H. G. Dalway Turnbull

“ If communism, he adds, were a wise system, it would have been put into practice by his time. It has been left for the folly of the modern world to prove the good sense of antiquity.
The sort of legislation proposed by Plato, he continues, has a plausible and philanthropic air, and makes easy converts of the sentimental, especially if its ideals are combined with attacks on the evils of society, which are represented as due to the absence of communism. ‘All these evils, however, are due not to the absence of communism but to the evil passions of human nature.’ (II., 5.) ”

“ On doles and State assistance generally he remarks: ‘The poor receive and need ever more and more, for such assistance is like water poured into a leaky vessel. Still, the true friend of the people should guard against extreme poverty, which lowers the character of the democracy.’ All schemes of predatory legislation Aristotle would (as we have seen) have sternly condemned. ”

“ If a large number of persons are excluded from all honours or are very poor, the State will have enemies within itself (III., 11) . They should therefore have some share in the Government, though in the best state the unfit will be excluded from full political rights (III., 5) . Now our modern franchise is the equivalent of the direct participation in government by the Greeks of the old city- states; and it is quite certain that Aristotle would not have approved of universal adult suffrage even under modern conditions. ”

“ Aristotle’s generalisation that the principal condition which gives rise to such ‘sedition’ is a desire for equality on the part of the many, or of superiority on the part of the few—often, of course, cloaked under democratic pretexts—has been abundantly verified by history. He adds, with his usual insight, that the desire of gain is often not so much the wish to acquire wealth for itself as the envy that men feel of the larger share possessed—whether justly or unjustly—by others. Most modern communist propaganda is founded upon, or derives its appeal from, mere envy. ”

“ It is not only on communist schemes as a proposed remedy for the ills of society that Aristotle can give us guidance. Such schemes are usually supported by Marxian or semi-Marxian theories of wealth-production, as it actually takes place under natural (i.e. 'capitalistic’) conditions. Here, too, Aristotle, properly interpreted, annihilates all Marxian doctrine. Capital, said Marx, is robbery. Wealth 1s produced by labour, and is simply condensed labour—which is about as true as the saying that all crime is condensed beer. ”

“ He would regard the franchise less as a right than as a duty to be exercised for the benefit of the State, and he would insist that some qualification, other than that of age and residence, whether of property, education, or service to the community, would be a desirable safeguard (III., 13) . The art of government, said Voltaire, is to make two-thirds of the community support the other third; our modern ideal—economically far more dangerous—seems to be exactly the reverse. ”

“ The Politics of Aristotle, says Jowett, 'continue to have a practical relation to our own times'; the objection that Aristotle dealt only or mainly with the city-state is plausible, but superficial. Aristotle dealt with the fundamental qualities and relations of man in society. ”

“ The Politics of Aristotle, though it is a treasury of political wisdom, is in some ways an unsatisfactory work. It has come down to us in a form which is certainly not the final form that the Master would have given it. ”

“ Every word of this is as exactly true to-day as when it was written; and when he tells us that disputes are commoner between partners in a joint estate than between neighbours on separate estates, we are reminded that one of the reasons of the failure of the Building Guild was the quarrelsomeness of its members. He concludes that communism is ‘impossible’—a conclusion which modern experiments have abundantly verified. ”

“ The labour which actually shaped the matter into form.
(4) The need or demand of the consumer or purchaser, who looks to the function or end of the thing, and expresses his demand by means of money.
Now these are simply the four Aristotelian causes—material, formal, efficient, and final. G. H. Lewes thought fit to belittle Aristotle’s insight when he declared that these causes were not susceptible of verification; but if we accepted only what could be verified by being weighed and measured in a laboratory, we should get very way in any of the sciences that deal with man. ”

“ To the exercise of voluntary and friendly charity he attached a high value, but he insisted on the fundamental principle that a man’s work is worth (economically) what it will fetch, and that his salary or wages should be fixed not by his own desires but by the market value of his work. ”

“ The capitalist, says Marx, takes all except the minimum required for the support of the labourer. Marx’s fallacies have been often enough refuted by genuine economists, but their neatest refutation, founded on Arnstotle, is still comparatively unknown. It is to be found in Mr. F. W. Bain’s Principle of Wealth Creation, wherein it 1s demonstrated that the four Aristotelian causes give a complete account of the process. ”

“ The application of Aristotle’s causes to the problem of wealth production, not only provides us with a clear-cut proof otP the economic impossibility of communist theories (whether considered as a diagnosis or as a remedy of economic 1lls) , but gives us also an instrument of historical criticism. Thus Quesnay and the Physiocrats over-empha- sised a part of the material cause (land) , Adam Smith, Ricardo and Marx the efficient cause (labour) , while the exchange-value school made too much of the final cause (demand) . ”