Aristotle’s Economic Thought

Since the middle ages, Aristotle has been hailed as the father of economics by economists, while classical scholars hold that he did no economics at all, only ethics. This book argues that Aristotle does develop a coherent theory of value, wealth, exchange, and money, which is strongly supported by his metaphysics. But its very metaphysical foundation make the theory impossible to assimilate to Neo-Classical economics or any other kind of economic thinking, and it therefore remains an ethical theory. On Aristotelian metaphysical principles, ethics and economics are competitors over the same ground--as rival sources of reasons for decision-making in tihe public realm, and they cannot be reconciled.