Before economists, there were philosophers. Before theories, there were questions shaped in marble courtyards and echoed in the syllables of Socratic dialogue. When we speak of classical antiquity in the history of economic thought, we are not referring to early versions of our modern economics. We are walking into a different world — one where the economic was embedded in the ethical, the political, the metaphysical.
In The Wealth of Ideas, Alessandro Roncaglia reminds us that classical antiquity did not yet know the “economy” as a distinct, autonomous realm. What it knew was life in its wholeness — life that needed to be ordered, nourished, structured. This was not the economy as system, but as condition — of justice, of flourishing, of balance.
To go back to classical antiquity is not to seek answers ready-made for today. It is to remember the long roots of the questions we ask now — and to see how different they once were.
Oikonomia: The Management of the Household
The Greeks had a word: oikonomia. From oikos (household) and nomos (rule or law), it meant the art of managing domestic life — food, servants, wealth, order. It was pragmatic, situated, moral.
But it was not economics as we know it. It was not about markets, competition, or systems of prices. It was about how one lived well — within limits, within roles, within a vision of the good life.
For Xenophon, one of the earliest to use the term, oikonomia was about effective management — maximizing usefulness, ensuring harmony. For Aristotle, it was a branch of ethics — and a stark contrast to chrematistics, the unnatural pursuit of wealth for its own sake.
This distinction is crucial. To Aristotle, the pursuit of wealth without end was a kind of sickness. Money was a means, not an end. The purpose of life was not accumulation, but virtue.
How strange that sounds to the modern ear.
Plato’s Politeia: Order Through Justice
Plato’s Republic is not an economic treatise. But it is one of the first structured visions of a just society — and within it, an early outline of economic roles.
His city is built on division of labor: farmers, artisans, guardians, rulers. Each does what they are best suited for. The harmony of the whole depends on the discipline of each part. There is no market as autonomous mechanism — only roles, duties, limits.
Private property is restricted. Wealth is not celebrated. The goal is not growth, but stability, order, the cultivation of the soul.
Plato’s economic thought is woven tightly into his political philosophy — and his suspicion of desire. He does not believe in the wisdom of crowds or the sanctity of choice. He believes in truth, hierarchy, control.
And yet, in his city of speech, we see one of the first recognitions of economic organization as foundational to the political order.
Aristotle’s Two Ways of Wealth
If Plato dreams of utopia, Aristotle stands with the empirical. In Politics and Nicomachean Ethics, he reflects deeply on exchange, property, justice.
He sees two types of acquisition:
- Natural acquisition — providing for household needs.
- Unnatural acquisition (chrematistics) — wealth pursued for its own sake.
The former is necessary and virtuous. The latter is dangerous — it distorts human purpose. It is here that Aristotle critiques usury, warning that money making money is a perversion of nature.
He also theorizes exchange — distinguishing between use value and exchange value — and hints at the idea of a “just price,” grounded not in bargaining, but in proportionality and fairness.
To read Aristotle is to see economic thought still entangled with philosophy. He does not separate means from ends. He does not pretend at neutrality. He speaks always with the whole human in view.
The Roman Lens: Law and Administration
Rome offers less reflection, more structure. Roman thought, especially through Cicero and the jurists, was less speculative, more legalistic. The economy was a matter of property rights, contracts, land, taxation. Administration took precedence over theory.
Yet even here, traces of moral concern remain. The twelve tables, the debates on usura, the emphasis on civic duty — these all hint at a world where economic life was part of public virtue.
It is no accident that later Catholic thinkers would turn to Roman law when formulating their theories of property and commerce. Nor that Roman administrative logic would shape the emerging state economies centuries later.
Why Classical Antiquity Still Speaks
To revisit classical antiquity is to be reminded of a time when the economic was not amputated from life. When how we produced and traded was always linked to how we lived, how we ruled, how we believed.
It is to recall that the earliest economic questions were never just technical. They were always moral.
- How much is enough?
- What should not be sold?
- What happens when the pursuit of gain overtakes the pursuit of good?
In a time when economics is often treated as value-neutral, these ancient voices offer a quiet challenge. They ask not what is efficient, but what is right. Not what grows fastest, but what endures longest. Not what is possible, but what is just.
What the Ancients Knew
They knew that economies are not machines, but reflections.
They knew that prices are not only numbers, but relationships.
They knew that the question of value is also the question of values.
And they knew that wealth, without wisdom, corrodes.
In classical antiquity, there was no “economic thought” as a field. But there was economic thinking — wide, slow, serious, and situated.
And in remembering it, we might begin to unlearn our forgetfulness.
We might step outside our models, for a moment, to ask again the ancient question:
What is a good life? And what should the economy serve, if not that?