politics

Chapter 5 Volume (A) One (5)
The "storability" of wealth separates air, light, fire, etc. from clothing, food, and shelter; although the breeze and the moon are also necessities in life, they are inexhaustible and inexhaustible, and can neither be stored nor stored; This cannot be real wealth.See page 1798 of the English translation of A, Corate, Social Statics by Comte (1857-131). .It is evident, then, that the statesman and the householder should each be acquainted with this natural technique of acquired property, and from this we may recognize that this technique, as the family is to hunting, and the state to war, exists in the present day according to No. The procedures for studying social groups listed in Chapters 12 and [-] should start from villages and families to city-states.From chapters [-] to [-], the family is described as a group. After discussing the relationship between master and slave, it should be followed by the relationship between husband and wife and father and son.But Chapter [-] deals with slaves as tools and property, so whenever the issue of getting rich is discussed, the issue of getting rich is not limited to the family.It was not until Chapter [-] that we returned to the topic of the relationship between husband and wife and father and son, and returned to the original research procedure. .

Chapter Nine
There is, however, another technique of acquiring property,40 which is now popularly termed "the technique of acquiring money (money)", which is an aptly coined term.The world's notion that wealth has no limit is drawn from this method of getting rich.Many people think it is the same as the one mentioned earlier, however, although they seem similar, they are actually different.The former is the natural ability of people to obtain the necessities of life, while the latter is not in line with nature. It is just that people rely on certain skills and experience to obtain wealth that is not necessary. 1257
Let us examine this enrichment technique with the following arguments.Each of our possessions can serve two purposes.Even the same property can be used in different ways. The difference lies in whether the use of each property is legitimate or not.Take shoes as an example: the same pair of shoes are used, some people wear them on their feet, and some people use them for transactions.The latter gives the shoes to the people who just need them,10 in exchange for property or food paid by others. Of course, it can be regarded as the use of "the reason why shoes are shoes", but this kind of transaction is not the proper use of shoes, because shoemaking The original intention is not to exchange, but to wear for oneself.The same is true of all other property, which has a tradable annexation effect.In the past, people owned either too many or too few items. Therefore, they exchanged what they had for what they didn't have enough. "Trading" (barter exchange to meet mutual needs) developed naturally from ancient times. up.The ensuing so-called "trafficking" (acquiring someone else's property and selling it to someone else for a profit) is an unnatural part of the art of getting rich.According to the principle of nature, if the two parties have satisfied their respective needs, this exchange should be stopped, and the profit-making traffic should not be allowed to continue indefinitely.

Families are the primary form of social groups. 20 All members of each family share all property. Obviously, transaction technology does not need to be used in the family.Later, as social groups expanded to become villages, transactions emerged.Several parts (families) are combined into a village, and the types and quantities of property owned by each part (family) are different.Therefore, they will get what they want by bartering, which is still popular among barbaric tribes (nations): 25 They exchange wine and barley with each other, or exchange other necessities of life for others. When both parties meet the living requirements, the transaction is terminated, and both parties directly barter (that is, there is no intermediate equivalent exchange such as currency in the transaction).Since this trade is not a means of getting rich by obtaining money, it is not against nature.As this simple transaction continues to develop, we can naturally expect that it will evolve into a more complex method of "getting coins". 30 Gradually, people began to conduct long-distance transactions.

The inhabitants of a certain place depend on the production of certain goods elsewhere, so the people in that place will import from other places the goods that are lacking locally, and they will also have to export their own surplus products to replace these imports. 35 This development process also naturally produced "coins" as an intermediary.The coin system has such a history: Often the necessities of life are bulky and difficult to transport, so everyone hopes to use a kind of goods that have their own use value and are easy to carry as an intermediary goods for transactions. He once explained the origin of currency: "All goods must be measured by something. Coins (νομσμα) are such units of value. The degree to which each commodity is demanded by everyone is expressed by the value of coins. You can use this to compare and trade with each other." "The value of coins also has highs and lows, which is not eternal; but compared with the supply and demand of other goods, it is always relatively stable, so all goods are based on Coins denominate it.".

Later, it was discovered that iron coins were used in ancient Greek states such as Sparta (see Pseudo-Plato's dialogue "Eryxias" [Eryxias] 400B), Byzantium, and Cyzicus, etc.). Gold, silver, and other similar metals are good goods for this intermediary.At first, people valued these metals according to their size and weight; later, in order not to keep everyone busy in weighing, people stamped χαρακρ ("stamp") on each weighed metal to prove its transaction value, The common meaning is "character", here it means currency value, especially "branding".Most of the ancient Greek states used images as printed texts to identify coins: among the small silver coins of Athens, the printed text of one obol (obol) is an owl (the owl is the symbol of the city of Athens), and the small silver coin of two obols is an owl. The owl has the head and two bodies, and the small silver coin of the four Obles is two owls.The horse is the symbol of Thessaly, so in the currency of the city-state, the seal of one Oble is a horse, and the two Obles are a picture of a man riding a horse (see Heard's "History of Coins" [Head, HistNumorum], 1vi page).Syracuse's large silver coin Trachma (drachma) also uses the number of horses imprinted on the currency as a mark of currency value (see Gardner's "Forms of Ancient Greek Coins" [PGardner, Types of GrCoins], p. 50 ). . 40
The emergence of the currency system promoted the evolution of transaction methods, which naturally led to the emergence of 1257b "selling" for the purpose of profit.Since then, selling has become another technique for obtaining wealth (coins).At first, selling was not that complicated. Coins only served as units of measurement, and exchanging items was still the purpose of the business.After going on like this for a long time, the sellers have accumulated more and more experience, and they have made great efforts to find the way to get the maximum profit between the supply and demand sides of the item. 5. The seller's concept of wealth gradually shifted from goods to coins, and he thought of the way to get rich by accumulating coins. He believed that trade with coins as an intermediary would produce coins, and the wealth in it was precisely the coins accumulated.However, there are also people who have put forward the opposite view.They believe that coins are only a virtual item, and customary credit is the main factor that makes it popular.They advocated that the monetary system depends on the point of view of mutual trust at the moment, 10 that this is not in line with nature.If the people who are used to one kind of money convert to another, the original currency will lose its original value, and it will no longer be able to buy any necessities of life.It is true that rich people are often in danger of starvation.The fabled Midas greedily begged the gods to give him the ability to touch gold, but when he got his wish, everything he touched became inedible gold.This fable also shows that it is actually absurd to think of money as wealth that "people have so much that they starve to death".

According to these ideas, those who despise money have tried to find different explanations for wealth and the means of getting rich.There is nothing wrong with their thinking. 20 Natural Wealth and Ways to Get Rich are indeed different from what is said above.The natural method of acquiring wealth corresponds to housekeeping, the chief work of which is to seek all the means of subsistence, while the other is engaged in the exchange of goods, and the seeking and accumulation of money is the chief method of getting rich by selling.The latter completely regards money as the element and purpose of transactions, and relies on the authority of money to conduct transactions. σοιχεου ("element") and πρα ("boundary") have multiple meanings respectively.According to B Jowett's English translation, it can be interpreted as "unit" (taken from "letter") and "measurement" respectively, and such a translation fits sentence 1257a40.According to E Barker's English translation, they are interpreted as "starting point" and "end point" respectively.Translate "element" and "purpose" here. .There is also a difference between the two: the wealth acquired by the latter is not limited see 1256b32 above. .In terms of obtaining health, medical technology has no limit (end), 25 and other general technologies have no limit (end) in their intended purpose (benefit).

Every industry hopes to obtain the maximum gain in its industry, but in fact, the means used to achieve the goal in each technology also has a range (limitation) in its industry.Here, too, is the technique of obtaining wealth.Virtual wealth of the kind referred to above, i.e. money, also has no limits in the pursuit of those who seek to become rich by trafficking.Also see line 30 in the original text. The word ο (“nothing”) is actually wrong and should be deleted.In Chinese, according to Pernay's "Politics" Volume 190 to Volume 30 proofreading, this is modified to α "on the other hand", which means that there should be a limit to getting rich.According to "Newman's Annotation" (Volume [-], page [-] of textual notes), the original text is not changed, but χρημων κ σεω is added, so that the meaning of the whole sentence is: "However, getting coins is 'different' ( ο) The main business of housework management, what housework management seeks is the supply of materials, not coins, and it has a limit.” The techniques of getting rich that have been included in the scope of housework management need corresponding limits.The function of housekeeping (principally in the necessary quantities of life) does not include the pursuit of unlimited and unnecessary wealth.If all riches are considered in terms of life, their limits are revealed.The world, however, is doing just the opposite, and the men of fortune are striving to amass their own coin indefinitely.

Two closely related ways of getting rich make them easy to confuse. 35 Both use the same means, and both strive to acquire wealth, but they pursue different ends, and thus follow different paths, one of which is devoted to the accumulation of wealth (money), the other to life. in the search for limited supplies.When the two are mixed together, people often mistakenly think that amassing is the purpose of housekeeping; those who are obsessed with it especially believe that coins are real wealth, and their pursuit of life is to maintain the amount of their gold, or to keep their money. Endlessly increase the coins you own. 40 The emergence of this kind of psychology actually stems from people's ignorance of what is a good life, but they only know how to value life.Since there is no end to the desire of life, 1258ɑ they think that all things that satisfy the desire of life are also endless.Although some of them already yearn for a "good" (moral) life, they still can't forget their love for material happiness. After they know that material happiness needs to be supplied by goods, they begin to familiarize themselves with the technology of getting rich and concentrate on making money.

5 Therefore, the latter way of getting rich has also become the fashion of life.Because the happiness of life depends on adequate material supplies, they will devote themselves to the business of acquiring the technology of these material supplies.If they still can’t fully achieve their goal of getting rich by relying on a certain technique of getting rich, they will, contrary to nature and righteousness, put all their talents (functions) υ διυμεων, originally referring to "talent", according to the following, including such things as bravery "Morality" and "talent" such as military and medical technology, so it is translated as "cai-de".Apply to getting rich.For example, bravery is originally used to inspire people's confidence and perseverance. 10 The same is true of military technology and medical technology. Military technology is used to win battles, and medical technology is used to make people healthy. Not to make money.But those people completely apply all these talents and virtues to the technology of getting rich. It seems that the original intention of cultivating courage is to educate people to make money bravely, and the purpose of learning military or medical technology is to use victory or health to obtain future wealth. It seems that getting rich happens to be the ultimate goal of life, and all careers in the world are just for getting rich in the final analysis. 15
Here, we have described that unnecessary method of getting rich, its nature, and explained why people are so attracted to this technology.At the same time, we have explained that necessary mode of acquiring property, and how it differs from the other (acquiring money), as a natural part of housekeeping, whose function is to obtain a proper amount of subsistence for the family.It differs from the limitlessness of the other way, that this one technical activity has certain limits.

Chapter Ten
According to the above argument, we are sufficient to answer the topic proposed in Section 1256a3 of Chapter 1256 as mentioned above: whether the technology of acquiring property is a part of housekeeping.The last section of the chapter, 27b32-1256, extends from housekeeping to states.The "topic as mentioned above" mentioned here still refers to the original topic of 3a20. : Whether the technique of obtaining wealth falls within the domain of politicians (city-state managers) and patriarchs (housekeepers),25 or is this technique beyond their own job, which is just to use property (and how to acquire property is not It is up to them to take care of it), and those who hold the latter point of view can also complain that although politicians run the business of human groups, they neither create humans nor naturally create them and set them up with seas, lands, and lands. and other kinds to supply their means of subsistence.The head of the house only needs to use all ready-made things within the scope provided by nature. (Using the weaver's analogy,) the duty of the weaver is not to make animal hair, but only to use animal hair. He should be able to clearly distinguish which wool is suitable for weaving and which is not suitable for weaving.Housekeeping techniques should make a similar distinction.

(End of this chapter)