life stands for “complete humanity”. Rather, knowing the circle of producing and consuming in a self-sufficient manner is needed because the absence of such a people from modern civilization entails a loss of social unity.400 Chesterton, moreover, recalls Virgil’s description of the rustic who finds human happiness in understanding the causes of things on his farm.401 The Distributists and the Catholic Land Movement thus saw life on the farm not as monotonous or plain but a place full of reverence and                                                                                                                

396

Ibid., 63. Chesterton, The Outline of Sanity, 127. 398 Ibid., 80, 133, 135, 140. 399 Chesterton, The Well and the Shallows, 497-498. 400 Chesterton, The Outline of Sanity, 140. 401 Ibid., 136. 397

curiosity for the world around it. One of the several “aspects of agricultural

185  

distributism” is that the character of the peasantry, dressed in elaborate, handcrafted attires shown off in folk dances on high festivals, is the conservative class par excellence. Such a constituent can be called upon in the defense of private property whenever it is under assault, for they know its true meaning.402 The contentment and conservatism of the peasant class, according to Chesterton, means that they achieved the end of the human polity. Unlike progressives, who invariably spring up in cities, the peasants are content and conservative while also being creative.403 The peasant model is thus worthy of implementation, according to the Distributists, as it has been the basis for so many of the political ideas that the West holds dear. Chesterton reiterates his standard of happiness: The peasant does live, not merely a simple life, but a complete life. It may be very simple in its completeness, but the community is not complete without that completeness. The community is at present very defective because there is not in the core of it any such simple consciousness; any one man who represents the two parties to a contract. Unless there is, there is nowhere a full understanding of those terms: selfsupport, self-control, self-government. He is the only unanimous mob and the only universal man. He is the one half of the world which does know how the other half lives.404 Or stated differently, “It is when you really perceive the unity of mankind that you really perceive its variety.”405 Conclusion With Aquinas, Leo XIII, and the English Distributists, we see that their social teaching is a continuation of the agrarian tradition and is thus compatible with the agrarian                                                                                                                 402

Ibid., 12-123. Ibid., 124. 404 Ibid., 136. 405 Chesterton, Utopia of Usurers, 456. 403

aspect of Aristotle’s political economy. Like Aristotle, they subordinate economic

186  

activity to politics and morality and are especially keen on restraining the desire of greed, as its emancipation leads to an economy without limits. And while Leo XIII and the English Distributists emphasize the sacredness and inviolability of private property, and thus seem modern to some degree in their understanding, their emphasis on the function of private property as serving both the domestic and the political good places them more in line with the premoderns. And though private property certainly reached an exalted position in the social teachings of the Pope and the English Distributists, it should be kept in mind that they sought to encourage and protect the wide distribution of property and thus the economic and political freedom of small proprietors. In other words, private property was viewed as the institution that made possible economic selfsufficiency, which in turn was deemed essential for maintaining robust, not nominal, political freedom. We now turn to the focus on the difference that the small farmer brings to Western civilization.

CHAPTER V: WENDELL BERRY AND VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: THE HOPE AND THE DESPAIR OF AGRARIAN SELF-SUFFICIENCY IN AMERICA Introduction Whether Americans know it or not, two of the greatest agrarian men of letters walk among us, Wendell Berry and Victor Davis Hanson. Berry has been writing on agrarian topics for over forty years and Hanson for almost thirty. While Berry has focused mainly on contemporary issues, Hanson has published first-rate scholarship on the origins of agrarianism in ancient Greece. It will be easily recognized that the first part of this project owes a large debt to Hanson’s scholarship. Yet, it should be mentioned that in many of his essays, as well as his classic, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture, Berry demonstrates his own skill at drawing upon the wisdom of the great books tradition of Western civilization. For instance, both Berry and Hanson have commented on Odysseus’ return home from Troy and his encounter with his father, emphasizing the solitude that Laertes found while cultivating a small estate away from the disorder of the city, a scene which many readers surely glanced over. 406 Like Berry, Hanson has, in turn, written on contemporary topics. He perhaps has written two of the most beautiful but tragic books on the demise of American                                                                                                                 406

Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1996; originally published in 1977), 128-129; Victor Davis Hanson, The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 65.

agrarianism. These two men have made it their life’s work to tell the American

188  

public how things used to be and how things arrived at where they are today. We should be thankful that they have not imitated Laertes and simply minded their own business; but of course such a minding includes a critique of what is threatening their way of life. The future, unfortunately, appears bleak as to whether or not their descendents a hundred years from now will have a homecoming. It probably goes without saying that Berry and Hanson would rather their descendents live a complete life on familiar land and homes than to have any of their testimonies survive. I have often wondered how things might be regarding the status of the small family farmer a hundred years from now. Will we read Berry and Hanson as a reference point for when the family farm almost perished, or will we read them to get some idea of how things used to be before farming became simply another corporate affair—agribusiness, in other words? Were Berry and Hanson to be asked this question, Hanson, for the most part, seems to think that there is no hope in adverting the evergrowing presence of corporate agriculture, which consolidates all the arable land that used to be divided into small family farms. Berry, on the hand, is a bit more ambivalent. He has hope, but he knows full well that celebration and optimism are as of yet not in the picture.407 Berry and Hanson probably speak for many small family farmers who share their predicament. That neither of them is optimistic about the future attests to their common sense. They are not progressives, believing that things will inevitably get better, be it through technological or economic determinism. Agrarians, on the other hand, are much more pragmatic, or even tragic, in their outlook on human                                                                                                                

407

Wendell Berry, “A Long Job, Too Late to Quit,” in Citizenship Papers (Washington: Shoemaker and Hoard, 2003), 79.

nature and politics. In this chapter, I describe this perspective as is seen in the work

189  

of Berry and Hanson. I begin with their thoughts on early America, their agrarian forebears, and their childhood. In doing so, I gather their thoughts together as to understand agrarianism from their points of view, emphasizing their thoughts on selfsufficiency. As my emphasis is on agrarian self-sufficiency, I do not make an attempt to give a comprehensive account their points of view, since that would be a project unto itself. And lastly, I end with a discussion of their thoughts on the causes of the demise of agrarian self-sufficiency in America and what they foresee as the political consequences of the loss of the family farm. Agrarians—or the Other Americans—and the Early American Dream From the settling of America as a colony to its founding as a republic, the people were for the most part farmers, ranging from 85-95 percent of the population in Jefferson’s time.408 The first work of American literature arose out of this population, “a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, German, and Swedes,” from a Frenchman, J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur. His Letters from an American Farmer follows the “European tradition of epistolary fiction” and has as its narrator a farmer named James, who lives in Pennsylvania and whose experiences are probably quite similar to Crèvecœur’s own, who farmed for a spell some land in Orange County. The Letters, while published in 1782, were started in the years prior to the American Revolutionary War, and can be considered as the “first work of American literature.” 409 The Third                                                                                                                

408

Victor Davis Hanson, Fields Without Dreams: Defending the Agrarian Idea (New York: Free Press Paperbacks, 1996), xvii, and Victor Davis Hanson, The Land Was Everything: Letters from an American Farmer (New York: The Free Press, 2000), 141. 409 J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur, Letters from an American Farmer, ed. with intro. and notes by Susan Manning (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), ix, xv, and backcover.

Letter, “What is an American?”, is the most famous one of the work. Here

190  

Crèvecœur says, Europe contains hardly any other distinctions but lords and tenants; this fair country alone is settled by freeholders, the possessor of the soil they cultivate, members of the government they obey, and the framers of their own laws, by means of their representatives…. It is here then that the idle may be employed, the useless become useful, and the poor become rich; but riches I do not mean gold and silver, we have but little of those metals: I mean a better sort of wealth; cleared lands, cattle, good houses, good clothes, and an increase of people who enjoy them.410 As the poor and middling were the ones to emigrate from Europe, not the rich, there was relatively no gap between the rich and poor in America. And whatever difference there was, this “new man” worked for himself and thus nourished the Hesiodic “good Strife” in his labors: “We are a people of cultivators, scattered over an immense territory…united by the silken bands of mild government, all respecting the laws, without dreading their power, because they are equitable. We are all animated with the spirit of an industry which is unfettered and unrestrained, because each person works for himself.”411 The American dream as Crèvecœur saw it entailed not what we today consider as a high standard of living; rather, it was the notion that one could escape from the servitude of “a despotic prince, a rich abbot, or a mighty lord,” and upon arriving in America, an immigrant could look around in his new homeland and see “a prosperous person, who, but a few years before, was as poor as himself.”412 The man that he would have seen was undoubtedly a self-sufficient farmer of “easy subsistence and political felicity”.413 By the standards of Xenophon and Aristotle, such a man                                                                                                                

410

Ibid., 55. Ibid., 41. 412 Ibid., 44, 58. 413 Ibid, 14. 411

would have been genuinely wealthy. Times, as we say, have changed. Who, after

191  

all, can genuinely say today that they are self-employed and are so without, whether wittingly or unwittingly, relying upon or taking from others? In The Land Was Everything: Letters from an American Farmer, one gets the impression that Hanson wishes he would have been born among the agrarian Thebans of ancient Greece or during the Golden Age of early America. Unlike Crèvecœur, who lived in a time when America was almost entirely agrarian, Hanson lives during its demise or perhaps death. Hanson riddles off the statistics with contempt: Clearly, the 99 percent in town do not know in any direct way the 1 percent on the farm; the latter experience the world of the former every day on television, in the mail, and on the phone. And the divide will only get worse, until there is no divide and we are all of the nonfarm world. Agriculture in the millennium to come will for the most part be conducted in vast expanses, away from town—the corporate void where no sane man wishes to live.”414 It seems relatively unbelievable that in a little over two hundred years the agrarian population has been nearly decimated, from 85-95 percent of the population to an astounding 1 percent. With these numbers in mind, Hanson, himself, is one of the last agrarians, a fifth generation farmer who has not only lived on the land that his ancestors inhabited but their home as well.415 There is no doubt as to where his anger and despair derive from. The land of his ancestors is sacred. And like Naboth, who refused to sell his vineyard to Ahab, king of Israel, as “Yahweh forbid that I should give you may ancestral heritage!”, Hanson’s despair leads us to believe that, like Ahab, agribusiness or suburban developers will find a way to remove him from his ancestral heritage. We can only hope, even if Hanson does not, that their will be an Elijah that shames the                                                                                                                 414 415

Hanson, The Land Was Everything, 118-119. Hanson, Fields Without Dreams, 58.

conquerors to the point where they will rent their clothes, don sackcloth, walk with

192  

slow steps, and most of all fast from their greedy and gluttonous ways.416 This hope, however, is not optimistic, but as Chesterton interprets the Biblical story: “A hundred tales of human history are there to show that tendencies can be turned back, and that one stumbling-block can be the turning-point. The sands of time are simply dotted with single stakes that have thus marked the turn of the tide. The first step towards ultimately winning is to make sure that the enemy does not win, if it be only that he does not win everywhere. Then, when we have halted the rush, and perhaps fought it to a standstill, we may begin a general counter-attack.”417 In his book, Hanson returns to Crèvecœur’s Letters in effort to recall to our attention the way things used to be in early America and up through to the middle of the last century. He does so in order to return to “Crèvecœur’s approach to update and conclude his thesis: just as he held that the formation of freeholding yeoman created the American republican spirit, so now the decline of family farming in our generation is symptomatic of the demise of his notion of what an American was.”418 If Hanson is indeed correct that “[t]here is no hope that the family farm will return in the next century,”419 then we as Americans, should we so desire to understand ourselves wholly, will owe a debt to Hanson for showing us what we have become from what we once were. Perhaps we will like what we see. Chances are some will not. Hanson’s agrarian writings, while not necessarily serving as what Chesterton calls a counter-attack, certainly gives the appearance of an attempt that seeks to keep the enemy from winning                                                                                                                

416

1 Kings, Chapter 21. Chesterton, The Outline of Sanity, 110. 418 Hanson, The Land Was Everything, 6. 419 Hanson, Field without dreams, 274. 417

everywhere. Yet, should agribusiness win, Hanson wonders, “Might not, a century

193  

or two hence, agrarians yet again reemerge from the ashes of contemporary latifundia? If so, this book may also offer some small help and solace to struggling farmers not yet born.”420 Turning toward early America, Hanson, to say the least, wants us to reflect upon what has been lost. As he contends, Western culture and democracy, both ancient and American, were derived from the same soil, an agrarian society. Tersely put, Hanson says, “[Agrarianism] was the notion that communities of small farmers would craft their own laws, fight their own wars, and own land on which to do as they pleased, inventing the concept of a citizen and freedom itself.”421 In “Jefferson’s America” one would see, according to Hanson, a citizenry where there was “distrust of complexity and bureaucracy” and instead a reliance upon oneself and family, faith in hard work, and skepticism of taxation and bureaucrats telling those who provide the essentials of life how money ought to be spent.422 Aligning Crèvecœur with Aristotle, Hanson argues that the former knew that democracy depended upon the type of people who created it. Hard work made the farmer tame and content, as the property he so eagerly worked made him independent. Such a people will question authority, as their economic freedom does not foster a tendency to cater to others for a livelihood, but at the same time they are law-abiding. While farmers generally like to be left alone, they will speak their minds if need be with no fear of offending. As such, Hanson considers the agrarians to be historically “democracy’s greatest supporters by not quite being                                                                                                                

420

Ibid., xviii. Hanson, The Land Was Everything, 138. 422 Ibid., 142. 421

423

convinced of the ultimate wisdom of democracy.”

Does this not depict the same

194  

mentality of the founding fathers of our nation? Is it only a coincident that many were also farmers themselves? Where did the agrarian come from? According to Berry, who considers himself to be a Jeffersonian, the agrarian tradition grew out of the older peasant tradition.424 Those who immigrated to America were often the landless. Through their hardships they knew what the land was worth: “It is worth what food, clothing, and shelter, and freedom are worth; it is worth what life is worth.... Most of our American ancestors came here because they knew what it was to be landless; to be landless was to be threatened by want and also enslavement. Coming here, they bore the ancestral memory of serfdom.”425 It is true that many brought to the New World their knowledge of farming, which enabled them to acquire with their labors and diligence property of their own. Some, however, came to rape and pillage, but those were not the stock that gave birth to the agrarians. Those who settled the land and sought to secure “domestic permanence” were the agrarian forebears, the first generation.426 Berry notes that                                                                                                                

423

Ibid., 7-8. Berry, The Unsettling of America, 193. I have not tried to distinguish the peasant from the agrarian when moving from the Distributist desire for a robust peasantry to the American agrarianism of Berry and Hanson. For it seems to me that a robust, free peasant is similar to an agrarian, where the major difference would be that the latter owns land as opposed to being secure in holding it. The Distributists may be wrong for using the word peasant instead of agrarian. Yet, they do use the expression “small farmer” and speak of a widespread distribution of private property, which are undoubtedly agrarian for Berry and Hanson. Since the word “agrarian” has only recently been used in a wholly positive light, as opposed to its ambiguous use in history, I understand the Distributists to be agrarian as interpreted in light of the thought of Berry and Hanson. On the ambiguous use of the word “agrarian,” even by Jefferson, see Thomas P. Govan, “Agrarian and Agrarianism: A Study in the Use and Abuse of Words,” The Journal of Southern History, 30 (1): 35-47. For Hanson’s reasonable justification for a distinction between peasant and agrarian, see his The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization, 105. See also his Field Without Dreams, 72, 160, 182, 207. 425 Berry, Citizenship Papers, 148. 426 See the author of The Little House on the Prairie Books, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Farmer Boy (New York: Harper Collins Pub., 2004, originally published 1933), 188-189: 424

Jefferson was one of the first to recognize this dream, and it remained alive after the

195  

Civil War among newly freed slaves, who found hope in the Homestead Act of 1862.427 Berry believes that there is much promise still left in the old dream of early America: It is potent with healing and with health. It has the power to turn each person away from the big-time promising and planning of the government, to confront in himself, in the immediacy of his own circumstances and whereabouts, the question of what methods and ways are best. It proposed an economic of necessities rather than an economy based upon anxiety, fantasy, luxury, and idle wishing. It proposes the independent, free-standing citizenry that Jefferson thought to be the surest safeguard of democratic liberty. And perhaps most important of all, it proposes an agriculture based upon intensive work, local energies, care, and long-living communities—that is, to state the matter from a consumer’s point of view: a dependable, long-term food supply. 428 In addition, Hanson considers himself to be walking in the footsteps of Aristotle and Jefferson in his concern with the consequences of a depopulated countryside and the harm that has fallen upon American society and democratic institutions.429 The association between Aristotle and Jefferson is not new. In The Intellectual Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy, Douglass Adair traces the agrarianism of Jefferson from the                                                                                                                 “Independence Day was over. The cannons had been fired, and there was nothing more to do but hitch up the horses and drive home to do the chores. That night when they were going to the house with milk, Almanzo asked Father: ‘Father, how was it axes and plows that made this country? Didn’t we fight England for it?’ ‘We fought for Independence, son,” Father said. ‘But all the land our forefathers had was a little strip of country, here between the mountains and the ocean. All the way from here west was Indian country, and Spanish and French and English country. It was farmers that took all that country and made it America. ‘How?’ Almanzo asked. ‘Well, son, the Spaniards were soldiers, and high-and-mighty gentlemen that only wanted gold. And the French were fur-traders, wanting to make quick money. And England was busy fighting wars. But we were farmers, son; we wanted the land. It was farmers that went over the mountains, and cleared the land, and settled it, and farmed it, and hung on to their farms. ‘This country goes three thousand miles west, now. It goes ‘way out beyond Kansas, and beyond the Great American Desert, over mountains bigger than these mountains, and down to the Pacific Ocean. It’s the biggest country in the world, and it was farmers who took all that country and made it America, son. Don’t you ever forget that.’” I thank my wife for bringing this passage to my attention.

   

427

Berry, The Unsettling of America, 4, 13. Ibid., 14. 429 Hanson, Field Without Dreams, 283. 428

Enlightenment to Aristotle, where the main elements were left unchanged, despite

196  

being reordered. However that may be, Adair notes that Jefferson and Madison were heirs of Aristotle’s nod to agrarianism: “The leaders of ‘Jeffersonian democracy’ were summing up in American terms a traditional theory whose origins date back to the Fourth Century before Christ; that an agrarian base is necessary for a free republican state.”430 While Jefferson certainly employed more rhetoric than Aristotle on behalf of the virtuous farmer, what does being a Jeffersonian mean? Wendell Berry understands it in the following way: In my own politics and economics I am a Jeffersonian—or, I might more accurately say, I am a democrat and an agrarian. I believe that land that is to be used should be divided into small parcels among a lot of small owners; I believe therefore in the right of private property. I believe that, given our history and tradition, a large population of small property holders offers the best available chance for local cultural adaptation and good stewardship of the land—provided that the property holds are secure, legally and economically, in their properties.431 In dividing what it means to be a Jeffersonian into the political and economic, it goes without saying that the two parts are only understood in light of each other. Naturally, they are a whole, in that being both a democrat and agrarian define the Jeffersonian. To overemphasize, as Adair claims Charles A. Beard did in interpreting Jefferson’s outlook, that being a Jeffersonian means to protect solely the economic interests of the farmers paints the wrong picture.432 Jeffersonian political economy is akin, although not identical, to Aristotle’s in noting how the occupations of a regime shape the                                                                                                                

430

Douglass G. Adair, The Intellectual Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy, ed. Mark E. Yellin, foreward by Joyce Appleby (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2000, Ph.D. dissertation written in 1943), 1-2. 431 Wendell Berry, Another Turn of the Crank (Washington: Counterpoint, 1995), 49. 432 Adair, The Intellectual Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy, 8-9.

character of the citizens. The character of a people is of the utmost importance to

197  

Aristotle and Jefferson, not simply the gains from the economic activity of farming. With this in mind, Hanson is perhaps warranted in describing his grandfather as an “archetype that goes back twenty-five hundred years in the West to the Greeks of the city-state, the venerable dour rustic who brings his no-nonsense pragmatism and his skepticism to town in time of crisis, to save his republic from the sophists and nuancers who have forgotten where we all once came from.”433 If Hanson is correct, not only do we lose a connection of sorts to early America when the small family farmer is gone but to a history that goes back to the beginning of Western civilization: “In a democratic America, agrarians even now are more akin to the polis Greeks—the architects of Western constitutional government, than they are to the people of Los Angeles.”434 Berry points out that Jefferson thought extensively about how to ensure that the small landholders, “the most precious part of a state,” have enough land to make them selfsufficient, as Berry contends that Jefferson understood that democratic liberties rest upon democratic ownership of the land.435 Hanson says the same about Crèvecœur. Both Berry and Hanson fear that with the demise of American agrarianism entails the loss of “the egalitarian principle of farm ownership”436 and the rise of the “political theory” of America today: “the idea that government exists to guarantee the right of the most wealthy to own or control the land without limit.”437 Both Crèvecœur and Jefferson, whether knowingly or not, follow to some degree Aristotle’s thoughts on instituting and preserving an agrarian democracy.                                                                                                                 433

Hanson, Field Without Dreams, 6; see also 121. Hanson, The Land Was Everything, 19. 435 Berry, “The Agrarian Standard,” in Citizenship Papers, 149. 436 Hanson, The Land Was Everything, 7. 437 Berry, “The Agrarian Standard,” 149. 434

The most characteristic attribute of the agrarian of early America and during

198  

a good portion of the twentieth century was self-sufficiency. In describing his grandfather’s do-it-yourself attitude when it comes to nourishing one’s family, Hanson recalls the Greek “autarkeia,” defining it as “a natural self-sufficiency that was not to be lost at any price…the insurance against the fickleness of others and the warp of progress.”438 Agrarian self-sufficiency entails, according to Berry, that the household needs are met first before goods are sent to market. The household economy focuses on subsistence and producing and consuming as much as a family possibly can on their farm, as opposed to today were the household is almost entirely a place of consumption, not production. The farm, then, must be highly diverse, including a number of different animals and food and fiber crops, in order to ensure the “stability and survival” from a subsistence economy. The merit of such an economy is that it brings everyone together, directing them toward the common good of the household. Berry posits, “A major characteristic of the agrarian mind is a longing for independence—that is, for an appropriate degree of personal and local self-sufficiency. Agrarians wish to earn and deserve what they have. They do not wish to live by piracy, beggary, charity, or luck.”439 Crèvecœur eloquently describes in a passage worth quoting how personal selfsufficiency grew up in the mind of the “new man” of America by nourishing his body and spirit: The instant I enter on my own land, the bright idea of property, of exclusive right, of independence, exalt my mind. Precious soil, I say to myself, by what singular custom of law is it that thou wast made to                                                                                                                 438 439

Hanson, Fields Without Dreams, 8. Berry, “The Whole Horse,” in Citizenship Papers, 119; see also Hanson, Fields Without Dreams, 276.

constitute the riches of the freeholder? What should we American farmers be without the distinct possession of that soil? It feeds, it clothes, us: from it we draw even a great exuberancy, our best meat, our richest drink; the very honey of our bees comes from this privileged spot. No wonder we should thus cherish its possession: no wonder that so many Europeans, who have never been able to say that such portion of land was theirs, cross the Atlantic to realize that happiness! This formerly rude soil has been converted by my father into a pleasant farm, and, in return, it has established all our rights. On it is founded our rank, our freedom, our power, as citizens; our importance, as inhabitants of such a district. These images, I must confess, I always behold with pleasure, and extend them as far as my imagination can reach; for this is what may be called the true and only philosophy of an American farmer.440

199  

How many of us have such affection for our property? Are we not eager to move away from our home and land if it means upward mobility? And the petty property of gadgets and galore, do we not dispose of them once they become unfashionable or simply old? But most of all, who among us can say that they are nourished by their own land and not the supermarket? Not only does Crèvecœur understand that the land provides the basics of life but that it also establishes “our rights…our rank, our freedom, our power as citizens” is not lost upon him, as it is on us. And thus we have proof of the “difference” that the agrarian brings to the political landscape of Western civilization. When America came to no longer cherish this sentiment, which grows up among a people that are roughly the same in the ownership of land, it is no wonder that Hanson can speak persuasively of a time when the “land was everything”. Many Americans today would shrug with indifference at Crèvecœur’s praise of “precious soil”. To a people who are unconcerned with how their food is grown, be it by a small farmer or an agribusiness latifundia, the land is nothing but a place to grow, preferably, cheap and                                                                                                                 440

Crèvecœur, Letters from an American Farmer, 27.

blemish-free food that can be imported from all over the globe to satisfy the

200  

consumer’s voracious appetite to eat whatever they want when they want, even when out of season. The average consumer has no appreciation of Hesiod’s teaching of “due season,” not to mention the frugality and endurance needed to observe it. According to Hanson, life on the land among the elements instills in a farmer a tragic view of the world, including human nature. A farmer could have played all his cards right in tending the land, but then a brief but strong rainstorm could wipe out a year’s worth of work.441 Even though this is more the exception than the norm, it teaches the farmer to count his blessings and know that nature and human nature are not forever kind or progressing toward absolute, universal benevolence.442 In his encounters with the land, he knows to trust in endurance, humility, and “suffering as the price for salvation.” When the land and one’s ancestors are the judge, Hanson says, “The farmer continues to struggle not because he thinks the battle can be won, but because he knows so well that on his watch, in his era, and according to his station, it must not be lost. And out of that apparent draw, he gains the wisdom that through such vigilance there comes a sort of victory after all.”443 In cultivating the land, one is thus likely to cultivate character but also reverence and gratitude for the life of those who came before. Character and virtue, however, arise at times from the ruins of tragedy and failure. The land, nonetheless, is a standard for Hanson, as it bares the marks of one’s ancestors: “Measure yourself not against the living but against the dead, not in light of the sorry present but of the better past, not in what man himself has made, but                                                                                                                 441

Hanson, The Land Was Everything, 1. Ibid., 15, 51, 101, 118. 443 Ibid., 81. 442

what he had done with and against nature. Help your neighbor; shame and forgive—

201  

but punish—the sinner. Forget that and you lose your life, your farm, your soul—and others too who depend on you to do the right thing and thus too often the tough thing.”444 Hanson concedes that farming taught him more about the pathei mathos of Greek tragedy, where wisdom is acquired through suffering, than all the graduate courses in classics put together that he had taken at the university.445 With this in mind, the comparisons of Antigone and Ajax to the farmer seem appropriate, despite tragedy’s focus on the nobility and royalty of various city-states and kingdoms.446 Perhaps this explains to some degree the suicide rate among farmers, which is three times the rate of the nation as a whole,447 and why farmers go broke trying to save their tie to the land. It at least shows a kind of people who would rather die by their own hands or fail by their own head than to comprise and join the ranks of corporate America. And, furthermore, the tragic agrarian is testimony that Hanson is not alone in his despair as he watches a democratic tragedy unfold before his eyes. Given that agricultural policy in the 1940s began to pressed down upon small farmers, urging them to “Get big or get out!”,448 it does not seem unconstitutional to suggest that the trend be reversed, so that there will be a policy for the people and not agribusiness. Many small farmers, moreover, would happily be libertarians, that is, if corporate welfare for agribusiness were cut; but this is                                                                                                                 444

Ibid., 256. Ibid., 48, 53. 446 Ibid., 18, 151, and Hanson Field Without Dreams, xx, 217. 447 Wendell Berry, “Stupidity in Concentration,” in Citizenship Papers, 131. 448 Berry, The Unsettling of America, 33, 41,63, 65, 151-152; Wendell Berry, The Gift of Good Land: Further Essays Cultural and Agricultural (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 1981), 105, 112; Wendell Berry, “Local Knowledge in the Age of Information,” in The Way of Ignorance (Washington: Shoemaker and Hoard, 2005), 117, 124; Hanson, Fields Without Dreams, 12, 64, 107. 445

not likely to happen any time soon, as agribusiness seems to be unable to wean itself

202  

from subsides and governmental tax incentives. Were corporate welfare for agriculture to cease, then the day of reckoning would come as to who is truly more efficient. Politics, however, abhors a fair fight. Yet, Hanson, himself, is not without recommendations for leveling the field of play—he modestly proposes eliminating the Department of Agriculture “root and branch”.449 Before turning toward more of Hanson’s and Berry’s recommendations and critiques, the latter’s portrait of an agrarian community is worth considering as it demonstrates the rare first-hand knowledge of how things used to be, that is, until agricultural governmental policy and agribusiness reshaped the land to its needs, along with the help of agricultural research in the universities.450 With the behemoths of government, corporations, and universities against the agrarian, the fact that a few agrarians are still standing is testimony to their fighting spirit. Growing up in the 40s and 50s, Berry could still observe well-farmed land and towns that supported the farmers: I live in a part of the country that at one time a good farmer could take some pleasure in looking at. When I first became aware of it, in the 1940s, the better land, at least, was generally well farmed. The farms were mostly small and were highly diversified, producing cattle, sheep, and hogs, tobacco, corn, and the small grains; nearly every farm household maintained a garden, kept a flock of poultry, and fattened its own meat hogs. There was also an extensive “support system” for agriculture: every community had its blacksmith shop, shops that repaired                                                                                                                

449

Hanson, Fields Without Dreams, 276. See Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America, 35, 42, 66, 143-169. The theme of collaboration between government, corporations, and universities is found throughout Berry’s and Hanson’s works. The general argument is that this collaborative team has always worked against the interests of the small family farm, undermining its way of life. Where government was originally instituted for the people, now it works against them; the land grant universities do the same, and additionally their publicsponsored research benefits the corporations, not the small family farm.

450

harness and machinery, and stores that dealt in farm equipment and supplies.451

203  

The health of the local economy in this description created a good community. In this context, we see that an agrarian community did not contain simply farmers but other occupations as well. Berry recalls, or in some cases introduces, this way of life to his reader, so that one can reflect upon the agrarian’s participation in the “larger” economy of today that cares little, or nothing, for the well-being of the community. Berry, however, knows that the local economy gave life to something else beyond itself: I was walking one Sunday afternoon several years ago with an older friend. We went by the ruining log house that had belonged to his grandparents and great-grandparents. The house stirred my friend’s memory, and he told how the oldtime people used to visit each other in the evenings, especially in the long evenings of winter. There used to a sort of institution in our part of the country known as “sitting till bedtime.” After supper, when they weren’t too tired, neighbors would walk across the fields to visit each other. They popped corn, my friend said, and ate apples and talked. They told each other stories. They told each other stories, as I knew myself, that they all had heard before. Sometimes they told stories about each other, about themselves, living again in their own memories and thus keeping their memories alive. Among the hearers of these stories were always the children. When bedtime came, the visitors lit their lanterns and went home. My friend talked about this, and thought about it, and then he said, “They had everything but money.” The were poor, as country people have often been, but they had each other, they had their local economy in which they helped each other, they had each other’s comfort when they needed it, and they had their stories, their history together in that place. To have everything but money is to have much. And most people of the present can only marvel to think of neighbors entertaining themselves for a whole evening without a single imported pleasure and without listening to a single minute of sales talk. Most of the descendants of those people have now moved away, partly because of the cultural and economic failures that I mentioned earlier, and of most of them no longer sit in the evenings and talk to anyone.                                                                                                                 451

Wendell Berry, “Nature as Measure,” in What are People for? (New York: North Point Press, 1990), 204.

Most of them now sit until bedtime watching TV, submitting every few minutes to a sales talk. The message of both the TV programs and the sales talk is that the watchers should spend whatever is necessary to be like everybody else.452

204  

It is reasonable to say that the descendants are financially wealthier. We all must ask ourselves, however, whether we have lost the “everything” that these people had as monetary wealth increased. With this comparison and thought in mind, I now turn to discuss the social criticism that Berry and Hanson voice in what they view as the decline of America. It should come as no surprise that the principle they turn to in grounding their criticism is that of personal and local self-sufficiency, which goes by a number of names, including independence, local community, local economy, self-employed, and subsistent economics, to name a few. Agrarian Social Criticism and Latter-Day America Crèvecœur’s “new man” has practically vanished from the political landscape of America. Hanson, in updating Crèvecœur’s thesis, recalls the “new man” of early America in light of the “new American” that is presently being created.453 The most noticeable trait that is found lacking in the “new American” of today is autarkeia. Hanson says, “The alternate Western, agrarian tradition of autarcheia, autonomy, localism, and shame—which was always at war with our urban genius for materialism, uniformity, and entitlement—now has more or less lost out.”454 Hanson describes the autarkic man as being “everything because he can do a little of everything.” There is certainly merit in being able to be a “tiller, mechanic, builder, grower.” 455 For one, it                                                                                                                 452

Wendell Berry, “The Work of Local Culture,” in What are People For?, 158-159. Hanson, The Land Was Everything, 13. 454 Ibid., 14. 455 Ibid., 155. 453

saves money for a farmer facing hard times as well as teaching frugality. But, more

205  

importantly, it must give the farmer a healthy dose of self-respect, knowing that he does not have to wait to do his work until some mechanic or architect can pencil him in. Like Hanson, Berry encourages personal, or household, self-sufficiency when he speaks of “the economics of subsistence”. He has witnessed in his lifetime the phenomenon of farmers moving away from a household economy and instead toward buying goods from a supermarket that they once grew and raised themselves. It only makes sense, for Berry, that a farm “feed the farmers” before selling the surplus.456 Berry’s thoughts on self-sufficiency seem to be broader than Hanson’s when it comes to local self-sufficiency in America; however, Hanson writes extensively about the “small, family-centered production on family property” and “self-sufficient communities” in ancient Greece. Given that Hanson sees the agrarian archetype in the early American farmer and the Greek of the agrarian polis, he would probably agree with much of what Berry has to say regarding local food self-sufficiency.457 In fact, Hanson briefly contemplates the “world of agrarianism come back from the dead” and how this would make farmers’ markets “the norm, not the exception.” Yet, he doubts that many would welcome such a return. Local food would consist of what is in season, taking into account the loss of crops from the sometimes unforgiving elements, and often would be uglier but riper, and thus tastier, not to mention more expensive, since the local farmer would not be subsidized as corporate agribusiness is today. In such an economy, WalMart and MacDonald’s would go broke as low-cost food from corporate welfare ceases.                                                                                                                 456

Wendell Berry, “The Economics of Subsistence, in The Gift of Good Land, 149, and “Elmer Lapp’s Place,” in The Gift of Good Land, 149, 220. 457 Hanson, The Other Greeks, 4.

Hanson muses that such a return of agrarianism would most likely be hated.

458

The

206  

sad truth, as Hanson knows full well, is that those from town and city have taken farmers for granted, showing them no gratitude but spite for a full belly and nourished children: The ancestral idea of local farm markets, of growing produce that tasted wonderful and shipped poorly, of counting good citizens as part of society’s harvest from the farm was not merely abandoned, but deemed idiotic. In this evolution that had but one end, we received more variety and abundance of things to eat than ever before even as we had fewer farmers than any period in the history of Western civilization—the former in part always being explicable by the fact of the latter.459 The local economy for Hanson produced good citizens in addition to good food. It consists, as Berry observes, of the extension of the household’s “pattern of subsistence” to the community, meaning that locally owned stores are frequented when needed as opposed to supermarkets, which ultimately serve distant economic interests.460 Often a farm’s surplus would be brought to the local stores in return for goods the farmers might need but did not produce on their own. Berry recalls the local way of life from his first memories in the late 1930s: “I am not talking about practices of exceptional families, but about what was ordinarily done on virtually all farms.”461 He concedes, however, “We never yet have developed stable, sustainable, locally adapted land-based economics. The good rural enterprises and communities that we will find in our past have been almost constantly under threat from the colonialism, first foreign and then domestic, and now ‘global,’ which has so far dominated our history, and which has been institutionalized for a long time in the industrial economy.”462                                                                                                                

458

Hanson, The Land Was Everything, 174. Ibid., 243-244. 460 Berry, “Elmer Lapp’s Place,” 221. 461 Wendell Berry, “Sanitation and the Small Farm,” in The Gift of Good Land, 99. 462 Wendell Berry, “Thoughts on the Presence of Fear,” in Citizenship Papers, 19. 459

One example of the “pattern of subsistence” in action was when people used

207  

to bring their animals to a local slaughterhouse. Due to the expenses brought on by sanitation laws, many of these local slaughterhouses could not afford the alterations demanded of them and thus were forced out of business. These services “were essential to the effort of many people to live self-sufficiently from their own produce—and these people had raised no objections to the way their meat was being handled.” Local slaughterhouses that did improve had to charge their customers more for their work. The result tended to be fewer customers and fewer local slaughterhouses, meaning many farmers quit producing their own meat. Berry asks, “Who benefitted from this?” The farmers, the local slaughterhouses, local economies, or the public’s health did not seem to gain anything from it. Rather, Berry contends that those who likely benefited “were the meat-packing corporations, and for this questionable gain local life was weakened at its economic roots.”463 Without a local slaughterhouse, the farmer is left with two options: either slaughtering his own animals or buying from the market, most likely, factory-farmed meat grown by some corporation. Berry also recalls a story of a man who was not only a dairy farmer, who detested the milk, or “slop,” one buys at a supermarket, but raised animals that he slaughtered himself. This man also had a garden, orchards of various fruits, honeybees, and poultry and eggs.464 Another remarkable thing about this farmer is that not only did he gross 25,000 dollars alone from thirty dairy cows in 1978, paying only 5,000 dollars for supplements, which also went to chickens, horses, and calves, but he also made money off the sale of bull calves, heifers, and draft horses. He used draft horses to                                                                                                                 463 464

Berry, “Sanitation and the Small Farm,” 101. Berry, “Elmer Lapp’s Place,” 221.

plough his fields, and the feed for the horses came from his land. No chemical

208  

fertilizers and little gasoline were used in maintaining his farm, since the organic fertilizer came from the animals and the fields were ploughed with the horses that ran off what they were fed for breakfast, which also was grown on the farm, thus making for a complete cycle. The last thing about this farmer, who attained a high level of personal self-sufficiency, was he had no problem taking his products elsewhere if the buyer became finicky or inspectors started telling him how to run his farm: “He is independent because he can afford to be.”465 Not all farmers were as fortunate, however. Sanitation laws, according to Berry, have wreaked local economies, bankrupting all-too-many farmers along the way: Aside from the fashions of leisure and affluence—so valuable to corporations, so destructive of values—the greatest destroyer of the small economies of the small farms has been the doctrine of sanitation. I have no argument against cleanliness and healthfulness; I am for them as much as anyone. I do, however, question the validity and the honesty of the sanitation laws that have come to rule over the farm production in the last thirty or forty years. Why have new sanitation laws always required more, and more expensive, equipment? Why have they always worked against the survival of the small producer? Is it impossible to be inexpensively healthful and clean?466 In a short period of time Berry has seen around him the demise of small dairy farms, the closing of “all” local creameries and “all” small distributors of milk and dairy products, and grocers who were forced to stop accepting eggs and poultry from local farmers.467 The sanitation laws are usually justified on the grounds of “consumer protection”, which gives the go ahead for a greater food bureaucracy. Such a bureaucracy has “improved” the situation by increasing the cost of production and retail price while ruining the small                                                                                                                

465

Ibid., 216-226. Berry, “Sanitation and the Small Farm,” 100-101. 467 Ibid., 101. 466

producer. With the number of recalls on food that we see today, we must wonder

209  

whether a highly centralized food system is better than the more democratic local food economies, which were the norm before the doctrine of sanitation was implemented. Berry asks, what do we do to our people, our communities, our economy, and our political system when we allow our necessities to be produced by a centralized system of large operators, dependent on expensive technology, and regulated by expensive bureaucracy? The modern food industry is said to be a ‘miracle of technology.’ But it is well to remember that this technology, in addition to so-called miracles, produces economic and political consequences that are not favorable to democracy.468 Is it any wonder that those who have witnessed the coming of age of big business and big government in America now recall that they also shared a cradle? The modern food industry of agribusiness, which is propped up by an agricultural bureaucracy, is hardly favorable toward an agrarian democracy, even though agribusiness is still able to feed us cheaply, and attempts to feed the world, at least for the moment, while damage to the land and the pollution from its waste are ignored. In this regard, we must concede that agribusiness and an agricultural bureaucracy are compatible with a commercial democracy, which if the tradition going back to Aristotle is right is a much inferior form of democracy. In tracing the outline of the “new American” that is being created, Hanson does note that we are perhaps more democratic than before, which if you know your Aristotle, as Hanson surely does, is far from a compliment. He says, “Yes, America is more democratic and free, and perhaps a kinder and gentler nation than in the past; but political and economic advance came at a god-awful price. For a time we have become                                                                                                                

468

Ibid., 102.

more human collectively and in the abstract, but somehow far worse individually and

210  

in person.”469 There is hardly any difference, he observes, between knock-off sneakers and the designer-brands they imitate; the “welfare mom” and “exploiting blueblood” drink and bathe from the same tap water; all enjoy the same movies in the theater or at home: “Ease of consumption unites us more than race, gender, and class divide us. In short, for the first time in the history of civilization, the true age of democracy is at hand, encompassing not only the ideal of political equality, but a real material kinship and shared consumption at last. There are no longer the age-old skeptics from the countryside to come into town and remind us it is all dross.”470 This is “the world’s first broadbased hedonism,” according to Maurice Telleen, one of Berry’s friends.471 Yet, “democratic freedom” and “political equality”, as we may come to find out, are nothing without the “republican responsibility” nourished in an agrarian democracy.472 For Hanson, “Agrarianism was such a brief interlude between savagery and decadence; it is a hard teacher of the human condition.”473 Berry, too, argues, “All that civilization requires is enough; it does not require extravagance.”474 In the common tongue, “enough” is simply another word for self-sufficiency, a self-imposed limit. It appears that the “new American” of our commercial democracy wants nothing to do with a “hard teacher” but instead wants, wants, and wants and will not do without. Along the same lines of the “god-awful price” of “political and economic advance” that Hanson speaks about, Berry pulls no punches when arguing how a global                                                                                                                

469

Hanson, The Land Was Everything, 10. Ibid., 13. 471 Berry, The Unsettling of America, 40. 472 Hanson, The Land Was Everything, 253. 473 Ibid., 14. 474 Berry, The Unsettling of America, 206. 470

free market economy “run by a few supranational corporations” is an “unabashed

211  

attempt to replace government with economics and to destroy any sort of local (let alone personal) self-determination.”475 Elsewhere, he says that in a “totalitarian economy,” that is the global economy, where the irresponsible multinational corporations dominate, the following teaching ensues: “If you can control a people’s economy, you don’t need to worry about its politics; its politics have become irrelevant.”476 What occurs, in other words, is a servile world state.477 In his lifetime, Berry has seen the negative effects of national food conglomerates on the local economy, and he does not see any reason to believe that supranational food conglomerates would not continue the trend. Economic globalization, moreover, increases the dependence of “individuals, regions, and nations” while also placing “individuals, regions, and nations” in greater competition with one another, which if allowed to play itself out will destroy the “the self-sufficiency of all places, households, farms, communities, regions, nations—even as it destroys the selfsufficiency of the world.”478 For Berry, the global economy is the enemy of local selfsufficiency. When speaking of the corporate, global economy, Berry often defines it as economic colonialism. The land that used to maintain the farmer in self-sufficiency has now been colonized and consolidated, and farmers now realize that they are “living in a colony.” Recalling the early American dream, Berry comments on how bitterly ironic it is that having “cast off the colonialism of England, we have proceeded to impose a                                                                                                                 475

Wendell Berry, “A Bad Big Idea,” in Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993), 48. 476 Wendell Berry, “Conserving Forest Communities,” in Another Turn of the Crank, 34. 477 cf. Berry, “The Total Economy,” in Citizenship Papers, 76. 478 Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition (Washington: Counterpoint, 2000), 122. See also his “Conserving Communities” in Another Turn of the Crank, 24.

domestic colonialism on our own land and people, and yet we cannot deny that most

212  

of the money made on the products that we produce in rural America—food and fiber, timber, mineable fuels and minerals of all kinds—is made by other people in other places.” This colonial economy is not long-term in its outlook, especially since it is exploitative by nature and will move on to the next place when the well of a rural economy runs dry. While the national, colonial economy may thrive, “the destruction of the principle of local self-sufficiency not only in the local economy but also in the local culture” ensues.479 Berry’s understanding of the “principle of local self-sufficiency” is thus both political and economic and virtually identical to Aristotle’s understanding. Berry, however, improves upon Aristotle’s political economy, although remaining in the spirit of it, in emphasizing the tension between economics and politics. After all, no citizen or local community would celebrate the growth of the gross national product if that growth depended upon destroying local self-sufficiency.480 Such a “growth” is cancerous. Of course, national self-sufficiency is better than a global economy, but regional self-sufficiency is better than national self-sufficiency, and local selfsufficiency is the best. For Berry, the institution to watch that furthers the destruction of economic selfsufficiency is the World Trade Organization: our government has “long ago abandoned any thought of economic self-sufficiency” and has “ceded a significant measure of national sovereignty to the World Trade Organization”.481 In ceding such political authority to the WTO, politicians have “given up the idea that a national or local                                                                                                                 479

Wendell Berry, “Does Community Have a Value?” in Home Economics (New York: North Point Press, 1987), 185-186. 480 Ibid., 190-191, and Wendell Berry, “Property, Patriotism, and National Defense,” in Home Economics, 106. 481 Wendell Berry, “Two Minds,” in Citizenship Papers, 102.

government might justly place restraints upon economic activity in order to protect

213  

its land and its people.”482 The “true decentralizers,” the “local economists,” must wage a war against the “great centralizers of our time,” the “global economists [who] advocate a world-government-by-economic-bureaucracy”.483 For Hanson, agrarianism is the “real conservatism,” and once all remnants are gone, we will see that the market is not so conservative in its excess, and the liberal not so tolerant in his utopian agenda for his peers. The secondmost-bothersome Americans I have met are globalist profiteers, who justify every exploitation imaginable as the inevitable wages of their market as deity. Perhaps the most offensive are very serious and usually affluent left-wing utopians, who foam and grimace from their elite white enclaves as they explain how we must all be forced to do this and that, here and now, to save some rare amphibian, inert gases, anonymous arteries, someone’s lungs, or inner-city child’s dreams—or else!484 It seems safe to say that both Hanson and Berry would be in favor of the break down of the WTO Geneva Ministerial Meeting of the Doha Round in 2008, which was a result of countries wanting to protect their “subsistence farmers” from “surges in imports”.485 Hanson, himself a raisin producer, has experienced firsthand the negative effects of the global economy when a foreign, subsidized raisin crop was brought into America: “as if dumping half the crop on the market well below cost helped the [American] farmer.”486 The problem with the corporate economy for Berry is that it is “predatory” and “wasteful,” not to mention based upon the seven deadly sins of greed, lust, envy, sloth,

                                                                                                               

482

Wendell Berry, “The Total Economy,” 69. Berry, “The Whole Horse,” 120-121. 484 Hanson, The Land Was Everything, 18. 485 Found at the European Commission’s homepage, http://ec.europa.eu/trade/creating-opportunities/euand-wto/doha/index_en.htm. Accessed on February 4, 2010. 486 Hanson, Fields Without Dreams, 69. Also see 77, 156-157, 269. 483

gluttony, pride, and anger.

487

In holding the household economy in contempt, which

214  

kept production and consumption in the same place and was keen at recycling everything, and this before the seed of environmentalism was even planted, the new corporate economy separates production and consumption from each other and turns the household into a place where things are simply consumed after they have been purchased. Once the relatively complete cycle of the household economy was interrupted, an enormous amount of waste was produced that did not fit into the socalled “efficiency” model that the corporate economy promoted. The waste, however, is usually placed on the public’s tab as well as paid for by future generations. This is most noticeable in the absenteeism that is a part of the corporate economy. Berry describes it in the following way: The global economy (like the national economy before it) operates on the superstition that the deficiencies or needs or wishes of one place may safely be met by the ruination of another place…. To build houses here, we clear-cut the forests there. To have air-conditioning here, we stripmine the mountains there. To drive our cars here, we sink our oil wells there. It is an absentee economy. Most people aren’t using or destroying what they can see. If we cannot see our garbage or the grave we have dug with our energy proxies, then we assume all is well…. All the critical questions affecting the use of the earth are left to be answered by “the market” or the law of supply and demand, which proposes no limit on either supply or demand. An economy without limits is an economy without discipline.488 Aristotle, if we recall, thought the same thing about an “economy without limits.” And like Aristotle, Berry holds that economics ought to be subservient to the common good and virtue. Yet to change an “economy without discipline” does not entail wide-scale                                                                                                                 487

Wendell Berry, “A Defense of the Family Farm,” in Home Economics, 169. See his “Rugged Individualism,” in The Way of Ignorance, 10, and his “Faustian Economics: Hell Hath No Limits” in Harper’s Magazine, May 2008: 35-42. 488 Wendell Berry, “Conservation is Good Work,” in Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community, 37.

bureaucracy, which would be “as bad as the problem,” but requires “private

215  

economic responsibility,” which depends upon personal and local self-sufficiency, not to mention “local buying power, local gumption, and local affection”.489 In a society that praises social and upward mobility as opposed to the home economy, the virtue that Berry calls for requires no smallness of soul but rather magnanimity. It will require a great deal of intellectual virtue as well, since the “global economy institutionalizes a global ignorance”.490 While Paul B. Thompson claims, “Hanson’s agrarians have little interest in anticommercial conceits,”491 it is probably closer to the truth to say that both Berry and Hanson are among the great critiques of the liberalism’s free market, while circumventing the pitfalls of Marxism and Nietzcheanism. What Hanson says here about family farmers easily applies to himself: “Family farmers prefer to be at loggerheads with society, yet they are neither autocrats nor disillusioned Nietzschean demigods sneering at the growing mediocrity of the inferiors in their midsts.”492 Continuing with an allusion to Nietzsche, and reflecting upon the “nearly global” dimension of the “[e]ver more unchecked democracy and capitalism,” Hanson notes, “Family farmers as a species were mostly unknown fatalities in the new wave and final manifestation of market capitalism and entitlement democracy, the final stage of Western culture that is beyond good and evil.”493 If one reads Fields Without Dreams, the contempt for the

                                                                                                               

489

Ibid., 38-43. Berry, “The Whole Horse,” 121. 491 Paul B. Thompson, “Agrarianism as Philosophy,” in The Agrarian Roots of Pragmatism, ed. Paul B. Thompson and Thomas C. Hilde (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2000), 36. 492 Hanson, The Land Was Everything, 18. 493 Ibid., 10. 490

middlemen of the market is prevalent throughout it. In the Land Was Everything,

216  

Hanson accepts what seems to be a harsh reality to him: While agrarianism functions only within the realm of capitalism, it has always been burdened with an ethical repulsion for the world of commerce; its rote, and tradition, and moral investment do not produce goods and services to the same degree as the corporation. The later is godless and without memory and not shackled by voices of grandparents in its head—and thus free to lay off, rip out, move on, tear down, or take over as the laws of supply and demand alone dictate. And dictate they must if all of us are to eat and enjoy as we demand.494 Similarly, Berry in his critique of the modern economy says, “Rats and roaches live by competition under the law of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.”495 Yet, if Hanson is right and agrarianism really only works within the “realm of capitalism,” then what Berry and Hanson might be implying is that capitalism is good as long as it remains restrained from its “godless” tendencies. Berry, himself, often puts in scare quotes “free market” and “free enterprise,” as these are ideas that often justify the greed of corporations, raising it to an economic virtue, while turning a blind eye toward the freedom of communities and their livelihoods.496 Yet, several times he notes that the industrial economy is not driven by the motive of “free enterprise” but greed, which leaves me wondering if he values “free enterprise.”497 In fact, he does, as he asks a rather Tocquevillian question and answers it with a Tocquevillian response, “Is this community spirit of self-help and free enterprise now dead among our people? Maybe it is. Maybe all we can do now is just sit and wait

                                                                                                               

494

Ibid., 177. Wendell Berry, “Economy and Pleasure,” in What are People for?, 135. 496 Wendell Berry, “Compromise, Hell!” in The Ways of Ignorance, 24. 497 Wendell Berry, “Two Economies,” in Home Economics, 68, and “Does Community Have a Value,” 186. 495

for help—but I hate to think so. I would like us to see what we can do for

217  

ourselves.”498 Seeing that Berry favors neither big business nor big government, the only other real option is to cultivate private economic responsibility. This cultivation does not preclude private enterprise but requires its. He states, To distinguish between private enterprises that exploit and diminish the common wealth and those that do not, we must answer fully and truly a few simple questions: What are the real, long-term costs of a particular enterprise—to investors, to people who are not investors, to the local community, and to nature? When the enterprise turns a profit, who gets the money? Where do the people live who get the money? How long does the money circulate within the local community before it leaves?499 This is no doubt a publicly spirited political economy based not on the seven deadly sins but on the seven virtues of temperance, justice, prudence, fortitude, faith, hope, and charity derived from the philosophers of ancient Greece and the Bible.500 A return to these ancients would be, for the most part, a return to Aristotle’s political economy. Perhaps, only by upholding these “traditions of religions and political thought” will economics find its place again in the human economy, foregoing any dehumanizing temptations.501 In light of Berry’s and Hanson’s criticisms, we might speculate on the possibility that they offer us another way of viewing the free market and do not simply want to eliminate it. We might say that for them the free market is only free up to a point. It is freest in a local community as that is where one can best practice economic responsibility. As the economy expands, the more difficult it is to maintain a sense of                                                                                                                

498

Wendell Berry, “Watershed and Commonwealth,” in Citizenship Papers, 140. Ibid., 136. 500 Berry, “Two Economies,” 73. 501 Cf., Wendell Berry, “God and Country,” 102, “A Practical Harmony,” 104, and “Economy and Pleasure, 129, all three are in What are People for? See also Patrick Deneen, “Wendell Berry and the Alternative Tradition in American Political Thought,” in Wendell Berry: Life and Work, ed. Jason Peters (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2007), 300-315. 499

freedom. Following this logic, a global economy, the epitome of an imperial

218  

market, enslaves as its appetite grows—it is in essence a “servile market”. A market is only truly “free” when it maintains a high level of local self-sufficiency, since it is here where one can truly be held accountable. When Kimberly K. Smith argues, “Berry’s argument for local self-sufficiency is less satisfying than his argument for local civic engagement,” she fails to see that for Berry civic engagement rests upon local economic self-sufficiency. Although she points to a passage where Berry speaks of the “whole network of interdependence and obligation” that we live in,502 he need not be read as contradicting the principle of selfsufficiency, for the same reasons that Aristotle should not be when he moves from the autarkeia of the household to the city. The principle of self-sufficiency, as understood by Aristotle and Berry, entails local interdependence. Interdependence on a global scale becomes dangerous when it undermines local self-sufficiency. This understanding is best expressed in Berry’s essay “A Defense of the Family Farm”: For a farm family, a certain degree of independence is possible and is desirable, but no farmer and no family can be entirely independent. A certain degree of dependence is inescapable; whether or not it is desirable is a question of who is helped by it. If a family removes its dependence from its neighbors—if, indeed, farmers remove their dependence from their families—and give it to the agribusiness corporations (and to moneylenders), the chances are, as we have seen, that the farmers and their families will not be greatly helped. This suggests that dependence on family and neighbors may constitute a very desirable kind of independence.503 And thus Smith’s critique of Berry seems misguided in calling his plea for local selfsufficiency “opportunistic” when it comes to food security issues after September 11th.                                                                                                                

502

Kimberly K. Smith, “Wendell Berry’s Political Vision,” in Wendell Berry: Life and Work, 56-57. Berry, “A Defense of the Family Farm,” 176-177. See also his “Letter to Daniel Kemmis,” in The Way of Ignorance, 149. 503

For Berry, food security is best practiced by local economies, not by centralized food

219  

conglomerates, and this has been a topic of discussion, along with local self-sufficiency, from the very beginning of Berry’s agricultural works.504 Additionally, the aim of local self-sufficiency, according to Berry, need “not eliminate international trade, but it would tend toward a trade in surpluses after local needs have been met” and with a concern for the principle of local self-sufficiency in other countries.505 In other words, it is possible to imagine a limited, global economy with an aim that is not dehumanizing. Before concluding, I must address what I assume to be undoubtedly on the reader’s mind, the question of whether we all must farm. Berry, like Aristotle, understands that in order for a community to be self-sufficient there must be people who are involved in nonfarming occupations. He plainly states, “I am not suggesting, of course, that everybody ought to be a farmer or a forester. Heaven forbid! I am suggesting that most people now are living on the far side of a broken connection, and that this is potentially catastrophic. Most people are now fed, clothed, and sheltered from sources, in nature and in the work of other people, toward which they feel no gratitude and exercise no responsibility.”506 Hanson, in turn, simply proposes that society have an agrarian tithe: “If just 10 percent of our population lived on farms, did not move, never divorced, did not change jobs, and set the parameters of their day by dawn and dusk, the current madness could be stopped. Yet we lack that prerequisite reservoir of agrarians who might still arrest the itinerary of our present culture, of

                                                                                                                504

Berry, The Unsettling of America, 220-223. Berry, “Thoughts in the Presence of Fear,” in Citizenship Papers, 19, 21. 506 Wendell Berry, “In Distrust of Movements,” in Citizenship Papers, 48. 505

growing shiftlessness, criminality and material banality.”

507

As anyone can see, to

220  

inculcate gratitude and responsibility among nonfarmers who depend upon farmers for their necessities the 10 percent that Hanson advocates is modest. It might not be enough of a surge, despite the fact that Hanson thinks the agrarian tithe to be hopeless. Berry, however, sees an “increasing competent minority who long for an authentic settlement of our country” and who are growing restless in their desire for “local economy, local self-determination, and local adaptation.”508 I suppose if Berry is encouraged, then the rest of us might find reason to hope. After all, it is one of the seven virtues. Conclusion Berry and Hanson hold up the agrarian standard for us latter-day Americans. They largely derive this standard from early America but also from experiences of their own childhood. They have had to face up to this standard their whole lives, while others have simply been ignorant of its existence. But to not know of its existence is for Berry and Hanson to be ignorant of the early American dream of Crèvecœur’s “new man” and Jeffersonian democracy. The agrarian tradition, as Hanson noted earlier, reappears from time to time. Fortunately, it has graced the history of the American republic, thus making our history richer for having done so but, alas, in its demise only poorer. These are the sentiments of the American agrarians.

                                                                                                               

507

Hanson, Fields Without Dreams, 122. Wendell Berry, “American Imagination and the Civil War,” 34, and “Speech After Long Silence,” 53, both are in Imagination in Place (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2010). 508

EPILOGUE: REFLECTIONS ON “OUR AGRARIAN TRADITION” AND THOUGHTS ON ITS RENEWAL The night I finished my chapter on American agrarianism by fate or a strange coincidence an owner of a local shop had a photo exhibit titled “Our Agrarian Tradition.” I went to the exhibit with my family with the hope of finding inspiration after have immersed myself in the depressing tales told by Berry and Hanson. We walked around and looked at the pictures. A better title for the exhibit would have been “Broken-Down Barns and Farmhouses: The Demise of Our Agrarian Tradition”. I told the photographer about my project. Half-telling, half-asking, I commented that the agrarian tradition appears to be nearly dead. He walked me over to a photograph of a broken-down barn, and told me that just the past year the whole thing had been removed from the land and how sad it made him feel. “It’s gone forever,” he said. I did not know what to make of his comment, as the broken-down barn itself was the sad proof that no agrarian lived on the land that housed it. I suppose, however, when the broken-down barns are all razed to the ground, then there will be no reminder of the alternate, agrarian way of life—it will be erased from our memory and the American landscape. Perhaps, it is sadder, now that I think about it. I also met a woman in her late forties or early fifties, who told me that she grew up on a farm in South Dakota. I asked her what “type” of farm it was. She looked at me and paused, which I interpreted as a response to a foolish question, and said that it

was a “diversified farm” with pigs, cows, chickens, and various crops. She then

222  

proceeded to tell me how her brother now runs it, adding that it is no longer diversified but grows two commodity crops, soybean and corn, as he cannot compete with the feedlots and has thus ceased raising cattle. In a matter of minutes, I heard the story of the demise of the agrarian farm. I suspect this is a common story among many adults around her age who grew up on a farm but now are employed in nonfarm work. From seeing the pictures of the broken-down barns to hearing about the loss of a diversified farm, that little, local photo exhibit on “Our Agrarian Tradition” left me nearly hopeless, save for one picture with at least five farmers using one steam-powered plough. It so happened the father of one of the farmers was at the exhibit. He pointed to his son in the picture, “See there, that’s son number one.” He told the story of how his son found the plough in a miserable state. “You just wasted your money, son. That thing will never run. Do you need a kick in the keister?” Of course, the picture shows it up and running, and the father, a retired farmer himself, could not be prouder. The father has been retired from farming for a while, but just a few years back, he recalled having “the time of my life” hauling grain… for Monsanto. I almost left out those last two words, as that elderly farmer’s story and his presence in general, not to mention his wit, made me smile and laugh more than once. Needless to say, hearing him say “for Monsanto” left me feeling ambivalent and less in the know. With this context in mind, I thought of something that I remembered Hanson saying: “We American agrarians of the latter twentieth century fought a war for land that we did not even know we were in. Yet apparently we have lost it nonetheless.”509                                                                                                                 509

Hanson, The Land Was Everything, 10.

From the outside looking in, along with what I have read from Berry and

223  

Hanson, many farmers it seems did not know what hit them and their barns with the rise of agribusiness. Berry, himself, said that the first time he heard the word “agrarian” was when he went to college.510 It has probably only gained currency as people try to attach a label to how things used to be. After all, why would there be a need to analyze everyday life when one is content? Those of us who study agrarianism but have never lived it cannot begin to fathom it from the inside. We have only the testimony of farmers to work from, and I am sure it is quite varied. What I have tried to do in this project, however, is to deepen this testimony by aligning it with Aristotle’s political economy, and in turn, it is my contention, as I have demonstrated, that agrarian social criticism has developed points within Aristotle’s political economy that have not been completely worked out. Together they represent an economic way of life that is limited by the principle of self-sufficiency. And while Aristotelianism seems to have been defeated in modern politics, it is worth noticing that some of its teachings on political economy can be found in what is left of agrarianism, which is essentially concerned with the common good that is attained through the stability of a healthy, local economy. Unfortunately, there are only remnants of agrarianism left today. Its political legacy appears to be going the way of Aristotle’s. Yet, as I discussed in the Introduction, there is a movement that is seeking to restore the local economy. Will is be able to renew agrarianism from what remains of it? Needless to say, such a return, if successful, would certainly include a deepened appreciation of the characteristics and political teachings of agrarianism that agrarian social critics have                                                                                                                 510

Wendell Berry, “Imagination in Place,” in Imagination in Place, 6.

sought to articulate during its demise. Ranging from the ancients to today, the main

224  

lesson that has been derived from the demise of agrarianism in ancient Greece, England, and America, however, is simple: the small family farm ought to be cherished just as much for the good citizens it produces as for the food it provides, if not more so. The demise of agrarianism, in other words, means that we lose some of what has contributed to the greatness of the Western political tradition. We must honestly ask ourselves if what has replaced it can claim such a statement for itself. In doing so, we must begin to look at what we once were to see what we have become. The agrarian social critics have spoken. Hanson, for one, says, “I offer this alternative view of our culture because I worry that when the agrarian yardstick has vanished completely, there will be no bridle on the present absurdity of random violence, growing illiteracy, and spiritual desolation, no one left to tell us how silly it is all becoming.”511 Looking the selfsufficient agrarian in the eyes is more difficult than most would think. But that is the least that any of us could do, if only it means that we look into the eyes of our past and pay homage to those that have gone before us. At least, then, our common decency will not fall short of the agrarian standard. Perhaps, then, we could even achieve some balance between an agrarian republic and a commercial one. With this in mind, I close with one of Hanson’ wishful moments, that is to say, wishful after his fatalistic first sentence: “There is no solution to the tragic, endless cycle of creation, enjoyment and decline in the West. Would that we could arrest the evolution in mid-cycle, and hold on to a well-read agrarian or a callused philosopher. Would that we might retain picture-book city-states, nestled in small valleys, the                                                                                                                

511

Hanson, Fields without Dreams, xix.

agrarian patchwork of homestead farms spread about, everyone content to have town

225  

and countryside separate but in harmony, none to eager to have the two mixed but in cacophony.”512 Supposing, however, such a solution is possible, we must understand that to accomplish this wish is no small feat. It is the work of our civilization, which is to say the best kind of work. And the work itself is full of possibilities, ranging from Aristophanic comedy and Aristotelian political science to Chestertonian journalism and agrarian essays. But most importantly the work that is necessary is that of ordinary citizens from both the city and countryside, who must be vigilant in the defense of the Western political tradition.

                                                                                                               

512

Hanson, The Land Was Everything, 141.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Adair, Douglass G. The Intellectual Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy: Republicanism, the Class Struggle, and the Virtuous Farmer, ed. Mark. E. Yellin. Lexington Books, Lanham, 2000. Ambler, Wayne. “On the Oeconomicus,” in Xenophon’s The Shorter Socratic Writings: “Apology of Socrates to the Jury,” “Oeconomicus,” and “Symposium”, ed. Robert C. Bartlett. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1996. Aquinas, St. Thomas. On Law, Morality, and Politics, trans. and ed. Richard Regan. Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, 2003 _____. On the Government of Rulers: De Regimine Principum (by Ptolemy of Lucca with portions attributed to Thomas Aquinas), trans. James M. Blythe. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1997. Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1958. Aristophanes. The Complete Plays (Loeb Classical Library), 5 Volumes, trans. and ed. Jeffrey Henderson. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1998-2007. Aristotle. The Politics, trans. Carnes Lord. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1984. _____. Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Joe Sachs. Focus Publishing, Newburyport, 2002. _____. Rhetoric, translated with Plato’s Gorgias by Joe Sachs. Focus Publishing, Newburyport, 2009. Belloc, Hilaire. The Servile State, intro. Robert Nisbet. Liberty Classics, Indianapolis, 1977. _____. The Crisis of Civilization (originally published in 1937 by Fordham University Press), reprint. Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., Rockford, 1992. _____. An Essay on the Restoration of Property. IHS Press, Norfolk, 2002.

_____. “Preface” to Flee to the Fields: The Founding Papers of the Catholic Land Movement. IHS Press, Norfolk, 2003.

227  

_____. Economics for Helen: A Brief Outline of Real Economy. IHS Press, Norfolk, 2004. Benardete, Seth. “Hesiod’s Works and Days: A First Reading.” Agon I (1967), 150-174. Berry, Wendell. Another Turn of the Crank. Counterpoint, Washington, D. C., 1995. _____. Citizenship Papers. Shoemaker & Hoard, Emeryville, 2003. _____. “Faustian Economics: Hell Hath No Limits” Harper’s Magazine, May, 2008, 35-42. _____. Home Economics. North Point Press, New York, 1987. _____. Imagination in Place. Counterpoint, Berkeley, 2010. _____. Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition. Counterpoint, Washington, D. C., 2000. _____. “New Introduction” to Sir Albert Howard’s The Soil and Health: A Study of Organic Agriculture. The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, 2006. _____. Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community. Pantheon Books, New York, 1993. _____. The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry, ed. and intro. by Norman Wirzba. Shoemaker & Hoard, Emeryville, 2002. _____. The Gift of Good Land: Further Essays Cultural and Agricultural. Counterpoint, Berkeley, 1981. _____. The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1977. _____. The Way of Ignorance. Shoemaker & Hoard, Emeryville, 2005. _____. What Are People For? North Point Press, New York, 1990. Bloom, Allan. “Rousseau—The Turning Point,” in Confronting the Constitution: The Challenge to Locke, Montesquieu, Jefferson, and the Federalists from Utilitarianism, Historicism, Marxism, Freudianism, Pragmatism, Existentialism…, ed. Allan Bloom. The AEI Press, Washington, D.C., 1990.

Booth, William James. Households: On the Moral Architecture of the Economy. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1993.

228  

Burger, Ronna. Aristotle’s Dialogue with Socrates: On the Nicomachean Ethics. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2008. Carlson, Allan. The New Agrarian Mind: The Movement Toward Decentralist Thought in Twentieth-Century America, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, 2000. Cartledge, Paul. Aristophanes and His Theatre of the Absurd. Bristol Classical Press, London, 1990. _____. “The Economy (Economies) of Ancient Greece,” in The Ancient Economy, eds. Walter Sheidel and Sitta von Reden. Routledge, New York, 2002. Chan, Michael D. Aristotle and Hamilton: On Commerce and Statesmanship. University of Missouri Press, Columbia, 2006. Chesterton, G. K. Collected Works: Family, Society, Politics: Volume V: The Outline of Sanity, The End of Armistice, Utopia of Usurers—and Others, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1987. _____. St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Francis of Assisi, One Volume. Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2002. _____. The Well and the Shallows. Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1990. _____. What’s Wrong With the World. Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1994. Corrin, Jay P. Catholic Intellectuals and the Challenge of Democracy. University of Notre Dame, South Bend, 2002. Crèvecoeur, J. Hector St. John de. Letters from an American Farmer. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997. Croiset, M. Aristophanes et les Parties Politiques à Athènes. Paris, 1906. Cropsey, Joseph. Political Philosophy and the Issues of Politics. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1977. Davis, Michael. Ancient Tragedy and the Origins of Modern Science. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, 1988.

_____. “Introduction,” in Aristotle, On Poetics, trans. Seth Benardete and Michael Davis. St. Augustine’s Press, South Bend, 2002.

229  

_____. The Politics of Philosophy: A Commentary on Aristotle’s Politics. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., Lanham, 1996. Deneen, Patrick J. “Wendell Berry and the Alternative Tradition in American Political Thought” in Wendell Berry: Life and Work, ed. Jason Peters, The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, 2007. Hanson, Victor Davis. A War Like No Other. Random House, New York, 2006. _____. Fields Without Dreams: Defending the Agrarian Idea. The Free Press, New York, 1996. _____. The Land Was Everything: Letters From an American Farmer. The Free Press, New York, 2000. _____. The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization, 2nd Ed. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1999. Henderson, Jeffrey. “The Demos and the Comic Competition,” ,” in Oxford Readings in Aristophanes, ed. Erich Segal. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996. Hesiod, The Works and Days, Theogony, The Shield of Herakles, trans. Richmond Lattimore. Ann Arbor Paperbacks, Michigan, 1991. Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan, ed. Edwin Curley. Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, 1994. Fahey, William. “Introduction” in The Church and the Land, by Father Vincent McNabb. IHS Press, Norfolk, 2003. Finley, M. I. “Aristotle and Economic Analysis” in Articles on Aristotle II: Ethics and Politics, eds. Jonathan Barnes, Malcolm Schofield, and Richard Sorabji. Gerald Duckworth & Company Limited, 1977. _____. Ancient Economy. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1985. Fortin, Ernest L. “ ‘Sacred and Inviolable’: Rerum Novarum and Natural Rights,” Theological Studies 53 (1992), 203-233. Gomme, A. W. “Aristophanes and Politics,” in Oxford Readings in Aristophanes, ed. Erich Segal. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996.

Govan, Thomas P. “Agrarian and Agrarianism: A Study in the Use and Abuse of Words.” The Journal of Southern History, 30, 35-47.

230  

Illinois Local and Organic Food and Farm Task Force. Local Food, Farms, and Jobs: Growing the Illinois Economy, A Report to the Illinois General Assembly. Found at http://www.foodfarmsjobs.org/. Accessed on February 5, 2010. _____. Press Release, August 18, 2009. Found at http://www.foodfarmsjobs.org/. Accessed on February 5, 2010. John Paul II, Centesimus Annus (1991). http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG0214/_INDEX.HTM. Accessed on 1/09/10. Jouvenel, Betrand de. The Ethics of Redistribution. Liberty Press, Indianapolis, 1990. Leo XIII. Aeterni Patris (1879). http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_lxiii_enc_04081879_aeterni-patris_en.html. Accessed on December 30, 2009. _____. Rerum Novarum (1891). http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_lxiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum_en.html. Accessed on 1/6/10. Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government: Student Edition, ed. Peter Laslett, 3rd edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1988. Machiavelli. The Prince, trans. Harvey Mansfield. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1998. Mansfield, Harvey C., Jr. “Marx on Aristotle: Freedom, Money, and Politics.” The Review of Metaphysics, 34.2 (1980), 351-367. McNabb, Father Vincent. Old Principles and the New Order. Sheed & Ward, New York, 1942. _____. St. Thomas and Law. Blackfriars, London, 1955. _____. The Church and the Land, preface by William Fahey. IHS Press, Norfolk, 2003. Montmarquet, James A. The Idea of Agrarianism: From Hunter-Gatherer to Agrarian Radical in Western Culture. The University of Idaho Press, Moscow, 1989. Nelson, Stephanie. God and the Land: The Metaphysics of Farming in Hesiod and Vergil, with a translation of Hesiod’s Works and Days by David Grene. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998.

231  

Nichols, James H., Jr. “Political Economy and the Development of Liberalism” in The Liberal Tradition in Focus: Problems and New Perspectives, eds. João Carlos Espada, Marc F. Plattner, and Adam Wolfson. Lexington Books, Lanham, 2000. Nichols, James H., Jr. and Colin Wright, eds. From Political Economy to Economics: And Back? ICS Press, San Francisco, 1990. Novak, Michael. Catholic Social Thought & Liberal Institutions: Freedom with Justice, 2nd edition. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, 1989. _____. “Introduction,” in G. K. Chesterton, Collected Works: Family, Society, Politics: Volume V: The Outline of Sanity, The End of Armistice, Utopia of Usurers—and Others, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1987. _____. The Catholic Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism. The Free Press, New York, 1993. _____. Three in One: Essays on Democratic Capitalism 1976-2000. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., Lanham, 2001. Pesch, Heinrich. Liberalism, Socialism and the Christian Social Order: Private Property as a Social Institution, Book 3, trans. Rupert J. Ederer. The Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston, 2001. Pius XI. Quadragesimo Anno (1931). http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_pxi_enc_19310515_quadragesimo-anno_en.html. Accessed on 1/09/10. Polanyi, Karl. Primitive, Archaic, and Modern Economics: Essays of Karl Polanyi, ed. George Dalton. Anchor Books, Garden City, 1968. Polanyi, Karl, Conrad M. Arensberg, and Harry W. Pearson, eds. Trade and Market in the Early Empires. The Free Press, Glenscoe, 1957. Pollan, Michael. “A Flood of U.S. Corn Rips at Mexico: Under Free Trade, Small Farmers and the Nation’s Ecology are Suffering.” Los Angeles Times, April 23, 2004. _____. “Introduction” in Bringing it to the Table: On Farming and Food, by Wendell Berry. Counterpoint, Berkeley, 2009. Rahe, Paul A. “Book Review: Victor Davis Hanson. The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization.” American Journal of Philology 118.3 (1997), 459-462.

232  

Robbins, Harold. “The Line of Approach,” in Flee to the Fields: The Founding Papers of the Catholic Land Movement, preface by Hillaire Belloc. IHS Press, Norfolk, 2003. Shapiro, Edward S. “Postscript: A Distributist Society,” in G. K. Chesterton, Collected Works: Family, Society, Politics: Volume V: The Outline of Sanity, The End of Armistice, Utopia of Usurers—and Others, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1987. Sharpe, John. “Introduction,” in Beyond Capitalism and Socialism: A New Statement of an Old Ideal, ed. Tobias J. Lanz, foreword by Kirkpatrick Sale. IHS Press, Norfolk, 2008. Shulsky, Abram N. “The ‘Infrastructure’ of Aristotle’s Politics: Aristotle on Economics and Politics” in Essays on the Foundations of Aristotelian Political Science, eds. Carnes Lord and David K O’ Connor. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1991. Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Liberty Fund, Indianapolis, 1976. Smith, Kimberly K. “Wendell Berry’s Political Vision” in Wendell Berry: Life and Work, ed. Jason Peters, The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, 2007. Ste Croix, G. E. M. de. “The Political Outlook of Aristophanes,” in Oxford Readings in Aristophanes, ed. Erich Segal. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996. Strassler, Robert B. “Epilogue,” in The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War, ed. Robert B. Strassler, with and introduction by Victor Davis Hanson. A Touchstone Book, New York, 1996. Strauss, Leo. Xenophon’s Socratic Discourse: An Interpretation of the Oeconomicus, with a translation of the Oeconomicus by Carnes Lord, ed. Allan Bloom. St. Augustine’s Press, South Bend, 1998. _____. Socrates and Aristophanes. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1966. Swanson, Judith A. The Public and the Private in Aristotle’s Political Philosophy. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1992. Taplin, O. “Tragedy and Trugedy.” The Classical Quarterly 33.2 (1983), 331-333. Thompson, Paul. “Agrarianism as Philosophy,” in The Agrarian Roots of Pragmatism, eds. Paul B. Thompson and Thomas C. Hilde. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville, 2000.

Thucydides. The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War, ed. Robert B. Strassler, with an introduction by Victor Davis Hanson. A Touchstone Book, New York, 1996.

233  

United States Department of Agriculture. Press Release, September 24, 2009. Found at http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/knowyourfarmer?navid=KNOWYOURFARM ER. Accessed on February 5, 2010. Whitman, Cedric H. Aristophanes and the Comic Hero. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1964. Wilder, Laura Ingalls. Farmer Boy. Harper Collins Publishing, New York, 2004. Wood, Diana. Medieval Economic Thought. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002. Xenophon. Oeconomicus, trans. By Carnes Lord, in Xenophon’s Socratic Discourse: An Interpretation of the Oeconomicus, by Leo Strauss, ed. Allan Bloom. St. Augustine’s Press, South Bend, Indiana, 1998. _____. Scripta Minora: Volume VII, Hiero. Agesilaus. Constitution of the Lacedaemonians. Ways and Means. Cavalary Commander. Art of Horsemanship. On Hunting. Constitution of the Athenians (Loeb Classical Library), trans. E. C. Marchant. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1925. _____. The Education of Cyrus, trans. Wayne Ambler. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2001. _____. The Landmark Xenophon’s Hellenica, ed. Robert B. Strassler, trans. John Marincola. Pantheon Books, New York, 2009.