politics

Chapter 6 Volume (A) One (6)
If, without making any distinction, it is generally insisted that all methods of getting rich must be included in housekeeping, then some doubts will arise: Food is certainly necessary for life, and health is also necessary for life, but why is medical treatment not included in housework? inside?Similar other things may raise such doubts as well.And a reasonable conclusion should be this: broadly speaking about the duties of a patriarch or politician, he should be concerned about the health of every member of the city-state or family; but strictly speaking, the duties of each person should be It is the duty of a physician, 30 not that of a householder or statesman.The same is true with respect to wealth. In one sense, it is the householder's duty to acquire wealth; but in another sense, it is not his duty, but a part of the housekeeping technique.

Generally speaking, the reason why "Newman's Annotation" (Volume 195, page 376) adds the phrase "generally speaking" or "in most cases" (μλισα) is because not all parts of the world can To make a living, some city-states are extremely poor, so they are naturally not given enough food. For example, the island of Aegina (Aegina) is extremely poor in land, and there are few fish and shrimps near the sea (see page 35 of "Strebo"), so it is impossible to operate agriculture and animal husbandry. , Fishing, hunting, can only adopt unnatural methods of getting rich, such as doing business. , as mentioned before, wealth should be prepared before managing housework. 1256 For each born animal nature arranges the means of sustaining its life; to allow the first-born offspring of an animal to have sufficient nourishment before it can find its own food see 10b15-[-] above.In this, we can see the will of nature.Therefore, among the various methods of getting rich, the way of hunting and gathering animals (fishing and hunting, animal husbandry) and obtaining seeds (farming) is always in line with nature.

We have explained see Chapter 1256 Chapter 15 1258a18-40a1258. , There are two ways to manage production (get rich), one is the part related to housework management (farming, animal husbandry, fishing, hunting), and the other refers to the technology related to selling (business).Of these two ways, the former, which naturally acquires wealth from plants and animals, is a necessity, and deserves our admiration; while the latter is a trade which injures others in order to gain one's own self-interest. Goods, this is unnatural and reprehensible. [-]b As for "money loan" (οβολοσαικ) (an extreme way of getting rich developed by selling), it is even more disgusting. There is a reason why people hate money lending. To obtain personal benefits from the coins. (Selling is separated from the original meaning of barter, and money and loans are separated from the original meaning of sales (commercial).

) In order to be able to trade more conveniently, 5 people quoted money, and the money merchant actually forced money (as the father said) to proliferate.Here it shows that the original meaning of "zixi" óκο commonly used by the Greeks is "children", and it is also used as "interest".In "Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice" (Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice), the British Shakespeare's play, "interest" is also called "the child of the barren metal".The true meaning of the word, "a son must be like his relatives", and now that the capital gives birth to son money, the "interest" he said is exactly "the money born from money".From this, we can realize that money lending is indeed the most unnatural way to get rich. Athens had become the center of merchants and finance among the Greek city-states in the fourth century BC, and the trend of lending money for interest began to prevail.Banks already existed in ports and cities; international trade and shipping often borrowed money from them.See volume seven chapter six 1327a25-35. .

Some arguments in Chapter Eleven are different from those in the previous chapters. For example, the distinction between "techniques for getting rich" is different from Chapters Eight to Ten.Some people suspect that this chapter is not the original work of Aristotle, but Newman (Vol. The reason for writing in succession and not in one go. "Barkel's English translation" notes that some inconsistent sentences in the whole chapter are because Aristotle added it after the article was completed, and it may also be the content added by later editors.Judging from the examples cited throughout the chapter, it seems to be extracted from some chapters in "Economics". 196
I have sufficiently explained the principle of how to get rich above, and now I will discuss its practical application.All problems of this nature need to be fully studied in theory, but in practice, they also need to adapt to various tests of the environment.In fact, various ways to get rich are now applied: First, experience in animal husbandry.For various domestic animals, such as horses, cattle, sheep or others, we need to know which are the best breeds, and where they should be raised to obtain the most benefits.Some breeds can thrive and profit in certain places, while others can't if they are placed in that place,15 so it is necessary to accumulate knowledge and experience in animal husbandry to distinguish the good and bad of the breeds, and then choose suitable pastures for them.There are also agriculture including arable land (that is, fields for cultivating grains) and forest gardens (that is, sloping land for cultivating grapes and olive oil). Industry and Income" (Büchsenschutz, Besitz and Erwerb in GrAlterthume) pp. 293-6.

) experience, the ancient Greeks of beekeeping already knew the technology of making sucrose, but the yield was very small and it was only used for medicinal purposes.Diets are sweetened with honey.Therefore "beekeeping" is an important production (ibid., p. 228). Experience in farming, fish farming and poultry farming can also help people get rich and improve people's lives.These are the branches of production of the basic mode,20 and at the same time the most legitimate and useful mode of the art of enrichment.Second, with regard to trade technology, it includes technical issues of commerce, lending money for interest (lending money for interest), employment system (manual transactions), and skilled workers in manufacturing operations as well as non-skilled workers who merely provide labor.Among them, commerce is the most important department in transaction technology, which includes ship supply, purchase, display and sale of goods and three business matters: ναυκληρα, ορηγα, παρσασιs, the English translation of Ellis (WEllis) in the eighteenth century explains it It is "overseas trade, land trade and local trade"; in "Susmihl (FSusmihl) proofreading version", the first and second items are interpreted as "overseas (international) trade" and "inland trade", and also In terms of the type of business, it is explained.

However, the second item, originally meant as freight, refers to ship load in Greece, so it is not appropriate to explain it as land trade.According to Busun Xuci (ibid., p. 456), it is interpreted as three business aspects of commerce (see "New School" II 202).Three Procedures--These businesses are either safer, or more profitable, and vary. 25 Third, it concerns the extraction of useful things from the ground (such as mining), or the collection of plants from the ground that are not grown for fruit (such as timber harvesting).These are also the intermediates of the above two ways, including various elements of the natural, trading ways.For mining and metallurgy, minerals are excavated from the ground, and there are many kinds of metals obtained through smelting, so mining and metallurgy must be divided into several departments. : 30. Money loans are listed in the second part of the transaction in this chapter. Chapter 10 says that money loans are made from money, so they are out of the way of transactions.[-]. The forestry and mining mentioned in this chapter belong to the third mode between the trading mode and the natural mode, which have not been covered in the previous three chapters.Forests and mines are also taken from nature.At that time, wood was imported from Thracia and other places in Athens, and metal was either exported or imported, and both industries had become large-scale businesses.So Aristotle called the two industries the intermediates of natural operations and commerce. .

Above we have given the outlines of the various ways of getting rich.Although it is necessary to describe in sections and fully understand the principles for practical application, it is not appropriate to talk too long here.Briefly speaking, in various industries, 35 those that use the most physical strength must be the hardest industries, and those that do not rely on luck (opportunity) but focus on the application and improvement of technology, Volume 1140, Chapter 19, 1247a5, contains the Agathon's famous saying: "Technology loves fortune, and fortune loves technology." "Eulen" Volume [-], Chapter [-], [-]a[-] said that idlers encounter fortune and become prosperous, while "navigation and war" two industries Your success or failure is more dependent on luck.It must be the most capable industry; and any industry that is most harmful to people's health must be the most despicable industry, and any industry that lacks morality and does not abide by the law must also be the most shameful industry.

There are also some previous treatises on these topics,40 for example, in the Garridet of Palos (χαρη δη), who may be the volume of Theophrastus, HistPlant by Theophrastus. The agronomist Kardutra (χαρóδρα) involved in Chapter 346.Dittenberger, Sylloge InscriptGraec, Volume 240, page 5 (1259-[-]), is a person of Garridite, but he was born in Messinia (Messania). (Palos Islanders) and Apollodouro (Aπολλοδροs) from the Limno Islands, see the Latin works Bellini's "Natural History" (Pliny, HistNat) and Vatican's "Agronomy" ( Varro, de R Rustica). (Limno Islander) There are also detailed explanations in the books on crops and fruit garden cultivation written in [-]ɑ, as well as in other monographs of other writers. People who are interested in doing research or practice in these industries can refer to them writings.

According to Latin classics, such as Columella, de Re Rustica (Columella, de Re Rustica) I 1, 7 and Vatican's "Agricultural Encyclopedia" I 1, 8 all say that Aristotle and Severusto There are agricultural works.No. 189 in the "Catalogue of Aristotle's Works" compiled by an ancient anonymous person recorded in Menage, France, and No. 72 in the Arabic "Catalogue of Aristotle's Works" by Ptolemaeus There is the title of "Agronomy" (Γεωργικα).But there is no mention in any of Aristotle's surviving works that he wrote this book.Zeiler's "Greek Philosophy" (Zeller, GrPhilosophy) said in Note 5 of Chapter 26 of Volume [-], "According to this section, it can be seen that the book "Agronomy" listed in the above two bibliographies is really not the work of Aristotle. "If the sporadic stories of getting rich in all walks of life are compiled, it will also be helpful to those who value the management of goods. At the beginning of the third century BC, the Rhodes Hieronymo (Póδιos Iερνυμο) once wrote " Memoirs of Sporadic Stories" (Σπορδην πομνμαα), the story of Thales is also mentioned in the book (see Diogenes Laertius's "Biographies of Scholars" Volume [-] [-]). .

There was once a money-making story about Thales the Milesian (for Thales was famous for his wisdom, so the story is attributed to him), in which the special method of making money can be applied generally.The world used to despise Thales because he was famous for his philosophical achievements, but he was too poor to support himself, and ridiculed that philosophy was not a science to save the poor.One winter, according to astrology, Diodorus, BiblHist I81, 5, he recorded that ancient Egyptian priests could observe the astrology and use it to predict the abundance of crops and fruits in the coming year.Forecasting that the olive tree would have a good harvest in the next summer, he gave all his funds to Qiwo Island and the city of Miletus. The island is also in the Union of Ion, and the two countries have good relations, so the people of Miletus can rent Qiwo's oil workshop at will.As a deposit, the oil workshops of the company rented the oil pressing equipment of each oil workshop.Because no one is going to compete with him at this time, the fixed rent is very low.When it was harvest time, the olive oil harvest was really bumper. 10 People who needed to extract oil went to the oil mills one after another, because all the oil mills were controlled by him at this time, so people had to pay the rent of the oil extraction equipment according to the high amount he demanded.As a result, he gained a lot of wealth, and at the same time proved to the world that philosophers are not difficult to get rich, but their ambition is not in money, but in the pursuit of knowledge.

This story originally wanted to show the wisdom of Thales, but it just happened to illustrate the method of creating a monopoly-this principle can be generally applied to various industries to get rich. 20 For example, some merchants and some city-states use this method to monopolize the production or sale of grain or daily necessities to obtain patents when their finances are tight. Actual interests; Sections 1348b33, 1346a25, 1347b32, 1352a14, etc., also listed Byzantium, Lampsacus (Lampsacus), Egypt, and Athens rulers all adopted the monopoly policy to obtain patents; and said that although this financial management technique was not available at the time , but more prevalent in modern times. .But private monopoly and city-state patent sometimes conflict with each other.For example, in Sicily, a businessman used the fifty talents he had just acquired to buy the word ironworks σιδηρεων, which can be translated as "iron ore" (such as Pernay) or "ironworks" (such as Su Smeer).In ancient mythology, the smelting furnace of the ancestor of the blacksmith (Vulcan) was set at the foot of Mount Aetna (MtAetna) in Sicily (see Verg, Georg's "Nong Song" [Virg, Georg] Ⅳ 1353, etc.); There is iron ore.All iron deposits.Later, when iron merchants from all over the country came to Sicily to buy iron, he became the only one who could supply the existing iron.

(End of this chapter)