Πόροι ή περί προσόδων

by Xenophon, Ξενοφών, Σταύρος Τζουμελέας (translator)

Οι Πόροι ή περί προσόδων είναι έργο του Ξενοφώντα που γράφτηκε το 355 π.Χ. 354 π.Χ. σε μια χρονική περίοδο που η Αρχαία Αθήνα έχασε το ρόλο της ως ηγεμονική δύναμη.

Genres: Economics, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Classics, Ancient

51 pages, Paperback

First published June 6, 2014

About the author

Xenophon (Ancient Greek Ξενοφῶν, Modern Greek Ξενοφώντας; ca. 431 – 355 BC), son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, was a soldier, mercenary and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates. He is known for his writings on the history of his own times, preserving the sayings of Socrates, and the life of ancient Greece.

Historical and biographical works:
Anabasis (or The Persian Expedition)
Cyropaedia
Hellenica
Agesilaus

Socratic works and dialogues:
Memorabilia
Oeconomicus
Symposium
Apology
Hiero

Short treatises:
On Horsemanship
The Cavalry General
Hunting with Dogs
Ways and Means
Constitution of Sparta

Reviews

[Malola · Rating 3 out of 5]

Horrible edition.

1,5 star discounted because it was poorly edited. The footnotes were all over the place. (For eff's sake, THEY ARE SUPPOUSED TO BE AT THE GODAMNED BOTTOM!) It was quite distracting. With that said, a couple were useful (so crappy edition and not much gain).
Regarding the info, it was fine. Not particularly good. But it was interesting to check how this book was linked with Aristotle's works. Xenophon is right that we pursue our own wellbeing and the accumulation of goods. (I liked the comment that we'd even make a whole a fill it with silver.)

[Tobias · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is less of a review and more of a laundry list of what to dig into next.

1. Granting honor title in exchange for revenue is smart. And will possibly fry Mr. Summum Bonum Aristotle's brain (which is GOOD!). Keeping an eye on how Xenophon played with "perceived Good" and "actual Good" would be helpful for understanding Plato. I should read more on the honor system at that time.

2. Same goes when Xenophon stripped most of Metis' right to join Athenian infantry. Granting them the right to enlist in the calvary instead of infantry looks glorious, but cavalry back then is less potent on the battlefield (not until Thebans showed Phillip II of Macedonia how to use cavalry effectively), and it has a way higher bar. Smart disenfranchisement.

3. Xenophon should consider himself very lucky not to be remembered as "the first dude who caused inflation". I'm still struggling to find the reception of On Revenues but Xenophon's idea of making the silver mining industry partially state-run is definitely ahead of time. Also, in 449BCE Athens forced the city-states in Delian League to shut down coin-minting factories and trade in Athens currencies only. That's roughly 1 century ago from this text. If Xenophon's ideas are fully adopted and Athen's monopoly in issueing currencies was still in place, Athens coins would become a prototype of US dollar: it would become mandatory to trade in Athens drachma in interstate trading, and Athens would be in charge of offering liquidity to the market because it has a partially state-owned silver mine.

Did Athens experience inflations?

4. The economics of the sacred. How those religious entities in Athens profit I have no idea. It seems like some sacred land could be leased to private citizen. Wut.

5. "Peace is more profitable than War." I don't think Xenophon understood macroeconomics as much as we did — he couldn't, for example, see that exporting silver is injecting credit for to the Hellenic world and it takes time for the market to catch up. I mean ... how innocent should we assume Xenophon to be? Wen Tiejun explained the mechanism pretty eloquently and it seems like the Peace advocates aren't neccessarily the nice guys.

[Santiago González · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uno de esos tesoros escondidos (que no aparecen ni en los manuales de historia del pensamiento económico), corto pero interesante, lo releeré en un tiempo, me alegra haberlo encontrado