The Prospect Of Wealth In Aristotle’S Politics
Wealth to Aristotle is a very fickle animal as he sees it through two different lenses that which is a virtuous collection of wealth and an unnatural gain of wealth. Throughout his book Politics Aristotle time and time again comes back to the prospect of wealth for a multitude of reasons including Private Property, the notion of Just Price, and the unethical use of money as a means for their own gain of wealth. Private property is an important topic for Aristotle’s philosophy as he criticizes Plato’s philosophy where he believes material goods should be held for the covenant and not for any one person. Aristotle strongly opposed this when he said, “When the farmer are not the owners of the land they cultivate, the case will be different and easier to deal with; but when they own the land they cultivate, the question of ownership will give a world of trouble. If they do not share equally in the work and in the benefits, those who labor much and get little will necessarily complain about those who labor little and receive or consume much”.
As is evident by the excerpt from Politics Aristotle looked at private property as a form of incentivizing the common masses to do better work so that as a whole the state produces a higher grade of production. When people are allowed to indulge in a bit that which they’ve produced and because of this will work harder and smarter to better apply themselves and make an effort at being more productive. When Aristotle goes on to say, “How immeasurably greater is the pleasure, when a man feels a thing to be his own; for surely the love of self is a feeling implanted by nature and not given in vain”.
As part of his critique of Plato, Aristotle is making a case for the ownership of private property because as he says humans innately loves themselves and want to spoil themselves from time to time with something that will make them happy and if the association between work and reward crumbles than you are weakening the drive to work harder for more and creating a mindset fueled by animosity and envy because in the Platonic sense all material wealth will be held by the covenant. While Aristotle is a heavy proponent of the convent of private property his expectation with the former aswell as the overall accumulation of wealth and the altruistic spirit he believes will come about as a result of new found fortune. Aristole wrote, “there is the greatest pleasure in doing a kindness or service to friends or guests or companions — but this can be done only when a man has private property”. There exists a natural balance to Aristotle as it pertains to the ownership of private property. Where Aristotle’s philosophy regarding private property begins to get sticky in a more modern scope was his Natural Slave Argument in which he argues that there are “natural slaves” who should be enslaved.
Aristole wrote, “He who is by nature not his own but another’s man, is by nature a slave”. He describes those who are bound by nature to be slaves are those who are subservient but not to reason and those who are the natural masters are guided by reason not feeling. By this Aristotle is making an argument for those who are the likely parties to accumulate wealth are those enlightened by reason. These are the individuals who are thinkers and doers in society.
