Aristotle, Politics book 1 | Wealth and Household Management | Philosophy Core Concepts

hi this is dr. Gregory Sadler I'm a professor of philosophy and the president and founder of an educational consulting company called reason IO where we put philosophy into practice I've studied and taught philosophy for over 20 years and I find that many people run into difficulties reading classic philosophical texts sometimes it's the way things are said or how the text is structured but the concepts themselves are not always that complicated and that's where I come in to help students and lifelong learners I've been producing longer lecture videos and posting them to youtube many viewers say they find them useful what you're currently watching is part of a new series of shorter videos each of them focused on one core concept from an important philosophical text I hope you find it useful as well home economics is a somewhat old-fashioned term that you don't hear that much today and for the ancient Greeks particularly Aristotle in politics book one that would be what we call a play on Azzam where you're saying the thing more times than it needs to be said because household or home economics is saying basically the same thing the art of managing the resources of the household prudently wisely effectively the Greek term for this art or science is economy K comes from the word Waco's meaning house or extended household which would include not only the nuclear family but also extended relatives servants retainers of various sorts and whatever property it is that they own we get the word economics from this and we tend to think of economics as something for the most part that it's you know the vast economy out there and then we think of the economy of the individual household as being a tiny little unit within that larger national or international economy but really the the original form of it is the household itself and Aristotle is very interested in thinking in a general way he's not giving you specific advice here but in a general way about what is household management really supposed to be about and you noticed as you read through this that he is grappling with ideas that are completely relevant today and he is also combating ideas that we see cropping up frequently today so one of the key questions that he's asking is what is the relationship between two different disciplines or arts household management economic a and what we can call wealth acquisition Hamas DK you could also think of this in terms of property wealth clay and compasses a lot of things it can also be translated as possessions and for the ancient Greeks as you see in in politics book 1 there's a lot of different kinds of property even people can be property in the form of servitude or slavery but there's also money and money plays a major role in Aristotle's thinking about this so is household management just the same thing as wealth acquisition that's the way a lot of people look at it today you just got to make some money and then make that money work for you or stretch it or budget it or things like that there's actually a lot more to household management than just making or conserving money Aristotle does say that the art of acquisition understood in a certain way can be a legitimate part of household management but if it's understood in the wrong way it actually falls outside of the scope of household management and to conflate or confuse the two in that case for example you know back when day trading was a really big thing a lot of people put their their money into buying stocks online and selling them and quite a few people lost quite a bit of money doing so some made money that's not actually managing your household resources effectively from an Aristotelian perspective it may generate more wealth that you can then use buy yourself a new car you know start saving for college for your kids or something like that but there's there's other things that are more germane to the household than simply making as much money as possible so what is Aristotle think that household management is really about he thinks that we need to be attentive and he doesn't define what these are at this point but this is something that we could devote some thought to we need to be attentive to the goods that are either needed or necessary or going beyond that useful for life for Beals in Greek for living a life together so of course what would this include clothing shelter food fuel all those sorts of issues we may have a much wider scope today you know some people consider Wi-Fi to be a basic human right and if you do then that would have to be part of household management right now notice that he doesn't just say life he says also for community Koinonia for the community of the household because the household itself is a community and the larger society that you live with it whether that be one of a tribe and ethnos among the barbarian people or that of a village a coal may be a smaller Association or that of the political community the city-state the polis the household has to be able to in some way manage not just acquire but manage the goods that it has to prioritize them to deal with them store them for example effectively maintain them in good proper condition he also says that the household by its very nature is in many respects concerned with natural production and use of goods what does he mean by natural production well Aristotle has in mind the sorts of production of food that takes place through farming or through hurting goats or sheep or cattle or any of those other sorts of things fishing I suppose would be part of that for many people and then there's many other goods that are produced within the household through various arts but they're coming from nature so if you think about why it's important to have sheep well the Sheep provide you with wool right and the wool then is spun into red and the thread is placed on a loom which then you know is turned into cloth the cloth is then sewn into clothing and go on and on and on and on I suppose you know I don't know if the Greeks actually had knit sweaters but you could have yarn as well and knit those those sweaters but all of that is is production that takes place in ancient times within the household we in our modern way of living we don't do very much natural production at all if we do it's probably in an elite and artisan sort of way or it's because we're so desperately poor that we can't afford anything else and we need to produce it ourselves or we could just be in to DIY things right but for the ancient Greeks that was really a central part of what the household did and that's the way it was through most of human history and in most cultures the other thing that he brings up is a household will engage most likely in some trade or barter with others not for the purpose primarily of acquiring wealth in the sense of getting more out of the bargain but precisely so that they can supply themselves with the goods that are needed for life and community which they're not able to procure themselves so buying salt is a prime example salt only available in certain areas it might be mined more effectively in some places than others and so you might trade some of your barley or your your corn which for us Americans of course we think of what other people call maize but corn was your your wheat or other grains or you might be trading wool or you might be trading your olive oil or something like that to get that salt that you you want and we could go on and on and on with examples Aristotle also talks about some fundamentally mistaken views in his point of view what are these mistaken views we can recognize these in our own time where the household is turned in something like a money-making Enterprise perhaps a factory perhaps some sort of trading post perhaps something else that's supposed to simply generate more and more wealth and Aristotle says the fundamental mistake here is thinking that household management is primarily about safeguarding wealth in the form of money or about increasing wealth without limit and now why would this be such a issue in his own time well he brings up the case of King Midas for example King Midas was rich as it could possibly be every single thing he touched turned into gold and yet he couldn't eat anything of course because if he they didn't have bananas back then but just imagine he's grabbing a banana to peel it and suddenly it turns into gold now he could say hey who wants a gold banana let me trade this to somebody right but whoever he traded it to I suppose you'd have to be awfully careful don't shake their hand or they're gonna turn into gold but whoever he traded it would give him something else which then he would touch and it turns into gold and then it's no longer edible this is a mistaken set of priorities there are people who in fact become misers right and hoard vast amounts of money but they don't use the money for the purpose that money actually has buying stuff that isn't money buying the things that we need for a good life or even just for living so the notion that we should be orienting the household primarily around safeguarding money or making as much money as possible or piling up as many goods as possible Aristotle thinks is a fundamentally mistaken set of prioritizations that will not lead people to the good life they'll actually lead people into unhappiness you might think although Aristotle doesn't discuss this about the you know recently identified phenomenon of hoarding as an example of this as well in that case the things that are being hoarded often do not possess genuine value or they cease to possess it because they're not kept in good condition which is what the house hold management skill would would in fact do but they're being hoarded up and then you know they have to bring in people to throw all that stuff away or sift through it for the few nuggets of good saleable materials that are there Aristotle also discusses one other thing that I think is particularly important to keep in mind he says that the art of household management it does include this art of wealth acquisition but we can understand this on an analogy to medicine not everybody needs to be a doctor you don't have to have a medical degree or license in order to make your household a healthy place you don't require that level of knowledge or commitment or you might say single-mindedness similarly it is a good thing to know something about saying how money works how to balance a budget how to do you know setting aside money for a rainy day how to make good trades how to buy things on sale rather than at a premium price you know for example lining up outside the Apple store to get the latest iPhone at a premium price not good household management right waiting until it goes on sale and then acquiring it at a deep discount probably part of good household management but you don't need to be a financial wizard or you know a master of the various properties that you're buying and selling and using in order to do that so he ends up saying that here we go in as much as in a way it does belong to the householder and the ruler to see even the health in a way it doesn't belong to them but to the position also with regard to wealth in a way it's the affair of the householder in a way it's not but it is a matter for the subsidiary art that means that the art of wealth acquisition should always be subordinate to and guided by the art of household management it should never be the one single thing that's actually running the show and the person who's most qualified in wealth acquisition is not necessarily the person who should be running the household so you see that for Aristotle wealth acquisition is part but only a limited part of household management household management identifies and works with and understands a whole different set of goods going beyond the scope of the promise TK or the wealth acquiring art you

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Length: 15min 20sec (920 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 13 2018